I’ve been going through the typical WEPS-NEWBIE problem set; included in this set is a group of problems with the ceramic stones. I have, for quite a long time, like the edge I get from Spydie’s Sharpmaker using the ceramics with the ultra-fine ceramics added as an additional step. There is a particular “feel”, a peculiar tactile sensation, of using the ceramics with a blade - it reminds me of walking on ice, or maybe trying to wipe snot off a glass doorknob as the blade moves across the ceramic in edge-leading strokes.
I didn’t quite get that feeling with the WEPS MFs. It was close, however. The biggest thing which has been truly a problem for me: blades were coming off the MFs with more visible scratching than they had prior to using the stone. This was truly a problem, as I couldn’t effectively work out a progression using the ceramics, nor could I even really use those stones.
While I have a metric ton of work involved with getting my business off the ground, and could easily spend every waking moment focused on those tasks (not to mention other tasks that come with living), I decided early on that I would, no matter what, spend enough time in my workshop every day to get some process improvement work done, and to sharpen at least one knife. I’ve been following that, and yesterday I committed to time with the ceramics.
I first started with “lapping the stones”. I just rubbed ceramic face against like ceramic face; as I was randomly doing this with the gray (1.4), I noticed something taking place for the first time. The surface of the stone was changing a bit, from something that looked like unglazed ceramic to something that had a polished look, that appeared to be glazed. When I worked on the .6 (white) side, this change was even more prominent. It reminded me of a mortar and pestle I had in junior high I used for chemical compounds: the inside of the mortar was not glazed, it was unfinished. That way, when the user really leaned into grinding something with the pestle, there was no glazing to chip off.
That visual memory really looked like what I was seeing unfold in front of me with the stones.
After the lapping, which took me about 10 minutes, I grabbed a knife that I had just sharpened and was relatively scratch free; if you looked at with a loupe and good light, you could see the scratch pattern; I could not discern those scratches without visual aids.
I first hit the knife with diamonds: 800, then 1000. I skipped 1500, and went to 1.4micron ceramics. I performed a total of 100 strokes, and (a) it felt different while doing those strokes and (b) when I looked at the edge, it was considerably cleaned up. I then moved to white ceramic (.6micron) and did about 100 strokes. Looking at the edge afterwards, it was even cleaner and more scratch free than before.
These two outcomes were extremely different from what I had been seeing: ever since I had them, the ceramics would always leave their own scratch pattern after 1000 diamonds, and they never removed the old scratch pattern. This, then, was huge progress.
I finished the blade off with a nano cloth hone and an extra fine diamond paste. I did about 50 strokes, starting with a moderately light pressure and using progressively less pressure on each stroke until by stroke 35 or so, it felt like I was barely touching the blade with the cloth.
My edge came out quite nice. It looks very shiny, and nearly scratch free. Since I was not attempting to create a true high-polish mirror, but just a good looking working edge, this was a great result. I’m going to be using this progression, I think, for a lot of EDCs and other knives that get used quite a bit.