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

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your problem might be excessive preasure and rolling of the edge. Keep your muscles relaxed and dont clench you holding hand on the knife. Clenching will produce fatigue and you will start to wobble. Higher grit stones are for polishing/refining the edge, so try to keep you preasure to a minimum( this will also give you better control and help you keep a constant angle ). Also for the higher grit stone try to work out a slury with a nagura before starting to sharpen. This will ensure better polish results on the edge plus better flow/slide of the blade on the stone. Sharpening should be relaxing like meditation. Also don't overdo it. A couple of strokes should be enough if the knife is not dulled.
 
There’s also a chance that when you go from the 1K to the 6K you are removing all the 1K scratches with a 6K. And then you have a 6K edge. But again maybe there are some deburring issues. When you go from the 1K straight to the 12 K, the 12 K is not course enough to remove the 1K scratches so you’re left with a toothy edge but you’ve polished the bevel slightly but you still have the 1K teeth there is to some degree. Does that make sense?

I also agree that you can shave hair with a good 1K edge. Kasumi Kev thinks that you can cut paper towel with a well deburr ed 3K edge. I’m not quite there myself. I’ve also heard that deburring completely on every stone can help some people progress.
 
I had this problem initially too, where the knife would cut worse after the polishing stone. I was applying way too much pressure on the polishing stone; going very lightly is what fixed it for me.
 
Hey All!

Thanks for all the help on this so far, greatly appreciate it! I've been working on the sharpening more and managed to get a shaving edge off a 1k Cerax so that's an improvement for sure. I definitely think lightening up on my pressure on the polishing stone might help. Admittedly I get good results in terms of edge performance going hard on the Shapton 12k pro (like ham fisted hard) but this might be doing other stuff like what others have mentioned about the 1k teeth still remaining.
 
Solidsnake, your observations resonate with my difficulty using a 6k stone, and stropping, that I would like to jump in and see if I understand possible fixes. I'd like to hear some feedback from you folks if I missed something.

The issue is 6k after 1k, or a couple dozen stropping sessions (as the blade is used over a period of time) and it loses all the toothiness so I have to go back to 1k. If I strop minimally after 1k I get a really great cutting edge. Note that this is on ALL of my knives, stainless, carbon, kitchen, tiny wood carving, and heavy bushcrafting.

Seems to me my edges should last a lot longer with just stropping unless I have actual blunting or damage, but they just lose their bite.

Technique fail: probably rounding the edge by wobbling too much and using too much pressure.

Stropping compound change? Move to a 4u diamond on hard leather instead 1u boron carbide on balsa or leather?

Here's what I should try:
On the course stone keep flipping until I gently remove the burr and any wire edge as much as possible before moving to the next stone. Trailing strokes. Already doing this.

At 6k, go very very light, very very careful not to raise the angle or round the edge. Possibly use a couple leading strokes only. Light, light pressure stropping.
 
Hi All,

Wanted to provide an update since I got a hair shaving sharp edge off of a coarse stone! So after being a bit frustrated by all this I just said "screw it let's toss it all out and do something new". Using my JNS 300 stone I did about a dozen edge trailing and leading stropping/sweeping strokes with medium to light pressure on one side until felt a solid burr. Then flipped over and did the other side the same. Never bothered to check for a burr again just counted down edge leading and edge trailing sweeping/stropping strokes from 10 on each side.

Did a 10 count on one side then other side then 9 count on one side then the other etc... Until reaching 1. Did a couple strokes at 1 and then rinsed my knife and checked the edge. The bevels looked not as even (some slight wave/inequal bevel heights near the heel especially) compared to the Japanese sharpening style of the JKI videos and others BUT results were way....way better. Could shave fairly easily and smoothly cut paper off the JNS 300.

Definitely major progress here from completely switching techniques and just counting strokes and stropping style motions. The counting was just to get an idea that I was in the same ballpark regarding evening doing both sides.
 
Now you have a good edge with a coarse stone where before you did not, correct? I didn't pick up details of how much pressure you are using, so my next suggestion might be useless: have you tried (now that you had this success) flipping the blade over after each pass and with extremely light strokes checked for the burr or seeing a wire edge? Maybe doing this a half-dozen times, checking each time to see that you reached the apex and created the most miniscule burr you can feel until you almost don't get any burr at all?

Is there any improvement doing this initial burr and wire edge removal at the JNS 300 level?
 
This is an improvement in the sense that the course stone previously was not able to get a hair shaving edge based upon how I was sharpening. I'm not sure what the additional dropping or deburring would do given that I did that with the stropping strokes countdown when I was doing the initial sharpening. Please feel free to correct if I'm wrong but I'm not detecting any burr as it is cleanly cutting through paper with no snags.
 
SolidSnake03 said:
Hi All,

Wanted to provide an update since I got a hair shaving sharp edge off of a coarse stone! So after being a bit frustrated by all this I just said "screw it let's toss it all out and do something new". Using my JNS 300 stone I did about a dozen edge trailing and leading stropping/sweeping strokes with medium to light pressure on one side until felt a solid burr. Then flipped over and did the other side the same. Never bothered to check for a burr again just counted down edge leading and edge trailing sweeping/stropping strokes from 10 on each side.

Did a 10 count on one side then other side then 9 count on one side then the other etc... Until reaching 1. Did a couple strokes at 1 and then rinsed my knife and checked the edge. The bevels looked not as even (some slight wave/inequal bevel heights near the heel especially) compared to the Japanese sharpening style of the JKI videos and others BUT results were way....way better. Could shave fairly easily and smoothly cut paper off the JNS 300.

Definitely major progress here from completely switching techniques and just counting strokes and stropping style motions. The counting was just to get an idea that I was in the same ballpark regarding evening doing both sides.
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ModRQC said:
Just don't add anything over a great result, if not a finer stone if you feel so inclined. Many people have many techniques, now that yours work don't get confused in additional steps you do not need.
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But also, don’t feel like you won’t be able to get as good results with other techniques, and get hung up on the particular sequence you’re using. The method you’re describing sounds like a bit of a pain to do every time. If it’s an improvement over your original method, it’s probably because you’re holding a better angle and focusing more on burr reduction (eg some edge leading strokes and light pressure). The 10,9,8,... stuff and the only leading or trailing strokes, instead of scrubbing at the beginning, is probably not the reason you’re succeeding now.
 
Sometimes you just fail. It looks good, it feels good, but it just isn't sharp.
Take the knife on your coarse stone again, start all over and when initially everything looks and feel the same, suddenly it is sharp.
Don't overthink. The more hours (years) you make, the less this happens and sometimes you still fail and you don't know why...

When the same bad things happen time after time, it's time to look at technic instead of traininghours.
 
ian said:
But also, don’t feel like you won’t be able to get as good results with other techniques, and get hung up on the particular sequence you’re using. The method you’re describing sounds like a bit of a pain to do every time. If it’s an improvement over your original method, it’s probably because you’re holding a better angle and focusing more on burr reduction (eg some edge leading strokes and light pressure). The 10,9,8,... stuff and the only leading or trailing strokes, instead of scrubbing at the beginning, is probably not the reason you’re succeeding now.
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Good point in the absolute, but as of now still focus on what worked, and reproducing it. If you fail to reproduce, then as per @ian it's not a question of technique at all. If you can reproduce, while ian is still right, you should first be concerned from a beginner (no offense, I still am too) standpoint with good results and being able to get them consistently enough. Then other techniques, as much as reducing your own steps, can be tried - easier since you'll know you're supposed to get said result. Also, I'm entirely confident that, by yourself, you will slowly "adapt" all those steps with being more and more experienced and akin with your way of sharpening, so all this pretty much happens "naturally".
 
A variety of good and valid points made, thank you all. Plan is to continue playing around with this method and see how it continues to do. I know I will improve with it overtime however, it quickly resulted in better results than I had previously seen in a long time of using the more typical Japanese sharpening method. I'm sure I can someday/sometime get good results with a variety of techniques if enough practice/time is used however, this very quickly improved the progress when I had been displeased with my coarse stone results for a long time attempting to refine/improve the more usual method/style.

That all said, I'll take all into consideration and continue to play around with stuff. For laughs I've been using the JNS 300 edge for the day and it's actually not bad, kinda loud in carrots and such but it goes through onions and celery like crazy which is great. And anything fairly small and soft just gets blazed through.
 
I agree, for gyutos, it's much easier to have an effective edge using a coarser stone. I used to sharpen a Dalman laser aeb-l 210mm gyuto on an aoto in order to have a toothy edge for tomatoes. Some weeks ago, i thinned it a little bit on JNS 300 and finished the edge on the same aoto. Not only the thinning was nice after using it a couple of years, but such a big jump (from JNS 300 to a 2k aoto) helped keep the toothy edge for longer.
 
Update for everyone and something that may add more info to this. Sharpened up one of my old Sabs on the Shapton Glass 500 and 4000 and didn't get a hair popping edge off either stone despite using the same technique that worked so well on the JNS 300. Cut paper cleanly but sucked for hair, was just scrapping skin and not popping hairs. I then said screw this and decided to go old school and stropped the edge on some cardboard from a flat of beans I had laying around. Did maybe a half dozen strops flipping sides back and forth between each strop. Tested on my arm again and was popping hairs fairly easily. This points to a burr issue maybe?

Thanks for that suggestion on 300- Aoto. An Aoto is definitely on my to buy list haha.
 
Well.

Read through this and got out my oldest white #2 nakiri and the Shapton 5 K that I had stopped using for similar reasons to OP and his 6K, because it regularly gave me a beautifully polished edge that didn't want to cut tomatoes.

There is nothing wrong with the stone. There certainly was something wrong with the way I had been using it.

Experimented with edge trailing/leading, from 10 forward/backward cycles to 2, reducing by 2 each "flip", carefully lightening pressure to barely over weight of the knife and making myself consciously relax grip on the handle.

Ended with edge leading only, 1X stroke each sides and lightest touch I could get enough feedback from to know I was hitting the edge, about 10 strokes each side. Stropped it lightly 2x each side on notebook paper after that.

Nakiri now shaves clean, slices paper with very little drag AND effortlessly cuts into skins of tomatoes, peppers and me. Didn't even notice it went right through a callous on my thumb until the tomato juice got in there.

Wonder how durable this edge will be.
 
Ah makes sense on burr flipping more. So is the stropping taking some small remaining burr off then? Banged on the edge a good bit today and it's held up nicely so far.

Hi Bert, appreciate the feedback on that. Sounds like what I did on the JNS 300 to get a shaving edge. Maybe just more time and slower on the higher grit following a good base edge on say the 300 or a medium grit.
 
Do I understand right from that link that stropping on (loaded) leather will always micro-convex the edge?
Is that in a way that you can truly see it with a loupe, or is it only on microscopic level?

The link aims for straight razors. We mostly discuss kitchen knives. I imagine our edges are way coarse than the pictures shown in the link, so does my question even apply to the edge of (relatively coarse and therfore scratchy) kitchen knives? I mean, is our very apex even smooth enough to be able to 'microconvex' with (loaded) leather? Relatively, we end up with a big buzzsaw...

My question is also asked in the link (at the very bottom, the forelast question), but not answered.

I might gotten it al wrong. 9 am after a nightshift, so its hard to keep concentrated o_O
 
Kawa said:
Is that in a way that you can truly see it with a loupe, or is it only on microscopic level?
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doubt you can see it with a loupe, unless you really go to town with the stropping.

I don’t really know. there’s probably some microconvexing going on, and you’re also removing teeth when you strop. Strop too much and you’ll end up with a no-tooth edge that’s good for razors but not so good for the kitchen. Most people around here will tell you to strop only a couple times after stone work, just to remove any residual burr.
 
kayman67 said:
Rounding the edge while stropping seems to be very common.
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Yes, but only when stropping wrong I thought 😂 When your angle is too high.

I'm asking this because sometimes I have the impression that after stropping (loaded leather with red rouge) I sliiiiightly rounded off my edge. Sometimes not.
Both ways the knife is sharper then after the last stone (more refined feeling). So I couldn't figur out when I was stropping wrong: the times I see a sliiiightly less perfect straight edge after stropping, or when I see no difference in the edge at all. Is the first good or too high angle, or is the latter good or too low angle?

I also notice that stropping after a low or medium gritt stone doenst seem to do as much as stropping after a high gritt finish.
I guessed this has to do with polishing too deep scratches is just giving the 'mountain tops' a slight buff, but the leather (even loaded with (very soft) red rouge) is not rough enough to hit 100% surface of the edge.. Therefor you need a higher finish?

Or does this tell me something about my actual burr removal at lower gritts, which at high gritt finish seems to be neglectable? 🤔
 
I too found that minimal stropping of kitchen knives is usually best. Yes, you can over do it, plus, I think the more swipes you take, the more likely you are to accidentally vary the angle too high and round off an edge.

There is a good bit more information in the comments sections of the "science of sharp" articles.

One of the bits of information I found most useful is that the ammount of "give" a strop has is an important characteristic, possibly more important than what the surface is made out of, if it's anything appropriate to strop on at all.

I ended up "tuning" sheets of copier paper with 1, 2 or 3 layers of paper towel underneath on a glass plate for stropping, with and without compounds, tried a few types of thin, fairly stiff foam I had on hand under paper, then tried some of the other recommended stropping surfaces, denim on glass or Corian counter top scraps has worked particularly well on stropping kitchen knives for me.

I have a box of "horse butt" leather I meant to make into strops, but for a few cents worth of paper or scraps of old bluejeans, I can get some pretty good results... I keep putting off the leather work.

In other news, I tried the technique I experimented with on the nakiri with 5 other knives. It worked quickly and equally well on aogami. Worked with some extra care on S35VN. Took a bit more time and some frustration with D2 and VG-10, but I got there, eventually.

Liking Carbon more and more, where I can keep it clean, anyway.
 
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