Burr is kicking my butt

I get a definate improvement from Spyderco fine to UF. It goes from tree topping and whittling some hair to whittling hair easily, peeling off multiple long, thin curls from the hair. There is no burr, either. I try very hard to avoid ever creating a burr by doing light, alternating strokes, and removing any burr I do create before moving on to the next stone as Jeff Clark described.

Mike
 
gunmike1 said:
I get a definate improvement from Spyderco fine to UF. It goes from tree topping and whittling some hair to whittling hair easily, peeling off multiple long, thin curls from the hair. There is no burr, either. I try very hard to avoid ever creating a burr by doing light, alternating strokes, and removing any burr I do create before moving on to the next stone as Jeff Clark described.

Mike
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Can you post video on YouTube?

Thanks, Vassili.
 
hardheart I understand what your saying about removing a burr with the stropping compound. So i'd rather do it the same way I did today by just moving up to the next angle on the sharpmaker. To remove the burr. I do know that this is said to increase the sharpness so I went ahead and got one today. I found out theres a woodcraft store that vassilli suggested here about 30 minutes from my house. So i went and got a few things,
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The strop with the handle which is two sided.
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And angle measure,
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so since I got the strop now I have a question. I sharpened the knife at 15 degrees, but then I put a 20 degree micro bevel on it. So do I strop at 20 degrees???
thanks for all the help and advice guys
 
By email I got a question from Realitycheck about the utility of intentionally creating a burr. I thought I'd copy my response into the thread here:

You asked about honing on alternate sides verses working one side at a time to intentionally create a burr.

One of the best ways to get rid of a burr is obviously to avoid creating it in the first place. Well then why do people suggest intentionally creating a burr as a first step? They make the recommendation because most idiots underestimate how long it takes to get a sharp edge. They make a few dozen swipes at an edge and regardless of how dull the blade started out they expect it to get sharp in 30 seconds. So to counteract that problem well intentioned sharpening advisers try and make people hone until they get a burr as a way to see that you have removed enough material.

Actually creating a burr is an indication that you have removed excess material. That is what a burr IS, the remnants of excess material from honing too far. So the advice to create a burr is trading the problem of honing too little for the problem of honing too much. It adds a whole extra problem of creating an unusually large burr.

With a Sharpmaker you usually don't create a significant burr if you hone alternate sides. As long as you can do a reasonable job of figuring out when your blade is sharp you need never raise a significant burr. The best thing you can do is to debur as you go along. A burr is not only a problem, it also tends to create problems. When you try and remove a burr it is easy to tear your edge off. I suggest gentle methods as you go along to safely remove the burr while protecting the integrity of your edge.

Hope this helps, Jeff Clark
 
realitycheck said:
hardheart I understand what your saying about removing a burr with the stropping compound. So i'd rather do it the same way I did today by just moving up to the next angle on the sharpmaker. To remove the burr. I do know that this is said to increase the sharpness so I went ahead and got one today. I found out theres a woodcraft store that vassilli suggested here about 30 minutes from my house. So i went and got a few things,
.......

so since I got the strop now I have a question. I sharpened the knife at 15 degrees, but then I put a 20 degree micro bevel on it. So do I strop at 20 degrees??? thanks for all the help and advice guys
Click to expand...

Reality,
You don;t necessarily strop at 20 degrees (which is your finished edge) but you do need to strop the 20 degree edge. Does that make sense? In other words, the final edge, 20 degree micro-bevel, is the edge you most want to polish with the strop, BUT, you may have to strop at slightly less of an angle to achieve that without rounding the edge. Light strokes will do it - trying to hurry the process along with heavier strokes will do something else - something you don;t want.

In my opinion, using the rough side of the strop will be less effective than using the smooth side. Each of the leather fibers that are protuding from the leather base holds compound and each will have a non-uniform effect on your edge. Some guys probably use the rough side effectively, I don;t - I use the smooth.
 
I have burr on sharpmaker as well - it is not result of one side sharpening but also result of edge leading move and nature of burr is more complicated then just over-sharpening.

I am relatively novice in sharpening, I do sharpen until I see burr - as I stated several times before. To me this is standard procedure which always give in result pretty good edge. And I not giving recommendation to idiots - I just tell how I get my results.

I can understand that same can be done different way, but like to see proves - same I provided.

Thanks, Vassili.
 
Vassili,
With all due respect for your sharpening skills - it is obvious that you well beyond the "novice" stage - this is the third or maybe forth time I've seen you ask for "proof" of someone's claim. Not everyone has a video camera or the skill or time required to go "posting" videos of their edge theatrics. You're always willing to offer advice and help people "hone" their skills.... why is everything else a challenge?

If Gunmike says he can whittle hair with one or more of his knives, I believe him. You should believe him too because, since you know you can do it, you should know that others can too. Demanding "proof" everytime someone says they have achieved a super-fine edge is akin to saying "I don;t believe it unless you prove it".

When someone does that to me, I almost always think to myself "I don;t have to prove it to you or anyone else. I am the only one I must prove it to".

Belief is irrelevant to the truth.
 
StretchNM said:
Vassili,
With all due respect for your sharpening skills - it is obvious that you well beyond the "novice" stage - this is the third or maybe forth time I've seen you ask for "proof" of someone's claim. Not everyone has a video camera or the skill or time required to go "posting" videos of their edge theatrics. You're always willing to offer advice and help people "hone" their skills.... why is everything else a challenge?

If Gunmike says he can whittle hair with one or more of his knives, I believe him. You should believe him too because, since you know you can do it, you should know that others can too. Demanding "proof" everytime someone says they have achieved a super-fine edge is akin to saying "I don;t believe it unless you prove it".

When someone does that to me, I almost always think to myself "I don;t have to prove it to you or anyone else. I am the only one I must prove it to".

Belief is irrelevant to the truth.
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When I ask Gunmike to post video, I did no ask for prove of his word that he whittle hair. I like to see how he does it with ceramic (those light, alternating strokes) - because I can not.

Jeff however sad that sharpening until burr happen is for idiots. As I sad this is how I am doing it. I do not know why he use this language. But if so let him explain what does this non idiots can do better then me. So far he did not even sad that he able to whittle hair.

Thanks, Vassili.
 
No, Vassili, you misunderstood Jeff. He didn't say that raising a burr is for idiots, but that it is given as advise to idiots that think that it is possible to sharpen a knife in 30 sec. regardless of the condition of the edge. That is a big difference. Whenever I am in doubt about the condition of the edge, e.g. whenever I re-bevel something and am not just maintaining an existing edge geometry, I raise a burr, just to be on the safe side. But I try to keep it as small as possible, because otherwise I have to fight it later.

There is I think also a second aspect to it. You are always polishing your edge to a very high polish. Since you go through several steps and different, fairly closely graded grits on fairly soft backing (soft in comparison to ceramic) burr is not much of a problem. But if you try and get a shaving edge on something like 220-1000 grit, burr is a very important issue, because you are trying to get a shaving edge in one or two steps without the possibility of gradually reducing the burr in subsequent steps.
 
too many of us here have way to much time on our hands. i believe with all my heart, producing a burr is good; no wait, evil, no--- good,maybe sometimes good, or could just be plain wrong, i dont know, im going to start my new hobbie now, its called not being mentally ill anymore. i think. i just hope its good.
 
Having too much time on our hands and posting replies in attempt to help someone is vastly different to having too much time on our hands and making posts that, in addition to not making sense, help no one.
 
HoB said:
No, Vassili, you misunderstood Jeff. He didn't say that raising a burr is for idiots, but that it is given as advise to idiots that think that it is possible to sharpen a knife in 30 sec. regardless of the condition of the edge. That is a big difference. Whenever I am in doubt about the condition of the edge, e.g. whenever I re-bevel something and am not just maintaining an existing edge geometry, I raise a burr, just to be on the safe side. But I try to keep it as small as possible, because otherwise I have to fight it later.

There is I think also a second aspect to it. You are always polishing your edge to a very high polish. Since you go through several steps and different, fairly closely graded grits on fairly soft backing (soft in comparison to ceramic) burr is not much of a problem. But if you try and get a shaving edge on something like 220-1000 grit, burr is a very important issue, because you are trying to get a shaving edge in one or two steps without the possibility of gradually reducing the burr in subsequent steps.
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My standard procedure DMT Coarse 325 mesh then DMT Extra Fine 1200 mesh and then Green Rouge - three step, to get whittling hair edge. And there is no burr produced at last step at all. I think that it if hard to remove burr with thing which produced it - at least I can not with acceptable consistancy (I should note - I measured sharpness with thread, not just shave my arm), so this is why I think leather+Green Rouge is nessesary.

BTW about "idiots" - 30 passes or something like this is what was recommended on Sharpmaker instructions (actually 20 for each side).

Thanks, Vassili.
 
Jeff said no matter how dull the edge is, that is a big key to the statement. Why do you think people argue with you about some steels being hard to sharpen? They are using slow cutting abrasives on highly wear resistant steel. More time on the stone, more strokes on the stone, greater chance to perform strokes at bad angles to set back your work, damage the finish, round the tip, harder to sharpen for them. Sharpening with diamond does simplify things somewhat. Naturally, more wear resistant steels take more strokes, but diamond cuts very fast and stays flat.

How many people can name half a dozen different types of abrasives used to sharpen, half a dozen brands, or half a dozen grits that they use? Some people are simply ignorant of these things, which is no big deal since we are more like obsessed hobbyists :D, but others could be construed as idiots if they are somewhat aware of the factors but still refuse to evaluate their techniques and results with them in mind.

As to the burr, I try to form it once when resetting an edge. After that, I avoid it as best I can, which gets easier as the grit get finer. But when formed, I remove it with the same grit, which is fun at 60 or 120 grit ;)
 
I understand what jeff is saying though. I have on my past two reprofile jobs whiched sides while reprofiling the edge. Now that I know that its ok I will keep doing it. But my mistake was I was still trying to get a burr along the whole length of the blade. Because just as jeff said, I had read over and over if you didn't your wasting your time. Now i know that I can just keep sharpening side to side until the edge is reprofiled to the angle I want it at by using the sharpie technique, and is sharp. Then move on to the next grit. I sure do love this hobby, and man its addicting.
 
hardheart said:
As to the burr, I try to form it once when resetting an edge. After that, I avoid it as best I can, which gets easier as the grit get finer. But when formed, I remove it with the same grit, which is fun at 60 or 120 grit ;)
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My technique exactly, there. When rebevelling I'll give in to it, otherwise I try to avoid it like the plague. I find that is easiest done with a microbevel, and can be much more challenging on a full, wide bevel.


Visilly, when I get the time and figure out how to get a picture that visibly shows the hair whittling I will do it and figure out how to post on You Tube. With the ceramics I get my best results only honing a microbevel onto an already sharp edge (usually from a DMT fine stone). I prop my stones up to my desired angle (12-15 per side usually, on a 10 or less per side main bevel), then go slowly and lightly with alternating strokes until I notice that the blade is getting very sharp for the grit, and I check under a lighted Radioshack microscope for burrs. The last 2 knives that I have sharpened to high levels of sharpness (for me) on the ceramics were my Krein in CPM M4 and my Endura ZDP. Oddly, a VG-10 R2 that I sharpened after the Endura ZDP wasn't getting as sharp, but I attribute that to getting tired and lazy. Anyway, with a Spyderco medium finish they were tree topping, and probably cutting free hanging hair but I didn't check. At Spyderco fine (after only 5-8 strokes per side at each grit, by the way on the fresh microbevels) they were really tree topping nice and whittling some hair, but the hair would usually skip some across the edge before it would catch and whittle the hair, and sometimes it wouldn't catch. At UF the knives were easily whittling the hairs and peeling off curls. This is my wife's hair, which is thinner than mine, and like most results it may or may not be as hard to whittle as anyone else's hair. Anyway, usually I have to use 1 micron lapping film to get that sharp after going to 8000 grit Glasstones, but I guess I'm getting a bit better with the ceramics. In the past I had trouble with high hardness steels burring on the ceramics, with better luck coming from Shapton Glasstones. Being lazy, whenever I can get acceptable results without having to use water or flatten stones I will go with the ceramics.

I recently got a Sony camcorder, so I will try my best to figure out how to get it to focus in good on the hair whittling. I am guessing I will need to manually focus that for some sort of macro setting, though I have no clue how to do that yet. And sorry for the late response, I was sending my earlier replies from Monterey on an iPhone and was busy looking at various fish and Monarch Butterflies in Pacific Grove (and also dreaming of my Mule Team knife and soon to be delivered Bester 500 grit stone to maintain my masculinity).

Mike
 
gunmike1 said:
My technique exactly, there. When rebevelling I'll give in to it, otherwise I try to avoid it like the plague. I find that is easiest done with a microbevel, and can be much more challenging on a full, wide bevel.


Visilly, when I get the time and figure out how to get a picture that visibly shows the hair whittling I will do it and figure out how to post on You Tube. With the ceramics I get my best results only honing a microbevel onto an already sharp edge (usually from a DMT fine stone). I prop my stones up to my desired angle (12-15 per side usually, on a 10 or less per side main bevel), then go slowly and lightly with alternating strokes until I notice that the blade is getting very sharp for the grit, and I check under a lighted Radioshack microscope for burrs. The last 2 knives that I have sharpened to high levels of sharpness (for me) on the ceramics were my Krein in CPM M4 and my Endura ZDP. Oddly, a VG-10 R2 that I sharpened after the Endura ZDP wasn't getting as sharp, but I attribute that to getting tired and lazy. Anyway, with a Spyderco medium finish they were tree topping, and probably cutting free hanging hair but I didn't check. At Spyderco fine (after only 5-8 strokes per side at each grit, by the way on the fresh microbevels) they were really tree topping nice and whittling some hair, but the hair would usually skip some across the edge before it would catch and whittle the hair, and sometimes it wouldn't catch. At UF the knives were easily whittling the hairs and peeling off curls. This is my wife's hair, which is thinner than mine, and like most results it may or may not be as hard to whittle as anyone else's hair. Anyway, usually I have to use 1 micron lapping film to get that sharp after going to 8000 grit Glasstones, but I guess I'm getting a bit better with the ceramics. In the past I had trouble with high hardness steels burring on the ceramics, with better luck coming from Shapton Glasstones. Being lazy, whenever I can get acceptable results without having to use water or flatten stones I will go with the ceramics.

I recently got a Sony camcorder, so I will try my best to figure out how to get it to focus in good on the hair whittling. I am guessing I will need to manually focus that for some sort of macro setting, though I have no clue how to do that yet. And sorry for the late response, I was sending my earlier replies from Monterey on an iPhone and was busy looking at various fish and Monarch Butterflies in Pacific Grove (and also dreaming of my Mule Team knife and soon to be delivered Bester 500 grit stone to maintain my masculinity).

Mike
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Interesting! So this mean that Spyderco fine ceramic works as 1 micron lapping film... While as I remember it was considered as 3 micron effective abrasive size. As I understand Medium, fine and ultra-fine is all same ceramic needles but packed with different density - for alternating strokes it works different somehow.

Again I am not really interested too much in whittling hair but in that slow and light altering strokes and ceramic setup. This kind of thing better see in action then reed about.

Thanks, Vassili.
 
actually, I think the fine is about 7 micron equivalent, the UF is about 3, similar to 4000 waterstone by the estimates of some. The medium is around 12.

This is what I've seen written by others, I don't have anything to look at finishes at that sort of magnification.
 
hardheart said:
actually, I think the fine is about 7 micron equivalent, the UF is about 3, similar to 4000 waterstone by the estimates of some. The medium is around 12.

This is what I've seen written by others, I don't have anything to look at finishes at that sort of magnification.
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I've heard the same estimates, and they seem fair. Vasilli, I was saying the results were similar for what I used to need 1 micron lapping film to get (much finer abrasive IMO), not really that the Spyderco UF is similar to 1 micron lapping film in particle size. Basically I was just saying that with a coarser grit I was getting similar sharpness to what I previously attained with the lapping film. Again, I will try to set up the camera and show some sharpening, but it is pretty mundane stuff, just light, edge-into strokes from heel to tip with the blade into a propped up benchstone. I use light pressure, and alternate. On fresh microbevels the sharpening is almost immediate, it only takes a few strokes per side to get maximum sharpness at each grit. I think that is the key to minimizing any burr build up with the ceramics like I used to get with ZDP in particular. I recently had a similar burring issue with all hard M2, but I was having a bad day at the hones that day. I'll have to find a day where I am well rested and can try various knives in different steels again to see how I do with the ceramics on them. I used to swear by the ceramics, then the Glasstones when I got burring on the ceramics with ZDP, but now I seem to be swinging back to the ceramics for most everything but my Super Blue Takeda Gyuto. I think the bottom line is to use the minimum pressure required to cut the steel while not forming a burr, which as you noted Vasilli is a strength of diamonds, though my Spyderco ceramics have left me with better finishes than my EF DMT, which I must admit I didn't spend much time on before giving up on due to clogging and beter results with the Spyderco ceramics (I hear a drop of soap and some water helps the clogging).

Mike
 
Good advice about cutting into a stone at 90 degrees and starting over. When a burr is just flopping back and forth, the edge steel is fatigued and weak. It needs to be removed and a new edge put on.

One important thing is to use a clean stone/abrasive when sharpening. Loaded up grit will not grind effectively and tend to burnish rather than grind, forming a burr all over again.

Avoiding a burr to begin with is a smart move, but difficult to do without some sharpening experience.

I'm pretty sure ol' Cliff advised these very techniques under these circumstances.
 
As Sal explained - there is no abrasive particles in their ceramic. It has kind of needle packed with different density, so we may only talk about effective abrasive size - to abrasive size which makes same effect. So in you case with alternate move it makes same effect as 1 micron lapping film as well as in regular move it makes effect as an 7 microns abrasive (thanks hardheart I remember now). This is what I was talking.

Thanks, Vassili.
 
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