Jende Industries
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Well, there seems to be a healthy discussion brewing about the Shaptons vs Choseras…
I won’t comment on pricing here, since I am a supplier of these stones. I can and will comment on the differences between the 10K Chosera and the 30K Shapton, though.
On the surface, the stones look like they give the same finish, and you can even argue that the 10K is more liquid mercury-ish than the 30K. The real difference is under the microscope. The 10K is “dirty”, for lack of a better word. The scratches are coarser, and the stone does not remove the previous grits scratches as readily. That does not dismiss smooth cutting edge it produces! The Shapton 30K gives you a much more consistent scratch pattern, and is much finer. The real difference is when you go to shave your face. The 10K is still coarser than the 30K. Here’s a couple of pics.
10K Chosera:
30K Shapton:
You’ll note that the 10K’s bevel is quite smooth and polished to a clean white reflection, which is your mercury finish. However, the edge itself is somewhat feathered, giving it a more toothy cut. Advantageous in some applications, but not in others. The 30K has a more consistent depth of scratch on the bevel, since the Shaptons tend to scratch at all levels, not polish, this is to be expected. However, if you look at the edge itself, you will see a more intact and consistent edge. Also advantageous in some applications, but not in others.
I use a clean tissue, and wipe in an up and away motion from the blade. You could actually add horizontal scratches to the bevel on coarser grits otherwise. If the swarf/paste gets dry, adding a little water to the tissue usually takes care of things. I generally use a new tissue per each grit, or use a clean area each swipe to avoid cross contamination. The fibers getting caught just means you have a very well established burr, and on higher grits the burr shouldn’t really cause that. You can also do a series of very light, alternating strokes to remove the burr buildup before cleaning it.
Wow, MarcH – That was a great explanation!
I don’t think there is much to add there!Both Shaptons and Choseras are like Lamborghini and Ferrari, so it’s a matter of personal taste. The only thing I would add is that Choseras are slightly more forgiving to the minute angle changes, especially at the 5K and 10K levels due to the paste that forms. On the Shapton Pro and Glass, the 5K and 6K+ grits require a greater degree of accuracy and cleanliness since the black swarf actually inhibits the action of the stones.
As for Diamonds, they get you the shine very quickly, but after 3 micron, you run the risk of stray scratches from dirt and cross contamination. We then enter the realm of scratch depths and seeing striations, depending on the steel, technique, and lots of other stuff.
Looking forward to it, Niko! Given my shaving videos, I’m the last guy to try to stop you, but I would strongly advise against shaving your face off a 1K anything – and especially with the steel quality of silverware! But hey, it is fun to chase that rainbow and find out for yourself. There’s nothing better than learning from your own mistakes! So here’s a list of taunts for your encouragement:
Nicko – you’ll poke your eye out
Nicko – don’t touch it
Nicko – don’t stick your finger in that hole
Nicko – don’t shave off a 1K edgeBe sure to post a video of the shave!!!
The trick to leather -and all finish stropping- is a super light touch. You’d be surprised how easy it is to manipulate the edge of the edge. There is an overall consensus on backing of 1-2 degrees when switching over to stropping yields better results than keeping the same angle as the stones. At the finishing stages, you’ll only need 2-5 strokes on clean strops to align the edge. if you are going with loaded strops, then you will need to experiment to see which works best for the way you manipulate the paddles, with pressure being the biggest influence on compression and rounding of the edge.
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I thought he was going to actually shave..That’s a bit of a letdown…
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Rich Participant Topics: 2 Replies: 9 The main question here is strop vs lapping film… When to choose one or the other.
Lapping films are generally going to be more aggressive than strops. Their thinness gives them less compression and more perfection, and the diamond films will cut through all materials. Strops give more, and lend themselves to finishing or tweaking more than films, IMO. With the precision of the WEPS, you get a more perfect triangle tip, which is thinner as the edge approaches that zero width. By finishing with a strop, you can slightly convex that edge of the edge to give back some thickness and rigidity. You can also use the strops for maintenance to continually touch up the edge of the edge (through convexing) without actually reestablishing the bevels fully. But in the end, it’s as Molon stated, that the beauty is in the choices available. As you get more time in on your WEPS, you will hopefully start diving down the rabbit hole head first into all the accessories so that you can challenge yourself and see what the different options yield. The combinations are endless!
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Well, armed with only a master degree in music education… 😀
I think Verhoeven is saying from that excerpt that some carbides align better than others in the matrix, and the ones that don’t cause stress. That could be a underlying reason for such drastic changes between “just one more stroke” and complete carbide popout… You essentially have a knife earthquake, the matrix steel is unable to hold the stresses as the edge gets thinner, and it releases and breaks..
As to abrading through the carbides, I believe diamonds and CBN will scratch through the carbides – and popout is also influenced by a cement and concrete problem. Cement is just concrete with no rocks, essentially. Add rocks and you have concrete. If you were to make a triangle shaped concrete and a cement model that represented carbide steel (concrete) and straight carbon steel (cement), you would be able to make a much more pointed apex with the cement since the materials are homogeneous in size. The concrete mixture would require a thicker edge, or more edge geometry to accommodate the size of the rocks. In order to get the dimensions of the two the same, you would need to abrade through the rocks. This exposes both rocks (carbides) and cement until it comes to a point. But the rocks will take up more space along the edge,spaced between now very thin slivers of cement. You could easily knock the edge out, thus simulating carbide popout.
You can also break off the tip of the cement model easily as well. However, I think the thickness of the edge left after the break on the cement would still be small than that of the concrete, which ripped out to the size and thickness of the rocks.
Maybe a little crazy to follow, but you can abrade through carbides to a certain point (no pun intended), but when you approach that critical thickness/thinness, you should either increase the angle or stop abrading in order to avoid carbide popout. Throw in the Verhoeven stress factor (if I read that correctly… that was hard to follow!!), and it further explains what and why carbide popout happens…
Carbides are pretty darned hard, but still not quite as hard as diamonds, so at the 0.10 micron level of diamond abrasive, you should be cutting through/into the carbides.
I agree with redhead in the OP that carbides are in the 1-10 micron range. I actually have an unscientific belief that carbides are in the 1-4 micron range based on my oh-so-very-fun experiences with carbide popout. 🙂 It is possible to abrade most abrasion resistant/carbide forming steels with just about any low grit abrasive medium, such as sharpening stones, belts, etc.. You don’t need diamonds at that level because your abrasives are basically digging out chunks of matrix steel, which includes the carbides with them, so it’s like a backhoe digging into the ground, and bringing up a bucket full of dirt and rocks all together. As you approach the 10, or 4-1 micron range, you begin pulling up more rocks and less dirt, which is where the abrasion resistance kicks in since the carbides are either harder than or equal to the abrasive media (Aluminum oxide is mohs ~9.5, SiC, which is itself a carbide is about 9.7, CBN is 9.9 and diamond being 10) The carbides range from about 9 to 9.9, so the backhoe is trying to dig out a rock that is bigger than the bucket.
So at the 4K-10K level of sharpening, your scratches are arguably the same size as the carbides, which is where you will start needing a harder abrasive to cut through the carbides and matrix steel equally.
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I don’t think he was wearing safety glasses on that one… 😀
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I just wondered how they do it in “Japan”. I purchased some of these $350 a piece japankitchenknives.com knives, and they are sharp in my opinion. They said if I send then in, for $30 every few months they send a box over to Japan to sharpen. This is what sent me down this crazy path of sharpening, because Im almost certain, if i took these knives locally to get sharpened, they would destroy them. As with many things nowadays, if you want it done right, you have to do it yourself. Any bosses here agree?
Sharpening in Japan is a trade skill, most often learned through apprenticing from a master. It’s the only place in the world where it is appreciated as its own art form. We all know the historic roots in Samurai sword polishing…
In Japan, knife making shops will often use a large, water cooled grinding stone wheel, basically a Tormek with a 1 meter diameter to grind and shape the edges and bevels. They then finish on stones. Aside from technique, the knives are kept cool at all times.
In the US, you get high speed grinding wheels with 6″ or 8″ diameters, and no water cooling. Belt grinders are better, especially variable speed ones, but you’d be surprised how quickly heat can build up on the edge of the edge just through friction, even at low speeds. Tormeks are good, but too small and slow to be as effective as the big wheels since one turn of the Japanese wheel gets you approx. 3.14 meters (more than 9 feet) of cutting power vs. the 18-25 inches (1.5-2 feet) on the grinding wheel or Tormek. Belts get you, depending on your grinder, anywhere from 36″ to 72″ (3-6 feet). Heat dissipation is key.
Back in the day, there used to be more skilled sharpeners in the US. There were a lot more woodworkers, barbers, butchers and tailors that usually maintained their own edges, but would still need to send the knife or tool out for maintenance every now and then. Hardware stores would usually have services as well as street grinders who would use 12-24″ hand cranked wheels sitting in a water trough. Sadly, just about all of that has gone away, and the “professional” sharpeners of today are largely scissor guys, and while there are certification courses and training available, there are some hacks out there…
I may have gone off on a tangent… 😀 I do agree that sharpening knives yourself is waaaaay more satisfying than sending it out to the great unknown. There’s the zen and meditative side of it all, plus the self challenge of being able to do something and to do it well while being self-sufficient.
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NOOOOOooooo! 😀
After the 30K stone (0.5 micron) I will go to 0.25 or finer on the strop, not the diamond film. If I use the diamond film as a progression, I will go to up to 1 micron, then switch to the strops at 0.25 micron or finer.
To clarify, If I use stones, I won’t use films to finish an edge, but will use nanocloth strops.
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This is an excellent question. I’m a freehand sharpener most of the time, but I am also quite well versed in using the good guided systems such as the WEPS.
The bottom line is this. A quality guided system will almost always kick a freehand edge’s butt. I don’t care who you are. I say almost always because there are always going to be factors such as technique and skill – which are pretty major factors – on both sides of the competition.
The first factor example is one of self competition, which is always the best way to do this since everyone is on their own sharpening journeys. Assuming you are equally proficient at both the WEPS and freehand, the WEPS will usually win out – but it in the spirit of self competition, I find myself saying “there’s no way I’m going to let the WEPS beat my freehand edge!” and I get to work on perfecting the next freehand edge I do, which then leaves me saying “there’s no way I’m going to let my freehand edge beat a precision edge off the WEPS!”, and so on. It pushes both of my skills, because ultimately they are different, and to call myself a sharpener requires me to be an expert on anything I sharpen with. (Self competition here)
The second example is you vs. me. This comes down to technique and skill. Technique trumps refinement 99% of the time, If we go head to head on the WEPS, we are equally equipped, and even if we use the same knives, angles and stones, I guarantee you we will have different results, which will vary depending on the differences between our skills and techniques. Same with freehand. When you compete between the guided and freehand, the same differences will determine the outcome. I once compared my freehand skills with a dealer for the WEPS in a shared market. Long story shorter, we were good friends before he found and fell in love with the WEPS after many years of not being able to get the freehand results he wanted. I actually had more experience on the WEPS than him at the time, and we did a friendly side by side – My Jende Reed Knives with him on the WEPS using Choseras and Shaptons, against me freehanding a 3rd knife. I fully expected my knife to come in a very distant third place, but my freehand knife came in at a solid second place. (like I said, almost always better on guided systems!) With a little tweaking here and there, we were able to get my knife in third place by the end of the visit. 🙂
Then there is the actual differences that most people don’t take into account, which the precision of the guided systems brings that freehand just can’t match. When most people compare freehand vs. guided, they do so at the same angles, which usually gives freehand the win for longevity, ironically. But it is not entirely true – the precision and accuracy of the WEPS allows you to be within 0.1 degree, which means the apex of the edge’s triangle is closer to a point of zero than that of a rather sloppy minimum 5 degree +/- of freehand, which essentially convexes the edge of the edge. So what would be an 18.0 (+/- 0.1) degree edge off the WEPS, would more than likely be a 23 degree edge freehand. so this whole 10-12 degree laser talk of freehand guys is really more like 15-20 on the WEPS….
The only real arguments that one can say makes one better than the other is the overall time investment, which coincides with the level of precision you require. Setting up the WEPS and calibrating it along the way can take some time per knife. Freehand sharpening is fast and makes on the fly, close enough for my house, adjustments. 🙂
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