Brian M

[Brian M]

I’ve never understood the point behind unserrated steak knives. The FIRST time you cut through and hit plate, the edge folds over and they are dull. Unless you’re cutting on a cutting board, it just doesn’t seem to be the best solution. Serrations solve that issue as best as possible. Well, the best solution is to cut the steak in the kitchen and serve it cut.

And Opinel is a highly respected, old name, high quality knife. Don’t dismiss without doing some homework. If I were to eat with you and saw you had Opinel knives, I’d know you were a knife geek in at least a small respect. One of the germans and I’d not even notice.

[Brian M]

I do agree it makes since not to burr with 50 or 80’s. I did this and have have some chucks (at 10X) I didn’t get out. I only saw these after the 1000# and didn’t feel like starting over.

Didn’t want this point to get overlooked… Raising a burr with the 50/80g stones is counterproductive. These stones are so aggressive, they can actually chip the edge, which then has to be sharpened out.[/quote]

Heh, you guys have thought more about this than I though Possible. Thanks all for the posts…

To tangent Slightly, since the above is on that, what’s the underlying purpose of the 50/80 stones then? I used them quite a bit on the last knife I worked on (http://www.amazon.com/Smith-Wesson-CKSUR2-Bullseye-Search/dp/B000UUTAQ0) ~ sharpie mark on the OEM bevel and passes with the 1000 showed that the edge wandered left and right.. so with the left stone I hit edge at the heel, bottom of the bevel about 2 inch ahead of that, back to the edge and back to the bottom of the bevel. I tried scrubbing it out with the 100’s to get both sides to apex but didn’t seem like I was getting anywhere after 20 minutes so I went to the 80. Another 30 minutes passed and the right side was good, but I had issues on the left and went to the 50 for about 10 minutes. I didn’t really care if I got all the way, I was just trying to get close. Turned out that I was able to keep the bevels mostly even (tip was slight bigger on the left, which was where I had the most issue).

Anyway, proper time/use for those stones? If I’d had to do that with the 100’s, I think I’d STILL be working on the knife. :whistle:

I did get it looking pretty though:

And the owner was happy, though he didn’t really give a crap about the looks… oh well.

[Brian M]

I don’t claim to know anything and I’d love to have this picked apart…

I was doing a couple knives for my brother-in-law today, one being his EDC. I’ve seen shark bait less mangled than this edge :blink: The factory angle on it was 17~18 (no angle cube), and he uses this thing hard so what I did was finish the blade at the factory angle then up it 3 notches/degrees and just use the 800/1000 stones. It was easy to see the secondary bevel form and I even brought up a slight burr. I’m not counting strokes, but it wasn’t that many (30 a side?) ~ and I don’t own strops.

I’m hoping that this will maybe help the blade stand up to the punishment… if not, then I might be trying to track down a blade more suited to his use. Can’t hurt anything and it’s a nice starting experience.

[Brian M]

…at first I wasn’t tightening my screws enough.

Heh, glad to know I’m not alone here. I’ve had the arms come loose twice. I even put on some blue Loctite in hopes that would firm up the screws, but to no avail (the clearance is too sloppy). I’m going to try some Teflon tape to see if that’ll fill in the space some and give the screws a little more holding power.

Once you put a burr on both sides, you will always alternate strokes with the finer grits.

Okay, that, right there, is the piece of information I’ve been missing. The last videos I watched were from Smokeeater908 (or something along that line) and he did scrubbing strokes right through all the diamond plates. I followed because it’s stupidly easy for a nooB to replicate that, switching to (very slow) alternating strokes on only the last of the 800 and the 1000 ~ which are the final plates I own.

I did reduce pressure about 1000-fold between the first set of knives and the 2nd set, with outstanding results. I’m using such little pressure that some strokes kinda skip on and off the blade. I’m not sure how I could go any lighter on the pressure… though time/experience will certainly show me. 🙂

So, today I’m doing 4 pocket knives. I’ll get the burr and set the profile, then switch to alternating strokes with every other plate. That begs the question, when is enough? Is that where visual inspection comes in, to make sure all the scratches are uniform in size/depth? Might need to get on ordering that loupe…

Thanks again… you folks are the anti-thesis of most forums I visit (helpful instead of snarky).

Brian

[Brian M]

Very good, thanks. Kinda hard to Not raise a burr with the 400, I think it was there after 1 pass. Hadn’t considered blade life.. but I’m sure less material is being removed with the WEPS than my dad removed with stones, and the worn knives they had were hand-me-downs from Their parents.

I have a few of my Father-in-laws pocket knives that I’m going to work on next. I’m going to focus more on how the finished product looks with these, so I’ll pay more attention to scratch removal. I honestly wasn’t worried about the form/looks with my kitchen knives, just the function.

Thanks again though…

[Brian M]

I’m sure some of you will say/think “well, d’uh!” to this… but OMG was dinner prep easy tonight. I don’t think I’ve EVER had such an easy time slicing up veggies and protein! I felt like I was in an infomercial… ‘It slices, it Dices.. it does all the work for you@’ heh

Sorry, just excited at how sharp my chefs knife is/was… and the 2nd thought was ‘Dam glad I didn’t pay someone Else to do this or I’d be afraid of using it because I wouldn’t want it to dull’.

I’m gonna have to change the direction of my serrations though as I’m a “pull”, not a “push”, cutter and it Clearly worked better on the push.

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