Edge losing tooth but can't pop hairs? Over polishing

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SolidSnake03

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Hey guys,

Okay so this has been bugging me for a while now regarding finer grit stones. It seems that ever time I go from a coarser/medium grit stone like a Shapton Glass 500 or Shapton Pro 1000 to something like a King 6k/Arayashiama 6k/Coticule etc.. I lose all the edges toothiness. It get a nice shiny polished edge, bright light reflection from it and wonderful paper cutting (smooth and easy) but it sucks for food. I can fiddle on a tomato without cutting it. Sharpie and the newly shiny edge show that im definitely hitting the edge. Stropping on charged balsa or denim doesnt help bring the bite back. Interestingly when I go from Shapton pro 1k to 12k with no stones in the middle I can pop hairs all day and have a pretty good tomato edge. No idea why that is happening.

My coarse and medium grit edges (1k Shapton pro or Glass 500) can't shave hair at all, just scrape up skin flakes but can cut paper easily and work fine on food.

I'm at a bit of a loss here to be honest. Happening on cheap **** stainless to nice stainless to good carbon so it's something wrong in my technique I know.

Wondering if you all can help troubleshoot this one for me :)

Shapton Pro 1k to 12k on Takamura Chromax and on TF W#1 petty shaved hair pic included for fun. IMG_20200712_112919.jpg
 
Will do. Thanks!

Also, my apologies for not including this in the original post but I know knives are for food and not hair. I know that it's about how it performs in food etc... Etc... I'm not trying to show off shaving with a kitchen knife and what not.

I'm asking this as a way to better understand what I'm doing wrong here and why I'm seeing the interesting results of one combo shaving (Shapton Pro 1k and 12k) while others don't and also the odd food performance results. Trying to correlate what those edge tests are indicating about what I'm doing wrong with my sharpening/edges and then fixing it to become a more proficient sharpener (who understands what's going on and why) all around vs. just throwing stuff at the wall and hoping it works.

Thanks all!
 
Edge might be getting rounded with all of the high grit stones. For those of us hand sharpening, we can't perfectly maintain whatever angle we're gunning for and there's a bit of wiggling. Spending more time on higher grit stones is exacerbating the issue, as you're grinding, but not really cutting enough steel to create a new apex. I'd recommend slowing down, being careful with your angles and making sure you have a good edge after each stone.
 
My guess is the following. When you use the 6k stones, you polish the edge but you don’t hold a great angle, so you get a rounded edge with no big teeth, which doesn’t perform well. When you have a 1k edge, you have lots of teeth to tear into the food you’re cutting, so it works reasonably well. When you do 1k to 12k, the 12k stone isn’t fast enough to remove the teeth of the 1k, so you still have sort of a 1k edge, but the apex is polished a bit so you can pop hairs.

I’m not sure what you have is really a deburring problem, like in the vid @M1k3 linked, but rather a more general sharpening problem.
 
I wasn't thinking de-burring problem. Doing the edge leading strokes leaves a little more bite.

But I think you're onto something. The 6k is probably working fast enough for the amount of time to lose bite. Whereas the 12k is slower and leaving some 1k scratches behind. Added to the wobbling. And then stropping...
 
Thanks all. So building upon the general sharpening problem issue, would the general sharpening problem be wobble then and not holding a consistent angle therefore resulting in edge rounding as I move up in grits? Any recommended tips to combat wobble then aside from slowing down and consciously maintaining a steady angle? I seem to do better with more pressure as well, IE. sharpening harder and faster seems to work out better. Maybe less strokes and less time to round the edge leading to better edge overall?
 
Yeah. Get a soft 1000 stone (King, Suehiro) and use it until you can shave hair, cut tomatoes and so on, constantly. After that, use whatever you like.

*with 12k something does happen, in a positive way, since 1k can't shave anything. So, on top of everything, some burr could still be present as well.
 
Sounds to me like it's mostly the difference between a toothy lower grit edge and a polished higher grit edge, I dont know that you're necessarily doing anything wrong. Am I missing something here?
 
Thanks all. So building upon the general sharpening problem issue, would the general sharpening problem be wobble then and not holding a consistent angle therefore resulting in edge rounding as I move up in grits? Any recommended tips to combat wobble then aside from slowing down and consciously maintaining a steady angle? I seem to do better with more pressure as well, IE. sharpening harder and faster seems to work out better. Maybe less strokes and less time to round the edge leading to better edge overall?
More practice.
 
Thanks for the responses everyone, appreciate it greatly. Does sound like it's more work and practice then. The tricky part dafox is that I should be able to cut tomatoes and stuff easily with a 6k edge but I'm not. Yet when I go to the Shapton pro 12k I'm getting killer edges that pop hairs/ping along with cutting tomatoes. So the weird sticking spot is what I'm doing badly or wrong in the 6k range but yet when I skip from 1k to 12k it's pretty good overall. I think the 12k not removing the 1k teeth much is possibly a good explanation? Yet me not being able to shave hairs off a 1k is a sign that I need more work overall at that mid grit sharpening range/more practice in general.
 
Strange. Do you have a 3k or 4k, or even 5k you could use to experiment and figure this out?
 
Good question! I've got a Suehiro Rika 5k and a Shapton Glass 4k but won't be able to grab them until in home next week to try out. I'll give it a shot and report back.
 
Interesting on the deburring, I would think that may be it but it happens regardless of steel and I'm already deburring on cork and soft wood after edge leading stropping style light strokes following burr flipping sharpening on each side. If this was only a problem on harder to deburr stuff I'd for sure think that was it but it happens on White #1 too which is easy as all get out to sharpen and deburr....
 
You should be able to shave hair off the 500 or 1000 if you have a good apex. If you can't shave off either of these stones you don't have a good edge and moving up to higher grits isn't going to fix that. You should also be using very light pressure on your higher grit stones.

I appreciate the comment on this and it definitely makes logical sense but something with it doesn't jive with what I'm actually experiencing. My Shapton 1k pro edge can't shave at all, like it's just scraping skin off but taking that edge directly to the Shapton 12k pro gives me a killer edge for hair popping and food and all the typical tests. Prior someone mentioned that this was maybe cleaning up the 1k teeth enough to pass the tests and perform well without over polishing the edge like a 6k stone might because the 6k is working much faster.

It's odd but taking a meh 500-1000 edge to 12k does make it massively better and pretty great in the kitchen and in tests.

The part I was trying to figure out initally was why taking that same meh 500-1000 edge to a 6k stone results in it kinda sucking overall.
 
So, the end result of popping hair AND slicing toms is an issue because why?(12k vs 6k finish issue)
Maybe my practical nature is showing through, but if I'm getting the results I want, toms become salsa or BLT's, then yay for that.

Because the concern I'm hearing, and correct me if I'm wrong please, is you are trying to refine your technique or understand why the 6k finish yields different results than the 12k.

Is the edge holding up? Does a touch up on the 12k bring it right back?
 
I appreciate the comment on this and it definitely makes logical sense but something with it doesn't jive with what I'm actually experiencing. My Shapton 1k pro edge can't shave at all, like it's just scraping skin off but taking that edge directly to the Shapton 12k pro gives me a killer edge for hair popping and food and all the typical tests. Prior someone mentioned that this was maybe cleaning up the 1k teeth enough to pass the tests and perform well without over polishing the edge like a 6k stone might because the 6k is working much faster.

It's odd but taking a meh 500-1000 edge to 12k does make it massively better and pretty great in the kitchen and in tests.

The part I was trying to figure out initally was why taking that same meh 500-1000 edge to a 6k stone results in it kinda sucking overall.

Well, consider this.
Some people do use the 1000-10000 combo with great results and are happy.
Secondly, if you found something that works, do it more. Eventually everything will improve little by little. But my guess was that since the 12k edge is so good, you might experience some burr problems after 1000, as well. Now, that 1000 is a fast stone, with grit more like 600 to 800. And since you seem to struggle with mid fine stones, I also guess there are some pressure/consistency problems. 12k is just slow enough to make them irrelevant. But it works.

The reality is that you could sharpen to shave hair after 500. If this bugs you, train more. Ideally, would have been with a softer true mid grit stone. Not too much of anything going on and the right amount of everything important for you to improve.
 
I appreciate the comment on this and it definitely makes logical sense but something with it doesn't jive with what I'm actually experiencing. My Shapton 1k pro edge can't shave at all, like it's just scraping skin off but taking that edge directly to the Shapton 12k pro gives me a killer edge for hair popping and food and all the typical tests. Prior someone mentioned that this was maybe cleaning up the 1k teeth enough to pass the tests and perform well without over polishing the edge like a 6k stone might because the 6k is working much faster.

It's odd but taking a meh 500-1000 edge to 12k does make it massively better and pretty great in the kitchen and in tests.

The part I was trying to figure out initally was why taking that same meh 500-1000 edge to a 6k stone results in it kinda sucking overall.
Do you strop on your 1k Shapton at the end? They seemed to lose bite really quick. That being said they could definitely shave. Sharon pro 1k is the stone I've used more than any other. There are sometimes that I wasn't able to shave after it, I think. But that's usually a basic test for me off of that and it usually shaves. Like others have mentioned, I have shaved off a 320 shapton before, which surprised me at the time. Now, regarding cheap stainless, I would take them out of the equation and not put that type of pressure on yourself. Atleast, get your edges down on good steel, before you stress over cheap stainless. How long are you spending on the 6k, maybe you are over doing it. Perhaps, just try a few strokes test, then a few strokes test, etc. to try looking at the pictures process a little closer.
 
Hey All,

Wanted to provide an update on all this. So to the first part is yes the 1k to 12k edge holds up fine and is fairly easily brought back with maybe 2minutes on the 12k again. The edge is nice for general food work. My concern really is understand what is going on and why it is happening, not really that I'm getting a "bad performing edge" per say when I do the 1k-12k set up. I do get a bad performing edge when going 1k-6k for example which is why I was getting confused before on this.

Kayman that sounds good, I actually did pick up a Suehiro Cerax 1k and a Suehiro Rika 5k to practice specifically on a softer set of stones to work on angle control and improving that.

I don't typically strop on the 1k after I finish sharpening on that one, I do some light deburring strokes on the 1k before going to the 12k but that is it. That is a good point regarding the 6k potentially less time on it would be helpful. Thanks for the advice everyone on that. Thanks
 
Lots of ideas to work with for you. Hard for us to troubleshoot without experiencing it. Hopefully you can find out the exact reason though.

P.S. Were you ever on a PC forum perhaps?
 
Thanks again all, I do have a lot of stuff to work through now and review. I'll be on that for a while now and learning more in the process. I wasn't ever on a pc forum as a member at least. I've browsed a few to learn some stuff while building my current rig but never was a member or posted.

I've used the King 6k and Arayashiyama 6k that are causing this effect for me. Thanks
 
You should be able to shave hair off the 500 or 1000 if you have a good apex. If you can't shave off either of these stones you don't have a good edge and moving up to higher grits isn't going to fix that. You should also be using very light pressure on your higher grit stones.

This!
 
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