How sharp is sharp enough?

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Slightly off topic, but also on......how far do people take their Xerxes Primus?
 
I go up to 12K. The Primus gets an incredible sharpness, love the knife!

Mack.
 
Nemo said:
Please don't start the Bogdan wars again! 🤐
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Wasn't my intention. Only wanted to say, that with any angle-controlled system you can finish with a finer stone. At least that ist the experience I made and it works for me. Doesn't mean it's the only way.


Mack.
 
panda said:
polish a vic, lol yall delusional. soft stainless i sharpen on chosera 400 and strop on cardboard, that's it!
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I hear ya Panda and totally agree that you end up with a good, serviceable edge stopping under 1k on softer ss. When I am doing the house knives after a shift I will often end at Red 800, or whatever I happen to have with me. But for some reason there is more to be had when I go further. A simple explanation might be that my technique isn't good enough to end on the low grits, I just don't know.
 
One theory of stopping early on soft stainless is that you will 'steel' the knife
which will undo any refinement in short order, if not immediately.

Thats not to say any 'soft stainless' cannot take refinement in the first place.
The latter idea is incorrect without specific qualifications and is easily disproven.
 
mack said:
Wasn't my intention. Only wanted to say, that with any angle-controlled system you can finish with a finer stone. At least that ist the experience I made and it works for me. Doesn't mean it's the only way.


Mack.
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Yeah, most of those that use the Bogdan system feel that it helps to take advantage of a higher polish. IIRC, one user thought that it was because you could maintain an angle more easily whilst applying next to no pressure on the edge. I am kinda interested to see it for myself one day.
 
Nemo said:
Yeah, most of those that use the Bogdan system feel that it helps to take advantage of a higher polish. IIRC, one user thought that it was because you could maintain an angle more easily whilst applying next to no pressure on the edge. I am kinda interested to see it for myself one day.
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Sounds more like a camp song than a system. Bo doe ska deeten daten, or something like that. Seriously, looked it up and it is totally over my head. I am going to go put the chickens away now...:laugh:
 
I am still learning here, functionally, how do you test for sharpness. My knives will bite into a tomato or pepper, but only recently have I been able to perform horizontal onion slices since refining my sharpening technique. I am still playing with the details.
 
Bensbites said:
I am still learning here, functionally, how do you test for sharpness. My knives will bite into a tomato or pepper, but only recently have I been able to perform horizontal onion slices since refining my sharpening technique. I am still playing with the details.
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Obviously, cutting food and noticing the improvements is the best guide, different produce will give different information about the edge. Cutting carrots will tell you about the cutting ability and the overall geometry of the blade while cutting tomato and peppers will tell you more about the apex, the toothiness of the edge and its initial sharpness.

But realisticaly I don't have food around and like to test while sharpening. I like cutting phonebook paper I try to pushcut perpendicular across the grain, along the grain will be a lot easier. Slicing paper towel and feeling for any rough spot is a good indicator of how well the burr removal is going, especially at the tip/belly. Shaving arm hair gets old pretty quickly.

I know Carter's 3 finger test is not popular here but I like. It tooks me a while before understading its simplicity but now I quite like it. If you're into super polished edge and high grit stuff you will find it less helpful.
 
Sharpen steep then strop in the final angle. I think that will do you at least as well and better than any of the jig systems out there right now.

I designed a twice-size Wicked Edge system that eliminates the angle limitations and angular change inconsistencies of the original, and the Bogdan for that matter, no problem controlling pressure either. I hope to get it built one of these days, machining costs would not be that great, I'm sure it would be fun to use and very possibly get better results, certainly more consistent, but the urgency isn't there as my knives get almost as sharp as I really would like some of them, and I haven't even got to diamond stops yet.
 
I was putting everything at 3k (naniwa pro), stainless and carbon for a while. But recently during traveling, I only had my 1k during visits to family/friends and sharpened their knives on that (set bevel on 220 first). I then stayed at their house(s) for several days and used their knives for cooking and now I'm converted to stopping at 1K on cheap/soft stainless. Went back to my place and ground all my stainless knives back down to 1k. I prefer it. It's subtle but you do get more "bite" than at 3k.

Hell I even enjoyed my 220 edge for one prep session... I couldn't finish all my brother's knives before supper so I had his chef knife done at only 220 (it was 15 years old and chipped everywhere). I had my brother use that for food prep and he kept saying how amazing it was, and thought I was finished. I tried it and it was doing quite a good job. I put it to 1k after supper and he didn't notice a difference.

So perhaps we here obsessing over sharpness on this forum often forget that you probably have the entire worlds 0.001% sharpest knives in your kitchens.
 
My only reason for going to finer stones is to get a better deburring. I only rarely perform a full progression. Much more commonly a full sharpening on a 400, stropping and deburring on a 800, deburring only on a 3k or higher. No reason to polish out all the scratches of the previous stone, at least not with double-bevelled as used in Western cuisine with a lot of board contact.
As with cheap soft stainless: 220 and 400, deburring with a green ScotchBrite sponge. No refinement with Vics.
 
Benuser said:
My only reason for going to finer stones is to get a better deburring. I only rarely perform a full progression. Much more commonly a full sharpening on a 400, stropping and deburring on a 800, deburring only on a 3k or higher. No reason to polish out all the scratches of the previous stone, at least not with double-bevelled as used in Western cuisine with a lot of board contact.
As with cheap soft stainless: 220 and 400, deburring with a green ScotchBrite sponge. No refinement with Vics.
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Assuming Japanese knives, how is your edge better deburring on 800 vs 3K or higher? What differences have you noticed in testing? Any difference when cutting food?
 
Benuser said:
My only reason for going to finer stones is to get a better deburring. I only rarely perform a full progression. Much more commonly a full sharpening on a 400, stropping and deburring on a 800, deburring only on a 3k or higher. No reason to polish out all the scratches of the previous stone, at least not with double-bevelled as used in Western cuisine with a lot of board contact.
As with cheap soft stainless: 220 and 400, deburring with a green ScotchBrite sponge. No refinement with Vics.
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Benuser, when you say "deburring", are you talking about strokes along the length of the edge? Or srtopping followed by those strokes? Or something else?
 
Benuser said:
Better deburring offers a more durable edge.
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That's the reason why I use the Bogdan-System, the edge is a lot more durable because I'm able to put a perfectly closed edge on my knives.


Mack.
 
mack said:
That's the reason why I use the Bogdan-System, the edge is a lot more durable because I'm able to put a perfectly closed edge on my knives.


Mack.
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What is the bogdan system. I a few minutes on google did not enlighten me.

Thanks in advance
 
Nemo said:
Just to clarify, does this mean that you essentially sharpen only on your coarsest stone? Then you refine the edge only by performing logitudinal deburring strokes on progressively finer stones?
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No, I strop (=make edge trailing strokes) before deburring.
 
Bensbites said:
What is the bogdan system. I a few minutes on google did not enlighten me.

Thanks in advance
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Hi!
I know that the Bogdan System was discussed here hard before I started to be part of this community. And I also know that there are different opinions, some think it's great (as I do), some think it's not necessary (or a total overkill). Bogdan is the name of an ukrainian tinkerer who built a angel-controlling system which also allows to reduce the weight of the knife while sharpening. I don't know wheater it's allowed to post youtube-links here or not, so just search there for bogdan.

The system is expensive (~500$) (and extremely hard to find), but for ME (which is important to underline) it works fantastic. But there are also some cheaper systems which help controlling the angle.

But I think I have to stop the Bogdan-posts, some may find it inappropriate here (especially written by a new member like me), which is not my purpose.


Mack.
 
mack said:
Hi!
I know that the Bogdan System was discussed here hard before I started to be part of this community. And I also know that there are different opinions, some think it's great (as I do), some think it's not necessary (or a total overkill). Bogdan is the name of an ukrainian tinkerer who built a angel-controlling system which also allows to reduce the weight of the knife while sharpening. I don't know wheater it's allowed to post youtube-links here or not, so just search there for bogdan.

The system is expensive (~500$) (and extremely hard to find), but for ME (which is important to underline) it works fantastic. But there are also some cheaper systems which help controlling the angle.

But I think I have to stop the Bogdan-posts, some may find it inappropriate here (especially written by a new member like me), which is not my purpose.


Mack.
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I don't see any reason not to share what works for you. I for one have no time for any type of jig setup but that is me so others may find what helps you to work for them as well. This community is about sharing... as long as you're not pushing something that you're selling then people won't take offense. And same would hold true for videos of said system.
 
i should do a 'make knife usable: a sharpening video by panda' for those of us who can't be arsed to spend more than a few minutes on this task. and then i would take donations for saving them time and boredom. :)
 
panda said:
i should do a 'make knife usable: a sharpening video by panda' for those of us who can't be arsed to spend more than a few minutes on this task. and then i would take donations for saving them time and boredom. :)
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+1 you should do it ! I think there is a demand for minimalist sharpening techniques / tips/ tricks
 
For a minimalist sharpening video checkout Joe Calton’s sharpening video the guy doesn’t noodle around, DMT coarse and that’s it, works for him.

The DMT coarse leaves a surprisingly thin and clean apex for such low grit.
 
HRC_64 said:
+1 you should do it ! I think there is a demand for minimalist sharpening techniques / tips/ tricks
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A thread starter right there.
But no matter how quick I try to be, I always spend way more time than I should. It's just too damn fun. Try explaining that to a non-enthusiate, lol.
 
aaamax said:
A thread starter right there.
But no matter how quick I try to be, I always spend way more time than I should. It's just too damn fun. Try explaining that to a non-enthusiate, lol.
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On top of the fun, for me there's always that little voice in the back of my head going "but is it as sharp as it can be? Is this the cleanest edge you can muster? Is it 100% deburred?" Which leads to a 5 min touch up becoming a 20 minute experiment.

All in good fun.
 
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