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As in Dr Kraichuk?

That is sad news. I hope his family are doing okay. :(
 
Thats a shame... I think he was only 50? 60?... Pretty young... :(
 
@Tea_Hills thanks for starting this thread. I had never heard of Dr. Vadim until now. I purchased his book and it has been a fantastic read so far. I was pretty lost in this thread with negative burrs but reading about it in his text definitely helped. I find his classification of different burr types and how to address them respectively very refreshing as it demystifies some of the variance that we can experience as sharpeners depending on the knife/steel.
 
Not a problem! Glad it helped. I learned a lot here as well. In fact the last of my supplies came yesterday for adapting his method to home sharpening. On my first test I was able to get konosuke HD2 steel to an estimated 50 - 100 BESS, which is insane compared to what I was able to do entirely freehand. This was done without using any traditional deburring technique at all. Instead a used -.1 angle grinding. Visual tests and edge degradation tests all indicate there is no feather / wire / foil burr. More tests to come!
 
Tea_Hills said:
Not a problem! Glad it helped. I learned a lot here as well. In fact the last of my supplies came yesterday for adapting his method to home sharpening. On my first test I was able to get konosuke HD2 steel to an estimated 50 - 100 BESS, which is insane compared to what I was able to do entirely freehand. This was done without using any traditional deburring technique at all. Instead a used -.1 angle grinding. Visual tests and edge degradation tests all indicate there is no feather / wire / foil burr. More tests to come!
Click to expand...

So you bought a Tormek and a BESS tester?
 
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I did not! My goal was to attempt to replicate the Tormek grinding methods using stones, pastes, and strops as that is what I had and I am not willing to spend 1000$+ for a professional setup meant for volume sharpening.

I used a hapstone t1 jig for fine angle control.
I created a small powershell program to help calculate required blade height off the stone to achieve desired angle with the hapstone.
I have a Venev 1200 / 800 diamond stone I use for apex creation
To achieve Vadim's paperwheel honing I used a piece of printer or notebook paper wrapped around the venev stone and loaded it with required diamond paste.
Diamond pastes used were from techdiamondtools (50% percent concentrate)
To acheive Vadmin's felt wheel burr removal I used 79gm/cm3 felt strips loaded with 1 micron diamond paste.

To measure blade height off of the stone I used a 20$ amazon caliper I had (precise to one-one hundredth of a millimeter accurate to probably +- .05mm)

BESS estimates were approximated without a proper testing machine. I used this chart http://knifegrinders.com.au/Manuals/Sharpness_Chart.pdf

The entirety of the blade length was able to achieve quite smooth against the grain hair shaving. I was able to cut a free hanging hair along portions of the blade . My estimate should probably be revised to a BESS between 50 - 150. I don't have immediate plans to buy a BESS machine so estimates will have to do for now.

To ensure the absence of a foil / wire/ feather burr pressure was applied, three times, to the entire edge approximate to that of rock chopping herbs. If there was some F/W/F burr I would expect to see a quick dulling of the edge after pressure was added, which I did not see. Edge retention is largely subjective without proper testing equipment or approximation guides so I don't want to comment on that in the future.

Most of this is to see if Vadim's method work and can be applied to a home environment without much cost.
I'm not ready to say with certainty if it does as I have only tested his prescribed process for a wear resistant steel (HD2) and that not require the use of higher angle felt deburring. I will say that no traditional deburring (cork, felt, leather, etc.) was required at all. My process for HD2 steel was adapted from his process for D2:

(All edge trailing strokes)
15 degree medium pressure grind on Venev 1200
15 degree light pressure 'grind' on paper loaded with 10 micron diamond paste
14.9 degree light pressure 'grind' on paper loaded with 5 micron diamond paste (angle estimated by putting 2 pieces of paper under stone holder)
15 degree light pressure 'grind' on paper loaded with 1 micron diamond paste
15 degree light pressure 'grind' on paper loaded with 1 micron diamond paste
15 degree light pressure 'grind' on paper loaded with .25 micron diamond paste

I recently received a gesshin uraku from JKI and the resulting edge of the HD2 sharpening subjectively felt just a tad smoother when shaving arm hair but there is no doubt it was at least as sharp. Overall I am very impressed with the results especially with the 15 degree angle (30 inclusive). I have a White#2 Wakui I am going to test next and may used a 12 degree angle.
 
Here is the script if anyone is interested:

#This is your desired angle, change as needed
$TargetAngle = 15
$TargetRadians = $TAngle * ([Math]::pi / 180)
#This is the 'length' of the blade from the spine to edge at the point you will be measuring the height of the blade off the stone. Change this to the measurement taken after the jig is attached.
$Bladelength = 45.13
$RequiredHeight = [Math]::Sin($TRadians) * $Blength

Write-Output "Blade length : $Bladelength mm`nDesired Angle: $TargetAngle degrees`nNecessary blade height from stone top is $([math]::round($RequiredHeight, 3)) mm"
 
And here is the output.

Screenshot 2022-01-26 100129.jpg
 
This is going to be blasphemy to our skilled free hand folks but using a jig to remove the human element of wobble allows you to focus solely on pressure and vertical height adjustment to compensate for blade belly and I really recommend it. Not perfect for all applications but you can get angle consistency on par with a highly experienced sharpener without spending years training your body into a human jig. Full disclosure I'm not naturally talented at visual angle control.
 
Tea_Hills said:
The entirety of the blade length was able to achieve quite smooth against the grain hair shaving. I was able to cut a free hanging hair along portions of the blade . My estimate should probably be revised to a BESS between 50 - 150. I don't have immediate plans to buy a BESS machine so estimates will have to do for now.
Click to expand...

Cool. You might just say what tests you used instead of asserting a BESS score in the future, if you're not using a machine. Most people on here probably don't know what a given BESS score means anyway.

Tea_Hills said:
Here is the script if anyone is interested:

#This is your desired angle, change as needed
$TargetAngle = 15
$TargetRadians = $TAngle * ([Math]::pi / 180)
#This is the 'length' of the blade from the spine to edge at the point you will be measuring the height of the blade off the stone. Change this to the measurement taken after the jig is attached.
$Bladelength = 45.13
$RequiredHeight = [Math]::Sin($TRadians) * $Blength

Write-Output "Blade length : $Bladelength mm`nDesired Angle: $TargetAngle degrees`nNecessary blade height from stone top is $([math]::round($RequiredHeight, 3)) mm"
Click to expand...

👍 I usually tell people to enter "50 sin(12 degrees)" into google search if they want to get the height of the spine off the stone for a 50mm tall knife and a 12 degree angle.

----

Sounds like fun experimenting. :)
 
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Tea_Hills said:
This is going to be blasphemy to our skilled free hand folks but using a jig to remove the human element of wobble allows you to focus solely on pressure and vertical height adjustment to compensate for blade belly and I really recommend it. Not perfect for all applications but you can get angle consistency on par with a highly experienced sharpener without spending years training your body into a human jig.
Click to expand...

Also, idk if anyone thinks it's blasphemy. It's just not so clear that this kind of fine angle control makes a massive difference for kitchen use once you have some experience, and it requires more setup, so it's slower. I think it's cool that you're doing this, though. I'll be reading your results! 🥳
 
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ian said:
👍 I usually tell people to enter "50 sin(12 degrees)" into google search if they want to get the height of the spine off the stone for a 50mm tall knife and a 12 degree angle.
Click to expand...

I had no idea that you could type 'degrees' after the angle into google to tell it to not use radians, that would've saved me a few minutes haha.
 
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ian said:
Also, idk if anyone thinks it's blasphemy. It's just not so clear that this kind of fine angle control makes a massive difference for kitchen use once you have some experience, and it requires more setup, so it's slower. I think it's cool that you're doing this, though. I'll be reading your results! 🥳
Click to expand...

That is the one downside for sure, it is slower. Take a little bit setting up the jib with the correct angle and all. Total overkill for someone who already has good control. In fact, this is all overkill :D
 
Do you move the jig multiple times as you sharpen in order to keep the same angle as the width of the blade changes toward the tip?
 
Very glad you asked as I have been meaning to ask for a second set of eyes on my assumptions!

When you say width of the blade do you mean height from spine to edge or thickness change as a result of a distal taper?

I do not compensate for the change in blade thickness. I believe this shouldn't actually change the angle but bevel width will change. Please correct me if I'm wrong on this.

As for compensating for the change in spine to edge thickness, I do that by lifting the blade vertically with respect to the direction of the blade on the axis of the stone. I have heard that people change their angle near the tip but I believe this is in error. From what I can reason, the sharpening angle (pitch axis to use an aviation term) should stay the same but the roll axis should change.

The way that I think of this is to imagine each point on the blade as a triangle (assume a flat ground triangular piece of metal). This quick illustration I made is why I believe that the angle should not actually change just how close you need to move the metal to the stone. I am no expert though so I would love to know if I am incorrect.

t2.jpg
 
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does the sharpening angle have an effect on the apex width ?
 
Ey. Never read this thread.. i think.

Anyway. I have noticed that number 1 (in the origional post that started this thread) was somewhat true. Actually the last time doing the hht challenge.

Also. I think it was number 5. Mentioning carbides not being abraded.

So while they can be abraded by normal abrasives, they will not be abraded at the same rate as the surrounding steel matrix, which leaves you with carbides poking out of the steel matrix. I do not know of any actual evidence of carbide tear out being observed. But i do think, the result if these carbides sticking out is basically a duller knife.

My thought is you essentially have these carbides acting to make the apex effectively wider than it would be otherwise. Or at the very least abrade down to an effectively wider apex fairly quickly.

As well as me not being too sure you can effectively get as small of an edge radius on some steels with these carbides, without an appropriate abrasive. But that is complete speculation.
 
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