What to do for mirror edge?

[tcmeyer]

My experience with sandpaper is that it doesn’t take much to knock the grit particles off of the substrate, or to “wear out” the abrasiveness, especially when using more than a little pressure.   When polishing a bevel, the square inches of grit under pressure is very small, thus making the PSI really high.  Diamond film doesn’t seem to lose grit at all, except after long use.  I would expect the film to last much longer than sandpaper.

A disclaimer…  I’ve never actually used sandpaper on my WEPS, and yes, I know that there are many out there who have.  Anybody out there who’ve tried both to support or debunk my theory?

If you don’t want to spend the money for diamond film, you can get non-diamond (Aluminum Oxide) PSA film for much less.  It looks and acts like diamond film and since it’s PSA, you don’t have to deal with double-sided tape.  See some at: http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?cat=1,44047&p=74729

This link shows 3, 1 and 0.3 micron PSA film costing $3 per 8.5 X 11″ sheet.  At 5.5 X 3/4″, you get 22 strips per sheet.  Not counting shipping, that’s less than 30 cents per pair.  What’s to lose?

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Serge

[Serge]

Thank you! Great tip. Actually, I ordered diamond films from WE, so I have something to test against. I will also try sandpaper and AlOx films.

[Pinkfloyd]

Mark,

I haven’t used diamond film on my WEPS yet, but I have used them on my Edge Pro. When I use them, I use them wet (few drops of soapy water). Do you use them wet or dry? Cant wait to get a set for the WEPS.

[tcmeyer]

I use my diamond film dry.  When they get dirty, I wash ’em with a little spritz of alcohol.  Rub a finger over it a few times and the dark stuff seems to float right off.  I then wipe ’em off with a paper towel.  Seems to work really well, and there’s no mess at the knife edge.

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M1rrorEdge, dulledge

[Serge]

I need an advice from experienced mirror-edgers 🙂 So far, I am unable to get rid of 1000 grit scratches. My stones are fairly new, so I hope, this is a temporary issue.

At first, I was trying to do 1200/1600 ceramics, followed by 1.4/0.6 ceramics and then followed with strops. Now I am doing 15μm film after 1000 grit. It takes out ~90% of scratches and leaves me with pretty much mirror finish, with only several hair-like scratches. My plan is to try 60/30μm films. I wonder if that can do the trick.

[droc217]

Mark76 wrote:

No, it depends a bit on how you use them, but my diamond films last about 7-10 knives.

About how many passes do you do run per film per knife?

[Mark76]

Pfew, that’s a hard one. It’s a long time ago I used to count them. I recall that in the time I counted I did maybe on average 50 passes with stones. But highly dependent on state of the edge and steel.

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[Joe_Manco]

I have tried 12-5 micron SO lapping film on s30v and they are no where effective as 1200, 1500 and 2000 grit AO sand paper.

 

 

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