I’m glad that you’re getting improved results, but I don’t know what articles you are making reference to. I have never written a blog post about convex sharpening. Perhaps you have me confused with another member? I know Tom (tcmeyer) has written about convex sharpening on the forum in the past.
Marc: I imagine more experience has a lot to do with it. I’m just grateful to have eliminated that .3° rock in the paddles. I swear the scope shows cleaner bevel edges. I keep cringing when I think that I’d been putting the equivalent of a .3 microbevel on just parts of the blade…
Here in a few months, I’ll look into one of those cubes. The stock one doesn’t register fine adjustments as quickly as I’d like, and getting “15.5 to 15, nope, shoot, 14.5, ok, 15… crud, 15.5 again” is a little maddening. Real time, no lag readings would be a nice upgrade. And thousands of a degree real-time, ideally.
Organic: apologies. I finally tracked it down. Molecule Polishing was done by Mark76. For some reason, I associated it with you.
https://moleculepolishing.wordpress.com
If you haven’t already explored it, it’ll hook you in for several hours.
My appreciation of you is still valid. You’ve given loads of hints over the last several months.
I’m glad to be of service.
Yes, the molecule polishing blog was written by Mark76 and is a great read. He was a moderator on this forum for many years and was a very helpful fellow.
For the benefit of the newbies on this forum, Mark76 was Mark de Weger, who lived in the Netherlands. Mark was a good friend and mentor to many of us here. We lost him last Christmas Eve at the age of 50, far too early for a good soul.
Not likely to be a highly develop level of skill. The amount of material to remove with each step is highly dependent on the thickness of the edge at the bevel shoulders. The thinner the blade, the fewer and lighter your convexing strokes should be. Try very light strokes and start out with very few strokes. Change the direction of the strokes to make it easier to see the transition point. Watch the new bevel and how closely it approaches the apex. Stop when you see the new bevel reaching about one half to two thirds of the way up the main bevel. Then take the number of strokes (and how much pressure) it took to get there as an indicator of what to do with all successive steps.
Because the first step will be initially hitting the shoulder of the bevel, its facet will seem to grow in width very rapidly, hence my use of only 3 or 4 strokes at each step, beginning immediately after you’ve stoned the main bevel at the apex.
I use “half-degree increments” because I follow the detents in the Gen 3 Pro. I don’t use my angle cube at all during the convexing process.. I rely on the detents to give me repeatable step angles. It doesn’t matter if it 0.4 or 0.7 degrees per step. You could probably get the same, or very similar results by making half as many adjustments, stepping one degree at a time, but with more strokes per step. If you’re using a standard rig (not a Gen 3 Pro or commercial rig) you can use the 1-degree detents in the angle bar. Just remember where the detent was for the main bevel.