Todd Simpson
@toddsimpson
active 4 years, 11 months agoForum Replies Created
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I’ve been using the 1500 diamond for my SG2 steak knives and been happy with the performance. I wouldn’t recommend ceramic for steel that hard though.
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I’m looking forward to seeing the results of these measurements. One thing that I would love to see (in addition) is the material removal rate.
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I have a few Wusthof “grand prix” kitchen knives that I bought at least 20 years ago. They are nice knives, easy to sharpen and respond well to the steel. They’ve been through the dishwasher a thousand times.
The only problem is that huge bolster eventually needs to be thinned if you want to avoid a recurve. If I was replacing them, I would buy the Ikon version without the bolster. Although, a couple of weeks ago I was shopping for a set of steak knives and chose the Shun Kaji over the Ikon because I found the Ikon handle was too fine for my large hands, plus the Kaji has a nicer balance.
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I’ve used up to 8K DMT diamond plates for hand sharpening tools. I’m wondering if WE is or has ever looked into going that high with their diamond stones?
These are the same 3 micron stones that we used to carry and discontinued for quality reasons, namely that the manufacturing method hasn’t been perfected and there are often very large clusters of diamonds on the stones, sometimes measuring 50-100 microns. My understanding is that localized magnetic fields are created during the plating process around the very small, 3 micron, diamonds and they can attract each other (agglomerate) creating these large, rogue clusters.
This seems to suggest that DMT does not deliberately add the oversized diamonds, although the one EEF and the three EF plates I looked at all had a small number of large diamonds dispersed across the surface. They are definitely single crystal diamonds, not clusters of smaller diamonds. The WE 1500 doesn’t seem to have these (although I can’t analyze mine without removing one from the paddle). Are the WE plates manufactured by DMT (or is that a trade secret)?
I’m not convinced that these large particles aren’t added deliberately. They serve two positive purposes – they dramatically increase the abrasion rate (without too much negative impact to the apex) and they should also increase the wear resistance and lifespan of the plates. However, if your goal is to polish the bevel, they are bad news.
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I recently purchase the GO plus the 1500/1um film paddle and have sharpened a handful of knives with it. It’s super easy to use and does a great job.
In general, I’m not interested in mirror polishing bevels or multi-stone progressions. I’m quite happy to sharpen the blade with the 600 (or 200 if required) and then micro-bevel with the 1500 diamond or 1 um lapping film. The fact that it packs up into a small roll is great for taking it with you, or if you don’t have space to leave it set up all the time.
As for using half the paddle, I’ve been deliberately flipping it during the break-in, but I’m sure it will be randomly flipped with use.
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I understand the use of this when a new account is created, but I’m not seeing why it is necessary when existing users login. I had to complete at least 6 of these to login just to make this comment. Honestly, these things discourage me from making a contribution when I browse here.
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Methanol, Ethanol and Iso-propyl Alcohol (IPA) have fairly similar cleaning performance. IPA is preferred because it evaporates more slowly than methanol and ethanol and doesn’t have the regulatory issues of ethanol. It’s available in high purity for a relatively low cost.
Acetone is a stronger solvent, in that it will dissolve a wider range of organics. The issue with cleaning with acetone (and any strong solvent for that matter) is that whatever you dissolve is left behind when the solvent evaporates. This is why acetone usually leaves a film. Even more frustrating is that those films are sometimes not easy to dissolve again.
I have always taught that solvent cleaning should be a progression from weakest to strongest back to weakest. The idea is to first rinse away as much as possible with IPA or water (eg you don’t want to be trying to dissolve chunks of dust), then dissolve what remains with acetone, (or toluene, or heptane) but DON’T LET THAT SOLVENT DRY as it will leave behind a film of everything you dissolved. Instead, you want to displace the acetone (or whatever) with IPA, then blow the IPA off with compressed air. It’s generally not possible to blow off fast evaporating solvents, so that’s why we displace them first with slow evaporating solvents (or water).
Personally, I wouldn’t want to use anything stronger than IPA on a leather strop. I have a spray bottle of IPA/DI water that I use to wet the surface and then wipe it with a paper towel.
A good option for degreasing is to use an electronic cleaning spray.
Without getting too much further into it, you’re also looking at the crystalline structure of the elements evolved beyond the sharpening when it comes to the obsidian vs steel argument.
It’s basically the works of ultramicrotomy starting to bridge into surgery. The diamond knives of ultramicrotomy are used to create 2000 radial cross sections of a single hair, or 100 cross sections of a single red blood cell. That’s how fine we’re talking when it comes to the obsidian and diamond knives. The edges are not sharpened, they are made using fracture lines.
The “crystalline elements” – carbide dimensions and grain size are much larger than the edge width of a straight razor or surgical scalpel.
What is more important is whether the blade can make the cut without being chipped or folded. I can make a carbon steel straight razor sharper than a diamond microtome or obsidian scalpel, but the question is whether it will perform better for a particular application. Diamond microtomes are very keen, but the bevel angle is too high to cut anything but thin, flexible sections, and if the bevel angle were lower, they would be even more fragile than they already are.Your image reminds me of another BS marketing photo from http://www.beaver-visitec.com/brands/atomic-edge.cfm
where they show amateurish SEM images of their product vs the competition and where the steel scalpel is coated with teflon, so you can’t even see the apex.
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Josh, maybe I should better ask this question at the guy of Science of Sharp (sorry, forgot his name), but how can you exactly measure the width of an apex? I.e. where do you measure it. For example, if you do it at the exact top you might end up with a few molecules’ width. If you do it just half a millimeter lower, it will already be much thicker.
So how can the concept of apex width make sense without saying where you measure the width. (And this is even apart from measurement apparatus – unless you’ve got an electron microscope – and my hands simply not being exact enough to measure consistently at the same location for every knife.)
This is the reason that in my Japanese Kitchen knife Reviews blog I measure the edge thickness only at 5 mm above the edge. I simply cannot get it more exact.
Measuring the apex geometry (in 2 dimensions, ignoring “tooth” for now) requires two quantities. Edge width or more correctly the radius of curvature of the apex is what determines the pressure exerted by the blade on an object being parted and this is typically less than 100nm for any razor blade, utility blade or scalpel. Obviously this cannot be measured without an SEM. The second measurement must quantify the thickness behind the apex – this could be angle or the width at some distance behind the apex. If the bevel is not convex, these are directly related. The relevant distance from the apex will depend on the material being cut, for shaving I believe 3 microns behind is representative of the performance. For deeper cuts, the thickness further back is more relevant.
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…..I have seen him say… 1. only a couple strokes with your highest grit stone (when micro-beveling) will lead to a wire edge until you do more and the micro-bevel both establishes and stabilizes.
This specifically refers to low angle primary (less than 10dps) where the apex will bend rather than abrade unless the micro-bevel angle is at least 5 dps higher. For example, micro-beveling a straight razor by adding tape gives inconsistent results because of this.
2. edge leading will give you minimal burr removal but can lead to micro-chipping/irregularities. …
Edge leading almost always prevents a burr on mid- to high-grit stones. Low grit results are quite variable, depending on the stone. The micro-chipping process is what removes the burr, so it is not a negative in this case.
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