tl;dr This photo shows how to really detect the microburr. Note two essential aspects:
...and this is for the blade flip side:
The 2 aspects are:
- AAA. you don't shine the light beam onto the apex (i.e. "edge-leading", if you will) but from the kinda opposite direction ("from behind", "edge-trailing"), i.e. the light must be pointing from the spine to the edge!
- BBB. you don't even bother turning the light on and off between your deburring efforts. clearly, don't move the light but leave it where it is, and leave it turned on! This is key. And —believe it or not— it makes a huge difference in the process.
Comments / explanations:
My right
dry thumb can feel macro and micro burr, no matter how small, and it is imho still "the best" way of detecting any burr, especially under poor lighting/eye-sight conditions. Shining a light vertical onto the apex and seeing light reflections bouncing off in direction back to the light source can mean two things: there's a flat spot (you haven't apexed perfectly), or it is macroburr which your light makes visible. Once you don't see such light reflections anymore bouncing back to the light source, then it means two things: you have apexed perfectly and there is no more macroburr on the apex, congrats. However, do the thumb test and or the lighting test "from behind", and you'll be surprised that there is still a noticeable burr (called microburr). If you can't detect it, that's on you (calloused skin, restricted eye sight).
NORTHWEST_KNIFE_GUY
checks for the burr "from behind" all the time. Lighting "from behind" is the only
flashlight way to make the microburr visible: you'll see all of it, every millimeter of it, exactly where the microburr starts, then grows, subsides, ends. With a proper directional light source (optimal: a modern power LED flashlight) pointed from the spine towards the edge line ("edge-trailing") at 150 lumen+ and viewing the edge line at a suitable angle, i can see the light reflections off the microburr with bare eyes, without a magnifying glass or loupe. Holding/handling a loupe in my left hand every time during the repeated microburr checks would only drain my energy
during the process. On a sunny day, dusk sun rays could also be used as optimal lighting source for making microburr visible to the naked eye.
If you
were having major trouble (like myself!) removing the microburr successfully/consistently, then it was exactly
because you didn't check for it more frequently (but simply followed a standard deburring procedure, which you 'learned' from youtube tutorials, and
then did a check).
Not touching the flashlight but leaving it in place and turned on all the time
saves you considerable mental energy and 'efforts' of handling the tool at all (NOTE AGAIN: evening/dusk sun rays could replace the flashlight),
which you in turn will use for
upping the frequency of checking the edge for microburr reduction/removal
progress.
Example scenario: Looking at the right blade face, you detect a spot with a 2mm microburr wire on the apex, you take the knife back to your ULTRAFINE stone and work that spot (typically with edge-leading
very light AND slow strokes AND great feel of the stone's feedback) for a few seconds, then immediately take the knife back to the flashlight place (which lies next to your stone) and recheck that spot for progress, then take the knife back to the stone, work the spot three more seconds, check again, etc, until all microburr looks gone on the right blade face. Now at the latest it is time to look at the left blade face and check for remaining microburr on that side. Then you proceed accordingly, taking the knife back and forth between stone vs flashlight location with "high" frequency.
With more experience, nice touch
AND good feel for the stone's feedback, "high" frequency means maybe checking 2-3 times instead of 5-7 times per blade face. Btw this post is not about deburring techniques but to teach the optimal setup for your microburr deburring efforts. This simple setup
really helps to get better at deburring, do so more successfully, and more consistently.
How/Why? — Because the only major reason why micro-deburring is so difficult (or say, challenging) is NOT your lack of experience, technique, method, patience, or practice, BUT because
we don't see live/in real-time what our deburring efforts has just caused to the edge (burr reduction progress? improvement? opposite? burr flip? fresh burr created?). The frequent and efficient re-checking of the microburr reduction progress makes the successful burr removal process so much more straight-forward!
With my new Degussit ruby stone and new Fenis light, i was successful at my first attempt today!! After all these years it was the first time that i got a knife that scary sharp straight off a stone ever! No stropping needed. A breakthrough moment in my sharpening skill set. Yesterday i was trying for half a day to micro-deburr the knife with all i had in experience/techniques/methods/patience/practice/stones/strops/etc and failed miserably. Before i called it a day, i reset the blade by raising a fresh full microburr wire edge on the right blade face along the entire apex line, with my ULTRAFINE stone. And then went to bed, at a loss.
Today i didn't change anything about my techniques/methods/etc/etc other than adding
BBB to the process. And that started to make all the difference. Unbelievable. My deburring efforts started to become more focused (remember the 2mm spot example?), more precise, and more target-oriented. All of a sudden i was on a straight path to success. I could see the speed of my burr reduction progress, i could see when to stop working that 2mm spot, etc.
Proper lighting and "seeing live" what your deburring efforts are causing in the very moment is the key to success!
We still can't see live in real-time, but
BBB helps a lot to increase our checking frequency (seeing "quasi live", "pseudo live") without imposing additional efforts (like handling a flashlight and or a jeweller's loupe), which in turn helps us see and focus on microburr spots which require further target-oriented work, and you
automatically try to vary your deburring technique (e.g. using even less pressure, even slower strokes, more patiently, becoming more sensitive to the stone's feedback, etc) to get to that target.
See and know what you're doing!, and don't just go about doing the
standard technique of edge-leading balancing strokes, hoping and believing that the microburr will eventually get reduced to zero or automatically break off, the longer you keep doing the balancing strokes.
Sorry for the long repetitive 1882 blah but hopefully i made the point (
BBB) clear and was convincing enough that you believe the anecdote and feel encouraged to give it a serious try too, thanks!
