David
@acousticsguru
active 6 years, 7 months agoForum Replies Created
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IMO, you really don’t need the ceramics if you have the 1500/glass stones with 6 micron film. While they are quite effective, most users have said that they don’t produce the same uniform quality of scratch patterns as the film or the diamond stones. I was an early convert to diamond lapping film and I soon retired my super-fine and micro-fine ceramics. To be honest though, part of this was that I tried lapping the ceramics to flatten them and altered their “apparent” grit. Ceramic stones do not have “grit” per se. I think they are made by baking a slurry of minerals (?) into a ceramic casting. They are rated as producing a scratch pattern which is equivalent to traditional abrasive grits. One ceramic you might think about is the rounded-face stones intended for concave edges. I never purchased one and I have done a few seriously concave edges successfully with the regular stones. Here’s a photo:
Thanks! Looks like a Zwilling to me. Not sure if they’re still making these handles, but I have at least one 9-1/2″ Chef Knife from that series lying around that I intend to practice on after a handful cheap knives, but before I move on to the really expensive stuff (in, hopefully, a month or so…). What angle did you go for?
Greetings from Switzerland, David.
You should be OK. As long as you didn’t receive the “your order has been shipped” email you should be fine. It may be worth a phone call tomorrow, or at least try the “live chat”. They’ve been out of the office at a “Blade Show” so when they’re back it’ll be a lot of catch-up on emails and such.
Thanks, will do that!
Noticing the one item I’d be “missing” through the upgrade are the Micro Fine Ceramics – it looks as if the 6µ diamond lapping film “replaces” those? I’m wondering if I need both: I read an entire thread on here and elsewhere with scratch pattern pics Clay provided, and it looked to me very much as if the lapping films do a great job. Could imagine the ceramics have a greater lifespan, though?
Greetings from Switzerland, David.
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I just sharpened three fish filet knives for a buddy (in exchange for fresh fish) and I took them 200, 400….1500, then 1.6µ ceramic, 0.6µ, then 4µ, and 2µ leather strops. They were hair popping sharp and mirrored enough to read newsprint. I did not intentionally sharpen them for shinny mirrored bevels. That just goes hand in hand with well sharpened knife edges taken down to fine grits.
Sorry this isn’t probably appropriate for this thread, but the mention of fileting knives reminds me of something I saw on TV last year. Don’t recall which show, but they did a tour of the Martinii factory, where a lot of the knives are made. The owner stressed that they always sharpen their knives to 22 dps. Interesting, as I was never able to get a clear answer on that point until then. I did a number of filet knives for friends that do a lot of fishing. For lack of better info, I sharpened theirs to 17 dps. They raved about how the knives performed on panfish and walleyes, so now I’m a bit confused. I’ll conclude that anything between 17 and 22 will work fine. Maybe hard-boned fish are too tough on acute angles. And welcome aboard, David!
That kind of information/discussion is very interesting to me, as I don’t think anyone has ever studied this apart from – perhaps – a particular knife design and steel that they’re using for said design etc. Personally, I’ve always thought consistency of angle is more important than the angle itself, and that regardless, one is looking for a compromise since edge retention is key for work knives. I’ve literally tried edges that would not hold up beyond that very first magical cut, and I honestly don’t see how going to extremes could be of practical use aside from robot-assisted surgery (and there is literally no such thing as “sharpening” for those type of blades). I’m not sure if 22° is merely a safe choice for a factory edge, or perfect for filleting since one tends to cut along rather than through tissue, where too sharp an edge may not be ideal.
I’d love to learn more about what angles are best for certain types of knife designs and steels. I remember seeing a YouTube video of Clay sharpening a CCK 1303, the type of Chinese small “cleaver” (the English term is misleading IMHO) I might take along to Asian cooking classes to give people an impression of their one-for-all purpose knife used for street cooking, which he sharpened to 9.8°, i.e. one giant razor blade – too bad the comment section was disabled, as I’d have loved to ask him how long the edge held up hitting the (if memory serves) bamboo board (as a friend of mine who’s teaching chefs loves to say: “What are you cutting most often? The board!”). As far as I know, the carbon steel used for CCK is not virgin – as popular as these (the slightly larger size possibly more so) are, they’re affordable Hong Kong work horse veggie prep knives after all.
I’m sorry if I’m digressing…
Greetings from Switzerland, David.
Dear Marc
Thanks for your reply! Yes, I did “forget” the strops for the simple reason that one always does it anyhow, and I’m not thinking of it as sharpening, nor even removing the scratch pattern, but polishing (off the burr, at least traditionally). Already ordered a USB microscope, as I’m curious to see the results and learn from them. Safety: I’ll probably get gloves, but am planning to get them locally, because I’d really want to try them on for a perfect fit – I doubt I’ll be happy wearing them, though. Regarding the learning curve and stone break-in, I’ve already read a number of articles and posts (among other in this forum), and realize there’s no way around it – as with everything in life. But I’ll need to find at least half a dozen more knives for the purpose – maybe some of the beat-up ones used for cooking classes. Thanks again!
Greetings from Switzerland, David.
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