Mirror progression, again...

Asked about that before in a less specific way

Intent: Get an unbroken superstone 5000 or above finish on blade roads after thinning them flat with a coarse (so OOTB high and low spots are not a big concern)

Steel: It would be nice on stainless single bevels too, but my main concern is good but rust-prone carbon steels, eg vietnamese knives or tosas - they do patinate well when they are smooth, quickly rust when they are not....

Starting situation: Blade road ground down level to zero, no intentional convexing, on chosera 400 and/or generic 200 (for some reason, alternating these seems to make quick work of the deep scratches in vietnamese stuff. assume a couple 400 runs at the end. No diamond plates.)

Problem: Clueless what to do after giving the blade road some 1000 after the 400 ... the 1000 (king) seems to leave far too coarse scratches for the 5000 to take on, however there seem to be no spots where no polishing effect is seen (thus the coarse scratches are likely not in low spots). Going to another polishing stone in between seems to actually make blade road flatness worse (if used with force, the stones dish or load unevenly and you get more of a ... galling/smearing effect).

a generic 3000 in between didn't seem to help, rather cause new problems

Sandpaper is exactly what I am trying to avoid since in the end it seems to make high/low spots worse even if hiding them...

Is getting the whole interval of SS grits in between the right way here ... or a few higher grits of chosera ... or one or two completely different stones?

Get a Chosera 2k, and you may skip the King.

Chosera because hard to dish and doesn't deep scratch? Sounds logical ... what would you recommend for unclogging it though? could this be cleaned against the 400 or would that cause terrible grit contamination (which would be catastrophic in that scenario)?

I now clean with an Atoma, but before I did with the little 600 stone Naniwa used to deliver with the Chosera. I wouldn't know why you couldn't do it with the 400, provided it is flat. Rinse abundantly and no contamination is to be feared.

I believe in the chosera advice.. I go from my chosera 1k to a natural (don't remember it's name but it's pretty fine and a little soft) when I finish my kiridashi bevels (monosteel), maybe not mirror, but pretty nice to the eye imo.

Benuser said:

I now clean with an Atoma, but before I did with the little 600 stone Naniwa used to deliver with the Chosera. I wouldn't know why you couldn't do it with the 400, provided it is flat. Rinse abundantly and no contamination is to be feared.

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Just verified on a dirty 2k: works very fast, within a few strokes the stone is clean again.

Stu Tierney of Tools From Japan wrote a blog entry a few years ago testing various 1k stones and finishing with a 5k SS. The vitrified stones seem to polish very well—maybe try a Rika after the King, if you have one?

Got the NP 2000 ... wow, softer than expected and ... fast!

Lesson learned today, though: Changing sharpening basin water and sponge before going to the polishing grit is NOT optional. a few mins on the 2000 seem enough to turn 5 liters of water into liquid grid contamination ....

LifeByA1000Cuts said:

Got the NP 2000 ... wow, softer than expected and ... fast!

Lesson learned today, though: Changing sharpening basin water and sponge before going to the polishing grit is NOT optional. a few mins on the 2000 seem enough to turn 5 liters of water into liquid grid contamination ....

Click to expand...

Do not soak the stone! Wet one side, wait a few minutes and start.

Didn't soak it. Just used water from the basin to wet, flatten the finisher, and rinse the blade... using clean water did get notably better results...

Still, the Pro/Chosera 2K seems to be one with its own learning curve too .. the burr you get when using it for main sharpening seems VERY subtle compared to what I normally used (1k king or 3k wusthof hard ceramic)

End of story: that gets the blade road even enough to give partially iridescent patina (different color scheme north and south of the hasakai, which patinizes very dark for ~2mm. 6 pack of sour apples diced did most of the work... ) instead of rust effects - hard to photograph these effects though, otherwise I would... Next overhaul when feeling like doing major work on that knife, though: restore a bit of convexity to the right side and repolish, seemed to work. If you wonder why so much work on a $50 vietnamese: what reaches the market stalls here seems to be getting and better, this one actually has an S grind in the blade flat - just the secondary bevel finishes (looks like somebody had at it with a coarse diamond stone) are not exactly optimal ...