Sharp Talk: Honest Musings and Mad Ramblings

Much of this is personal taste. I don't care how much effort is required to sharpen a good knife all the way to microtome level. What I do care about is that it hold that edge forever.

I like Maxamet, K390, S90V, CPM M-4 etc. Hard to sharpen? well...yes. At least until you gain some experience with these steels.

I've never run into anything that I couldn't cut cleanly and precisely with an edge polished to .25 microns.

There is no right or wrong, it's personal preference. A very dear friend uses a Buck 110 for a hunting knife and he's happy with it. He doesn't mind having to sharpen it in the field during a hunt.

I, OTOH, would sell off any knife that wasn't capable of field dressing 3 or 4 elk or moose without sharpening.

Yessir. There is no doubt that steel preferences are a highly personal and subjective thing. One doesn't have to look far at all to find all manner of discussion, debate, and argument over the very topic.

Sal Glesser says, "Not better, just different." And I very much subscribe to that theory. Different steels have their places and excel at different scenarios and tasks and personal preferences. What one likes does not invalidate what another likes. I believe there is room for intelligent discussion around certain steels for certain roles, grinds, etc. and that is all educational. It is a fine time to be a knife nut for sure.

Thank you for joining the thread!
 
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"The Proud Smirk..."

As I mentioned, I've been sharpening up my Son In Law's butchering knives. He is leaving for a Wyoming elk hunting trip tomorrow and his partners are counting on him to bring the cutting tools. Now, if you've never done it, sharpening knives for other people can be very nerve wracking! I know that my SIL and those in his group aren't exactly knife guys and I know they aren't real good about maintaining edges, but still, if they drop animals, these knives will get put to the test and man, you want to do the best you possibly can. Edges for others just seem waaaay more important than your own.

I had some struggles and revisited a couple of the blades. But in the end, all of them could push-cut receipt paper and even those big ole bellies on those cimeters could cut an "S".

I also took an old leather belt and put some compound on it for him. We've gone over stropping and steeling before so he gets it.

Anyway, I demo'd some of the blades on receipts and he was obviously impressed. And off he went. Later, I text my daughter and told her to ask my SIL if his knives were sharp. She responded that as soon as he got home he made her feel the edges on every single blade and that he was carrying on about how he couldn't wait to show them off in camp.

Couldn't help but get a bit of a proud smirk. ;)
 
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I wonder just how many knife owners are knife sharpeners? I mean even those "V" shaped drag sharpeners, just anything that puts some semblance of an edge on a knife? Three percent? Less?

Considering every person in the world over the age of 12 is likely to be a knife user, you might be pretty close with that 3% but who knows? Now if you were to ask that question here I'm sure it'd be WAY higher. Maybe you should do a poll.

Edit: created a poll in MT&E, check it out and vote!
 
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Stropping...

I know this can be a controversial subject. Right up front, I'm a stropper. But as I've said in this thread, I am by no means an expert. I long ago learned what I believe are the benefits of stropping for burr removal. But, I've also been a longtime fan of periodic stropping for edge maintenance. To the extent that I've almost eliminated the use or a steel for my kitchen knives in favor of once-in-awhile stropping.

For the bulk of my knife steels, CrO and bare leather are sufficient. I know the CrO is doing some amount of material removal and therefore might be considered sharpening vs. pure stropping.

Anyway, in a recent post here on BF, Jason B. Jason B. and @DeadboxHero made the below statements regarding stropping:

Stropping is a final step, not an edge maintenance tool. Opinions may vary...

Couldn't agree more, stones "create" strops "enhance"

And man if that didn't make me spin off into a stropping conundrum... These are very knowledgeable and respected sharpeners and I pay attention when they talk.

But I love stropping for edge maintenance???!!! I know the argument about creating a weak edge. I've never really bought into that with the "low alloy" steels and gritty compounds. Perhaps I'm wrong?

For the past couple days I've been looking at my EDC blade and various kitchen knives under my loupe...Is there a burr there? Am I creating a wire edge when I strop? Is that light reflecting... Gggrrrr...

I'm not sure. One blade might say yes, then another no. But since they are in various states of use, it's a pointless comparison.

That said, and my real point, is that it made me think and reevaluate what I've been doing for so long. I will now be watching closely and deciding how I feel about what I experience and if I should make changes.

Never stop learning!
 
There's not much you can do to actually see what is going on at the microscopic level of an apex without an electron microscope. Wire edge or "fin" can sometimes be undetectable otherwise. The best thing other than that is to just see how the edge holds up. If the edge starts to fail early, you probably have a burr or wire edge and need to either figure out how to remove it or hit the hone again. Other than that, IMO frequent stropping is fine for edge maintenance - just need to go back to the stone periodically and get rid of the edge rounding after a while. And it needs to be frequent because stropping doesn't remove much steel - so you need to keep the edge sharp, not try to resharpen it with a strop.

Usually for me, edge damage occurs before it ever gets to that point. I hit something hard or similar and get some flattening of the edge etc. so back to the hone for a few swipes to remove it.
 
There's not much you can do to actually see what is going on at the microscopic level of an apex without an electron microscope. Wire edge or "fin" can sometimes be undetectable otherwise. The best thing other than that is to just see how the edge holds up. If the edge starts to fail early, you probably have a burr or wire edge and need to either figure out how to remove it or hit the hone again. Other than that, IMO frequent stropping is fine for edge maintenance - just need to go back to the stone periodically and get rid of the edge rounding after a while. And it needs to be frequent because stropping doesn't remove much steel - so you need to keep the edge sharp, not try to resharpen it with a strop.

Usually for me, edge damage occurs before it ever gets to that point. I hit something hard or similar and get some flattening of the edge etc. so back to the hone for a few swipes to remove it.

This has essentially been my experience. But I do enjoy challenging my notions.
 
R RipD and Eli Chaps Eli Chaps

As @DeadboxHero said, stones create and strops enhance.

It is my opinion that far too much faith is put into stropping. For example: How do you maintain a convex blade such as a Bark River? Common response: strop it. The problem with that answer is it is very incomplete and will end with the user being confused when he can't get his blade sharp anymore. Stropping has become the lazy answer to edge maintenance and this "all ya gotta do" answer has gotten in the way of proper edge maintenance techniques.

The strop will only enhance what is already there so, when you use a knife and the edge wears there is not the same amount of steel or refined edge apex like it originally enhanced. Simply put, you are using a strop on a dull edge.

Now, I am not saying that using a strop once or twice won't work but after that you are simply rounding a dull edge with a very fine abrasive. A strop will slightly extend the life of an edge but you must remember to refresh that edge on a stone from time to time... and if you want to use a fine stone it should be done more often.
 
And man if that didn't make me spin off into a stropping conundrum... These are very knowledgeable and respected sharpeners and I pay attention when they talk.
Personally having done edge trailing experiments on a wide variety of materials I will say with 100% confidence (and stand behind these words)...it depends.

The harder the strop the less the edge rounds.
In use, the edge creates a "wear bevel" (see: http://www3.telus.net/BrentBeach/Sharpen/bevels.html
"The bad bevels, the wear bevels, are produced during use.")

You can create very flat edge bevels using hardwood and loose grit abrasive, right up to rounding your edge over on softer abrasives. It is possible to sharpen knives from butterknife-dull to very sharp in this fashion and was/is used in places where quality stone deposits are non-existent but the abrasive is readily available.

All "stropping" is on a continuum defined by how mobile the abrasive is and how hard the backing is. Along the way are characteristics of how well the surface holds the abrasive and how much it loads up with removed steel - swarf. I have maintained hard use edges on "strops" for extended periods and when returned to a stone the bevel showed very little rounding to be corrected.

It depends.
 
This is a great discussion. And I have no dog in this fight - I'm neither pro nor anti-strop. I was able to strop an easy sharpening steel back to paper cutting after cutting rope 10mm rope 60 times. Over and over. I'm sure if I had been cutting wood a strop could not bring it back. And I suspect this works less well as you move up the ladder to more durable steels. But don't know - haven't tried yet. I'm using a balsa or basswood strop on a fixed angle machine. Softer steel, fixed angle, harder strop.
 
Personally having done edge trailing experiments on a wide variety of materials I will say with 100% confidence (and stand behind these words)...it depends.

The harder the strop the less the edge rounds.
In use, the edge creates a "wear bevel" (see: http://www3.telus.net/BrentBeach/Sharpen/bevels.html
"The bad bevels, the wear bevels, are produced during use.")

You can create very flat edge bevels using hardwood and loose grit abrasive, right up to rounding your edge over on softer abrasives. It is possible to sharpen knives from butterknife-dull to very sharp in this fashion and was/is used in places where quality stone deposits are non-existent but the abrasive is readily available.

All "stropping" is on a continuum defined by how mobile the abrasive is and how hard the backing is. Along the way are characteristics of how well the surface holds the abrasive and how much it loads up with removed steel - swarf. I have maintained hard use edges on "strops" for extended periods and when returned to a stone the bevel showed very little rounding to be corrected.

It depends.

That was a cool website. Thank you sir!
 
Some people use a knife a little bit and go strop it at the end of the day. I like to sharpen the knife and go for a while. This way I can tell some differences between different knives and their steels and finishes in my use and my sharpening job. So, when it's time to sharpen, a strop is not going to help me at this point. I will need to remove some of the weakened metal and then I use a strop to end the battle with burr.
Spyderco stones just flop the burr from one side to the other, or they raise new one really fast, not sure, doing edge leading strokes. The more I started to visually inspect the edge the more I see this happening. The burr is small and the edge is very usable and very sharp. It shaves hair really well and you can go cut things with a lot of success and for a long time with the nowadays supersteels. You can almost not even concern yourself at this point. I feel like most people are well off if they get to this point. When it gets dull they swipe their vg10 on sharpmaker, it cuts paper and they are happy.
I only have a 1 micron diamond strop (maybe I need more aggressive one...) and I can see it doesn't remove the little burr. I can still see it using a flashlight. I have to carefully get rid of it on the stones first, I got Spyderco (it's just what I have, I probably need to get more fine diamonds grits in the future). I use edge leading and feel the edge at this point by raising a bit, and then.... I enhance it with the strop. The edge is crisp.

Maybe having more aggressive strops is what I need, don't know. That's adding more stuff and my sharpening kit is minimalistic. I do have wet stone 300/1000 and will try removing burr using trailing strokes on it when I sharpen softer steels for my outdoor use. Like I said my sharpening kit is really minimal and I moved to holding everything in hand. This way I can touch things up on the fly anywhere.
I'm sick right now so have more time to type on my phone.
What does a knife guy do when he is sick? Sharpened this sebenza yesterday. I don't usually do mirror finishes, but it's good fun and I do like to push cut. Looks Instagram ready to me.
https://imgur.com/a/VPWjrsr
^The angle is pretty low here, the thumbstud is almost touching the stone. That's my hard use slicer right there! I'm proud owner :).
 
Sergeua Sergeua
I have gotten a hair-whittling burr edge using Spyderco ceramics, the only media I was able to do that with using stainless steels.

I used to intentionally leave a small burr on one side and remove on a hard strop, but eventually just got better at removing by hard stone.
 
Sergeua Sergeua
I have gotten a hair-whittling burr edge using Spyderco ceramics, the only media I was able to do that with using stainless steels.

I used to intentionally leave a small burr on one side and remove on a hard strop, but eventually just got better at removing by hard stone.
Is Spyderco an example of a hard stone? What do you mean by hard stone?

Been reading this recently posted by @wootzblade
http://knifegrinders.com.au/Manuals/Knife_Deburring.pdf

Observed two things from the article that happened with my recent sebenza sharpening.

Quote from article
"Edge-leading deburring is usually followed by edge-trailing stropping; high-angle stropping is recommended for softer steels. However, in common knife applications edge-leading sharpening is
considered satisfactory even without stropping, since the controlled burr is acceptable due to its
small size."

Above tells me that your average sharpmaker user is fine without boggling his mind too much about intricacies. As long as the edge is nice and straight and burr is small it's "satisfactory" and will keep cutting.
Anyway, after my fresh sebenza sharpening (minimized burr with edge leading on stone and stropped very lightly after) I cut up a bunch of thick cardboard and the knife was still shaving. I like how this CRK keeps it's shaving edge in my experience.
Then I stropped the crap out of it. Usually I like my edges to bite well and don't abuse the strop, but the sebenza was already polished so I didn't mind. It got sharp, really close to hair whittling, but not there.
I lost the edge immediately after frantically shaving a small bamboo stick like this one...
3.0mm-bamboo-skewer.jpg

I was in disbelief. The edge didn't reflect any noticable light back (I have good eyes), it wouldn't shave and I had hard time shaving/ thinning out a hard toothpick (something I like to do).
Another quote from the article that I believe offers explanation.
"Why recognising the different types of burrs is so important? - because honing the positive burr at
the edge angle shapes it into a wire edge that wouldn't last"
*The s35vn on sebbie falls under the positive burr column in the article.
 
Is Spyderco an example of a hard stone? What do you mean by hard stone?

Hard stone is any vitreous, ceramic, plated or hard natural stone - stuff that won't make any mud or at best a very thin slurry that isn't enough to have any lapping effect.

I read the article but really have no comment. All grinding on fixed abrasive makes a burr, edge trailing will be somewhat more pronounced, but leading also creates one. How it is best removed does depend on type of steel and more important is the RC value.
What you are using in terms of stone type has an effect, but mostly in terms of ease and speed.
Is not a good idea to depend on strop or other conformable trailing motion for burr removal. Even when using a belt sharpener, I remove burr with a slow leading pass, then refine on a stone.
Sharpening by hand I will use a few trailing passes off the stone, but all depends- on waterstones I might only strop on plain paper and that mostly as QC.
 
Your Natural Angle...

Hello Sharpeners,

When free handing, do you find you have a natural sharpening angle? I seem to. I'm an advocate for marking bevels and I've always been diligent about it especially on new knives, but I'm finding that regardless of the factory angle, I settle into a natural sharpening angle. It's around 15dps and I realize that I basically just make my knives conform. I might start off trying to follow the factory bevel but as I go I alter it into my own natural angle. It sometimes takes a few sessions before it all sorts out but any more, with a knife I've sharpened at least once before, I find I don't really need to mark bevels.

I just do what feels natural. Yeah, you can sometimes feel the edge or sometimes see a gap but many of the knives I sharpen start out with pretty thin bevels so that really isn't happening on those. I just work the blade to what works for me.

How about you folks?
 
I can be working on S90V and feel like I'm going nowhere and I swear ZDP-189 has outwardly mocked me.
I feel better after reading this. I got the Endura in ZDP-189 about 10 days ago and have been working on a Sharpmaker 15° microbevel on a reprofiled 13-14° primary bevel. Though the edge destroyed cardboard, it hung up on paper. I'm new to sharpening but have an American Lawman CTS-XHP that I luckily sharpened to a 'no-resistance slight whisper' edge when it meets paper. That is, the paper parts with the murmur of a compartment door on the Starship Enterprise, and the blade has become my standard for sharp. My OCD has led to many efforts with the Endura, most recently with frenzied up and down strokes on the Spyderco ultra-fine rods, 100's per side. This followed by stropping on leather with chromium oxide green compound has finally (mostly) eliminated paper snag. There is discussion of the polishing process on the Rockstead website under "making". Eli, I too am humbled.
 
I feel better after reading this. I got the Endura in ZDP-189 about 10 days ago and have been working on a Sharpmaker 15° microbevel on a reprofiled 13-14° primary bevel. Though the edge destroyed cardboard, it hung up on paper. I'm new to sharpening but have an American Lawman CTS-XHP that I luckily sharpened to a 'no-resistance slight whisper' edge when it meets paper. That is, the paper parts with the murmur of a compartment door on the Starship Enterprise, and the blade has become my standard for sharp. My OCD has led to many efforts with the Endura, most recently with frenzied up and down strokes on the Spyderco ultra-fine rods, 100's per side. This followed by stropping on leather with chromium oxide green compound has finally (mostly) eliminated paper snag. There is discussion of the polishing process on the Rockstead website under "making". Eli, I too am humbled.

Sometimes, the best thing we can do is walk away. It is easy to let frustration creep in and next thing you know, you're forcing things and that is when screw ups happen then the cycle just spirals.

Me and ZDP-189 still aren't close buddies. :mad::D
 
Hello Sharpeners,

A simple question, do you find sharpening relaxing? Or perhaps, de-stressing is more appropriate.
 
Eli Chaps Eli Chaps

I also find my hand naturally forms slightly lower than 15 dps. It works for me. Can change to lower, but it requires more conscious effort.

I love my ZDP. On DMT EEF with very very light pressure.

And yes, I find sharpening therapeutic, the combination of focus & relaxed attention is akin to meditation. ;)

B BruceMack
The CS XHP is nice. I have done my Broken Skull and like it better than Endura VG10. ZDP is also great, but the CS XHP is more economical to use. Haven’t really used my ZDP for a while.

Check the ZDP Love Affair thread over Spyderco factory forum. Lots of good info I learned from.
 
Eli Chaps Eli Chaps

I also find my hand naturally forms slightly lower than 15 dps. It works for me. Can change to lower, but it requires more conscious effort.

I love my ZDP. On DMT EEF with very very light pressure.

And yes, I find sharpening therapeutic, the combination of focus & relaxed attention is akin to meditation. ;)

B BruceMack
The CS XHP is nice. I have done my Broken Skull and like it better than Endura VG10. ZDP is also great, but the CS XHP is more economical to use. Haven’t really used my ZDP for a while.

Check the ZDP Love Affair thread over Spyderco factory forum. Lots of good info I learned from.

I surely haven't abandoned ZDP189. I've just yet to concur it. I've let that knife sit for a while and should get back to it before too much longer. I'll get it! :)
 
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