Protech Emerson Chisel Grind,
Guys, I have one of these that I want to Mirror Polish like all of my other knives are, I own a Gen 3 with everything I need, I just have never done a chisel grind, any help I would greatly appreciate
A chisel grind is simply a single-sided knife, as though one side of the blade had been removed right through the center-line. If you want to maintain a pristine look to the back side, try to avoid any coarse grits which might leave a really heavy burr, as you’ll have to remove it somehow - hopefully without leaving stone marks on the back side. I haven’t yet tried it as a matter of practice, but some woodworkers remove their chisel burrs by wiping the edge with the end grain of a block of hardwood held vertically, relative to the edge. No reason why that wouldn’t work here.
Remember that the included angle of a chisel grind is only half that of a normal edge and can therefor be a bit fragile. FWIW, most woodworking chisels are ground to angles between 25 and 30 degrees. I’ve checked several scalpel blades with my microscope and they had included angles of 20-30 degrees. I add this just to make a point that you don’t really need (or want) included angles of much less than 25 degrees. I’d go for thirty unless I wanted to shave with it.
I found a little thing recently that might help out on this if you dont want to use wood. A felt block. The folks at chefknivestogo.com sell what they call a rock hard felt block. Not sure how well it would work for the lower grit burrs, as I mostly use it starting at the 600 grit. So far it hasnt torn any chucks when it takes the burr off. I run the edge though it about 2 or 3 times. I have used it for a couple of chiself grinds, but to be honest, I did most of the work on those starting around the 800 grit as they were touch ups. It’s not the end all be all, but I have found that it is useful, espically when doing high polish edges. Hope this helps.