Strops or stones ?
- This topic has 148 replies, 12 voices, and was last updated 01/05/2017 at 6:27 am by
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I don’t remember when we changed the formulation with the 1200/1600, but it’s been a few years now. Your comment makes a good question. I’ll have to dig up an old pair from before the change and test them against the new ones.
It’s hard to say. I’ll try to investigate it by going back through archived emails to see if I can pin down the date.
Have you been able to find anything yet?
One of my 1600 stones also had a crack and if I buy new ones, I want to be sure that they will not have these problems again.
Okay, I did the last progression: 1000#> SFC> SFF> MFC> MFF:
For some reason I was struggling to make nice, smooth and straight strokes this morning and the more I tried to focus on it, the worse it got
. So, the scratch pattern is pretty crazy but I think the photos still show enough to be useful. I didn’t take photos at every change of grit because we already know what they look like and it takes a long time to image each grit.-Clay
I don’t remember when we changed the formulation with the 1200/1600, but it’s been a few years now. Your comment makes a good question. I’ll have to dig up an old pair from before the change and test them against the new ones.
It’s hard to say. I’ll try to investigate it by going back through archived emails to see if I can pin down the date.
Have you been able to find anything yet? One of my 1600 stones also had a crack and if I buy new ones, I want to be sure that they will not have these problems again.
I’m having an issue with retrieving archived emails, so it’s taking some time to discover when we changed the formula. In the meantime though, I wouldn’t worry about cracking. We haven’t been having any complaints. Vertical cracks like that look like a defect in material and would certainly be covered under the warranty.
-Clay
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My new theory is…. yeah, I really don’t have one.
To be fair, while the left side looks smoother overall, the right seems to have a finer scratch pattern.
So close it’s hard to tell. So I tried a 420HC knife, doing one side with just the MicroFines, the other with just the SuperFines (both after the 1K diamond). Then polished with a 5K and 3.5K leather, (both freshly ‘charged’).
They’re so close, it would be almost impossible to tell them apart. They’re both not quite a mirror… you can see a reflection, but you can also see some light scratches in both.
I’m pretty sure, from past experience, (didn’t try today), that using all 4 produces a better result, even better than just using one set twice as long. So maybe each set does something different that contributes something to the overall result? But by themselves, I’m beginning to think that it may not be different enough to matter?
So many combos, so little time………
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When I look at the top and middle pictures, I’d come to the same conclusion as Curtis: the left ones are smoother. When looking at the bottom ones, I just don’t know.
But my gut feeling says there may be more in play than just the grits and that these pictures might be deceiving: on the 1000->SF->MF pictures it looks as if not all the scratches from a previous grit were wiped out. And my personal conclusion from the previous shots (1000->CMF->CSF->FSF->FMF) was that the CMF stones were actually a lot finer than I thought they were. After viewing those shots, I thought it was pretty clear that 1000->SF->MF should be the preferred order
.One of the reasons this interests me is that back in 2012 (
), when the MF stones were introduced, we already had discussions what the preferred order of the stones should be. Personally I concluded, partly based on rather lousy microscope photographs, that the CMF stones were more coarse than the SF stones. But I had a hard time, I changed my opinion during the process: original blog post and revised opinion. So I’m really curious what the outcome would be if Clay’d repeat his last progression. (I’d also be interested in the intermediate pictures, to see if and when at which grit transition things go different than expected.)Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge
I’ll try another round and do my best to be sure that all scratches from the previous grit are removed before proceeding.
-Clay
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Why not to do two tests for each stone?
- On clean polished edge to see tested stone scratches pattern, and
- On 1000 grit edge to see how good it is at removing previous scratches.
Then it will be easier to come to conclusions about progression. And it is less work, no need to switch progressions and guess. Just make sure you make the same number of passes with the same pressure.
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My new theory is…. yeah, I really don’t have one.
To be fair, while the left side looks smoother overall, the right seems to have a finer scratch pattern. So close it’s hard to tell. So I tried a 420HC knife, doing one side with just the MicroFines, the other with just the SuperFines (both after the 1K diamond). Then polished with a 5K and 3.5K leather, (both freshly ‘charged’). They’re so close, it would be almost impossible to tell them apart. They’re both not quite a mirror… you can see a reflection, but you can also see some light scratches in both. I’m pretty sure, from past experience, (didn’t try today), that using all 4 produces a better result, even better than just using one set twice as long. So maybe each set does something different that contributes something to the overall result? But by themselves, I’m beginning to think that it may not be different enough to matter? So many combos, so little time……… If we are discussing how long it takes to remove the scratches from the prior grit, could you simply set up the edge in a cross hatch pattern? In other words, set up all your grind lines going one direction ////////// then go the opposite direction\\\\\\\\\\ w/ each subsequent stone while scrubbing and see how many strokes it takes?
My new theory is…. yeah, I really don’t have one.
To be fair, while the left side looks smoother overall, the right seems to have a finer scratch pattern. So close it’s hard to tell. So I tried a 420HC knife, doing one side with just the MicroFines, the other with just the SuperFines (both after the 1K diamond). Then polished with a 5K and 3.5K leather, (both freshly ‘charged’). They’re so close, it would be almost impossible to tell them apart. They’re both not quite a mirror… you can see a reflection, but you can also see some light scratches in both. I’m pretty sure, from past experience, (didn’t try today), that using all 4 produces a better result, even better than just using one set twice as long. So maybe each set does something different that contributes something to the overall result? But by themselves, I’m beginning to think that it may not be different enough to matter? So many combos, so little time………If we are discussing how long it takes to remove the scratches from the prior grit, could you simply set up the edge in a cross hatch pattern? In other words, set up all your grind lines going one direction ////////// then go the opposite direction\\\\\\\\\\ w/ each subsequent stone while scrubbing and see how many strokes it takes?
I started doing just that yesterday. It was surprising how long it took to completely remove the scratches from the previous stones, especially the 1000# diamonds. I checked every 10 strokes and found that I had to go to 120 strokes with the SFC stones to remove the scratches from the diamonds. I was equally surprised at how long it took to remove the MFC scratches with the MFF stones, also over 100 strokes.
-Clay
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Clay… Just outta curiosity, what type of blade steel is that in your pics?
Unspecified “high carbon” steel, a.k.a. utility blade, Fat Max brand.
-Clay
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