Sandpaper... no longer bueno?

[Lens Pirate]

I have been out of the knife obsession for sometime and just recently got drawn back in. Previously I had developed substantial skill sharpening knives, axes, tools on Sandpaper with various backings and strops. I developed a fondness for convex edges and felt a lot of liberation no longer having to fight the natural tendency of edges to convex during hand sharpening due to error. Yet I come here to this forum not all that many years after I spend a lot of time learning the way of the paper only to find a culture utterly changed. Stones Stones Stones. I find this abrasive.

 

[refcast]

nah sandpaper is good. Some forum users here like the kasfly sadpaper holder. Kippington is really good at sharpening on sandpaper too,and he makes some of the best ground and edge-taking knives here

 

[ModRQC]

Share some sandpaper sharpening pictures around here and you might relive the trend.

But really if it works for you why would you care about the dominant sharpening subculture of the moment/crowd? The goal is still to get stuff sharp. Various means to this end. And well, I guess you won't see much people start diving into sandpaper behavior, mud/water management, or polishing results... We talk a lot about stones because there's actually something - many things - to say about them.

 

[Bear]

Sandpaper for thinning here, I've never tried it for sharpening, I can't imagine it better than stones

 

[brimmergj]

I also use it to thin. Most recently, I used it on my nakiri to decrease the belly. Worked real well

 

[spaceconvoy]

I think a lot of us use it for thinning. It's too messy for regular touch-up sharpening though, and stones above ~500 grit feel much better anyways. Not much to talk about either... what's your favorite brand? 3M. What else is there to talk about?

 

[Andrei]

I used sandpaper for sharpening when I was learning sharpening skills, I pasted sandpaper on any rigid blank and worked like on a regular stone.
I have noticed several advantages of sandpaper over stones.
1) The working speed is very high, cannot be compared with stones.
2) The grain is very uniform, there are no parasitic grains.
But there is one fat minus, it comes when the sandpaper needs to be changed to a new one .
Therefore, my choice fell on sharpening stones.

 

[Andrei]

I advise you to try Klingspor sandpaper, especially for thinning

 

[Bear]

INDASA Redline, rhynowet in the fine grits and rhynodry for the coarse stuff.

 

[Nemo]

Sandpaper on the Kasfly is great for thinning and major chip repairs.

I use 4-600 grit to sharpen cheap knives but I use stones to sharpen good knives. I guess I like the feedback that a good stone offers for finer grained steels.