Organic

Those micro fine ceramic stones are really good. The 0.6 micron is my preferred finishing stone these days.

I also suspect that you are rounding the apex ever so slightly as you do additional stropping. It may have very little to do with the particular grit of the strips you are using hand have more to do with the number of strokes.

Congratulations on reaching your sharpening goal!

Welcome BK!

Some advise on getting the tip right:

1.  Get the knife clamped properly. If you have the knife clamped in a poor position then you will likely have very broad bevels at the tip. Check out the thread titled “How I find the sweet spot.”
2. Don’t let the stones roll over the tip. You will have to exercise care when working the tip to…

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I also start my diamond film progression (on those knives where I choose to use them) at 6 micron. I follow that up with 3 micron and 1.5 micron films and then the 4 / 2 micron strops. I don’t currently own any of the finer films (1, 0.5, 0.1). Most knives I sharpen get diamonds up to 3000 grit, then the 1.4 / 0.6 micron ceramic stones followed by…[Read more]

The ceramic stones do help improve the polish and would fit pretty well after your 2200 diamond stone. If you really want to improve the polish on your bevels (and don’t want to go to lapping films) then I suggest spending a lot of time using your strops.

Some side to side angle variation is normal on the generation 3 pro model. The micro adjustment knobs should have more than enough range to compensate for that issue. I usually set mine somewhere towards the middle of their range to allow adjustments to be made in either direction when sharpening. If it is an issue that bothers you then I suggest…[Read more]

I have found that holding the stones from the very bottom of the paddles helps mitigate the chances of cutting myself. With my hands on the bottom of the paddles there are very few instances where my hands are higher than the edge of the knife. The sides of the blade won’t cut you.

Wow, that is an unreasonable policy in my opinion.

I think you should still be able to clamp this knife on the flat area in front of the stop pin. There might be a portion of the jaws that aren’t able to grip anything (in the thumb hole area) but that shouldn’t prevent you from being able to sharpen. If all else fails you can always clamp the…[Read more]

Can you disassemble the knife and then clamp on the flat section where the pivot is located?

I believe that cow and kangaroo leather both have an inherent grit to them because of the silicates used to treat the leather.

The fun is soon to begin! Focus on developing a consistent technique and work on your junk knives first.

If you are doing a 70:30 edge as shown in the drawing then both units are capable of that. The angles are identical on either side but the blade is intentionally sharpened so that the ratio of bevel sizes is 7:3. You simply need to spend more time working the side with the larger bevel.

That said, if you are trying to do different angles on…[Read more]

9.7 micron, 7.1 micron, and 5.0 micron respectively.

See page 2 of this thread: 2200 / 3000 stones.

What did you ultimately decide to go with?

Here’s my take: If you love sharpening as a hobby unto itself then go all in and get the WE130 or even the pro pack 3 if you can comfortably afford it. The self centering clamp design makes getting a blade clamped as simple as the flip of a lever.

If you’re just interested in keeping things sharp for utility sake (and you view sharpening as a…[Read more]

If you’re considering a replacement and you are still thinking it will be mostly used for vegetables then I suggest considering some of the Japanese blades. They’re a bit more brittle than European style knives (because they are thin and hard) but they perform beautifully.

Keep us posted on this when you’ve done the sharpening and sharpness testing (perhaps in a new thread?). I’m interested to see how it turns out.

I would go with the 1500 / 2200. The 1500 is so efficient that it can take the 1000 grit edge to essentially the same level of refinement as the 1200 / 1600 combination does.

As to the comments about the 1.4 / 0.6 micron ceramics; I still like those and enjoy using them very much. Using them after the 3000 grit gives a pretty good mirrored finish.

Man, that is a killer BESS score. It must be like a laser beam on a handle.