Touch Ups on the WE

[Mikedoh]

Eamon, somewhere I’ve read that you get a better polish when dropping to the lower grit water stones , and restarting a progression with them.

If my understanding is correct, the Choseras breakdown and release grit that inturn creates a polishing slurry and helps erase/polish the edge. Let the diamonds do the hard work, then come back with a lower grit waterstone and start polishing away the diamond scratches. More polish, and less work(I think) for a mirrored edge. Less wear and tear on the water stones.

As always, defer to my betters

[Eamon Mc Gowan]

Mike,
Thank you very much! Now that you have said that outloud I seem to faintly recall that myself???? I’m going to put it to the test latter today. :unsure: I’m sure you guys are right and it will turn out better! As a young man I had to learn everything by being beaten with a 2″X4″. Now I like to listen and learn. :woohoo:

[Geocyclist]

This has always been my progression – 1000# the 400 Choseras.

“I don’t always use Chosera’s, but when I do I always start with 400’s” Stay thirsty my friends. B)

I don’t have the grit specs here by memory.

What I have learned from experience is that the 400 Chosera’s are black (more than the other Choseras) after use. Visually the edge is definitely much more polished to the naked eye. I have a 10x lupe, but no scopes. I can’t say if the edge is more or less refined.

While I have never “mixed” stones in progression, I can say based on feel (stone feedback) and appearance that I would not want to go diamonds, chosera, back to diamonds, then more choseras.

All that being said I think Mike said it better.

[Geocyclist]

Bumping this one up.

For all the new guys out there the 2nd best thing about WEPS is being able to perfectly put a knife back in the WEPS and touch it up/sharpen again very easily. Once you get the hang of the WEPS, how to get a good edge and how to mount the blade then future touch ups/sharpening is a breeze. The only key is to keep records of how you mounted the knife first time. They WE knife data base is great for this: to keep your own records and give help to others.

I trashed an already sharp edge the other day by stripping the coating, forcing a patina, then doing it all over again. I had to start back at 200 diamonds to restore the edge, it was that bad. I put it back in the vice, same as before, took a minute to mount then a bit to work through the stones. The edge was exactly as before, no need to reprofile.

I spend tons of time sharpening the first time, to reprofile, get a mirror edge, etc. It is wonderful to be able to quickly restore an edge. Especially on hard use knives like the kitchen knives where I just want a sharp edge fast and don’t care about a mirror polish.

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