Honing with Arkansas Stone

[cotedupy]

What kind of steel did you used this technique on?

Oh good q... I've not actually tried my translucents on anything other than Hitachi steels, for this - Aogami 2 and Super. I then strop on paper as normal.

I'd be interested to hear what you and others think if you try the same technique... (maybe I'm going mad, you never know!)

 

[Benuser]

Oh good q... I've not actually tried my translucents on anything other than Hitachi steels, for this - Aogami 2 and Super. I then strop on paper as normal.

I'd be interested to hear what you and others think you try the same technique... (maybe I'm going mad, you never know!)

Sure, will give it a try.
It's almost entirely opposite to what I do. My best deburring is with a light stroke along the edge on a soft Ark.
I have abandoned edge trailing since quite a while ago, and use only light or very light strokes, even with coarse stones.
We'll see!

 

[Bear]

Rather than start a whole new thread just to say this, I'll put it here:

For anyone with a hard/translucent ark who finds it a bit fine or tricky for knife sharpening: Try relatively high pressure passes exclusively edge-trailing. I only started playing with this recently, and I can deburr fine, whilst getting noticeably more bite on the finish.

I do the same thing with edge leading, it seems to refine the edge and still maintain the toothiness of the previous stone. I know I've tried edge trailing before but I'll give it a go again.

 

[cotedupy]

Sure, will give it a try.
It's almost entirely opposite to what I do. My best deburring is with a light stroke along the edge on a soft Ark.
I have abandoned edge trailing since quite a while ago, and use only light or very light strokes, even with coarse stones.
We'll see!

Yeah I was rolling dice! My thinking was... An leading stroke refines or deburrs an edge, but the difficulty with hard arks isn't deburring and refinement, it's almost the opposite - trying to raise burrs without getting overly refined, or polished edges. So pressure, and trailing strokes, should leave some aggression to the edge...

It's seemed to work quite nicely the times I've tried it (only a few), but possibly that's just confirmation bias, so would be good to hear what others think!

 

[Benuser]

Edge trailing works well if you want to remove a bit of steel. It's fast. At the very edge though, it removes too much material. Going to a finer stone serves two purposes: refinement, and reducing or eliminating the remaining burr. I want the burr to get abraded, not just weakened by flipping over and hoping it will fall off. The edge it leaves behind is likely to be damaged. For abrading the burr, I find edge trailing too aggressive. The burr gets abraded, but a new one gets raised as well. Especially when some serious pressure is being applied.
The Arks I have used always provide a toothy edge, edge trailing or edge leading. No need for much pressure. The best deburrer I know is a soft Arkansas. That being said, soft is here most relative.
Have tried your technique with the simplest carbon I have, C60 @ 60Rc. Even when reducing pressure I can't reduce the burr with edge trailing. It only flips, or creates an new one, I can't tell. By edge leading I can considerably reduce the burr, and the last remnants are taken away with one or two longitudinal strokes, even with more complex steels.
So, I'm wondering if with the edge trailing strokes and considerable pressure you aren't creating a wire edge. For those who aren't familiar with it, it's a burr on top of the apex, very thin, crazy sharp, but failing after board contact. It may break, leaving a damaged edge behind, or fold, in which case it covers the edge and makes it perfectly dull. Quite common with jig users when they stick just behind the very edge. Jig user or not, to make sure you reach the very edge, use a sharpie and a loupe (8-12x). You will be surprised how often the very edge isn't reached, and all we do is accumulating debris on top of the old edge. A burr is no garantee that the very edge got reached. It may get developed before, as the loupe will show. This is quite likely to occur when big pressure is involved.

 

[cotedupy]

Edge trailing works well if you want to remove a bit steel. It's fast. At the very edge though, it removes too much material. Going to a finer stone serves two purposes: refinement, and reducing or eliminating the remaining burr. I want the burr to get abraded, not just weakened by flipping over and hoping it will fall off. The edge it leaves behind is likely to be damaged. For abrading the burr, I find edge trailing too aggressive. The burr gets abraded, but a new one gets raised as well. Especially when some serious pressure is being applied.
The Arks I have used always provide a toothy edge, edge trailing or edge leading. No need for much pressure. The best deburrer I know is a soft Arkansas. That being said, soft is here most relative.
Have tried your technique with the simplest carbon I have, C60 @ 60Rc. Even when reducing pressure I can't reduce the burr with edge trailing. It only flips, or creates an new one, I can't tell. By edge leading I can considerably reduce the burr, and the last remnants are taken away with one or two longitudinal strokes, even with more complex steels.
So, I'm wondering if with the edge trailing strokes and considerable pressure you aren't creating a wire edge. For those who aren't familiar with it, it's a burr on top of the apex, very thin, crazy sharp, but failing after board contact. It may break, leaving a damaged edge behind, or fold, in which case it covers the edge and makes it perfectly dull. Quite common with jig users when they stick just behind the very edge. Jig user or not, to make sure you reach the very edge, use a sharpie and a loupe (8-12x). You will be surprised how often the very edge isn't reached, and all we do is accumulating debris on top of the old edge. A burr is no garantee that the very edge got reached. It may get developed before, as the loupe will show. This is quite likely to occur when big pressure is involved.

You tried on a hard/translucent? Or the soft? It certainly wouldn't work for me on a soft or Washita as they're far too aggressive, but on a slightly broken in translucent, it seemed quite good for me.

Also - my technique might have something to do with it (?) - On hard arks I tend to do full length sweeping passes of a knife.

 

[Benuser]

You tried on a hard/translucent? Or the soft? It certainly wouldn't work for me on a soft or Washita as they're far too aggressive, but on a slightly broken in translucent, it seemed quite good for me.

Also - my technique might have something to do with it (?) - On hard arks I tend to do full length sweeping passes of a knife.

Yes, I did. My biggest problem isn't the edge trailing — it's a traditional way of finishing the sharpening routine, after all. It's the pressure. I have to reduce the pressure to get the burr smaller. With high pressure as you suggested it only flips.

 

[Benuser]

By the way, @cotedupy , what do you mean by breaking in a natural stone? I don't want them to become glossy, a slightly rougher surface helps in catching a burr. I only have used so far different Arks, Blue Belgians and Coticule if that matters.

 

[cotedupy]

Yes, I did. My biggest problem isn't the edge trailing — it's a traditional way of finishing the sharpening routine, after all. It's the pressure. I have to reduce the pressure to get the burr smaller. With high pressure as you suggested it only flips.

Yeah I was probably reducing the pressure a bit toward the end I imagine. Next time I give it a go I'll pay closer attention. But it was definitely higher pressure than I'd use for edge-leading strokes on a hard ark, and it seemed more forgiving in terms of over-polishing or rolling the edge.

Re breaking in - exactly that... It mostly applies to hard / translucent arks I think, because of their low friability. When the surface becomes polished or glazed after a while, they're less aggressive and less useful for knife sharpening (for exactly the reason you say).

Unless what you're after is an edge that is as slick and refined as possible... People who use them for razors tend to want that, so if they buy a new one might break it in by rubbing some metal or a chisel or something back and forth over the surface for a long time in order to burnish and polish it. Often just on one side, so you'd you'd have a combi type affair with one side better for cutting, the other for polishing.

Long-ish vid about it here, if you'd not come across before:

 

[Benuser]

Thanks about the clarification on the breaking in of naturals. So, we do the same, by different means, with the same purpose.
Have noticed a side-effect of the heavy pressure with the edge trailing. If I remove a lot of steel on a coarse stone, I don't immediately go on with the progression. If possible I let it wait a day or even longer. I don't expect the work on the finest stones to be very successful after all that violence.
I now noticed a similar problem: having used more than usual pressure with the finest stone, the hard Arkie, and completing a very careful deburring successfully, a fat, even burr had appeared along the entire edge after two days without any use. A simple Misono Swedish Carbon, very finely grained, no clustering carbides rearranging or so. Room temperature with some fluctuations: it's my home kitchen, so it varies between 17 and 24 degrees Celsius. I mention the temperature fluctuations because they explained why after air shipping with their very large temperature fluctuations it happens you get carbons with surprising burrs the sender would certainly have noticed, as in the case of a very serious sharpener taking pride in his work. It takes some time before wood gets stable. Steel won't be affected by changes in air humidity I guess. But it takes a bit of time before an edge of a few microns recovers from pressure and stability can be obtained, is my impression.
I will play a bit more with the edge trailing vs. leading and try to eliminate other factors, as pressure, different stones before in the progression, more or less finely grained steel. Great fun!

 

[ian]

Thanks about the clarification on the breaking in of naturals. So, we do the same, by different means, with the same purpose.
Have noticed a side-effect of the heavy pressure with the edge trailing. If I remove a lot of steel on a coarse stone, I don't immediately go on with the progression. If possible I let it wait a day or even longer. I don't expect the work on the finest stones to be very successful after all that violence.
I now noticed a similar problem: having used more than usual pressure with the finest stone, the hard Arkie, and completing a very careful deburring successfully, a fat, even burr had appeared along the entire edge after two days without any use. A simple Misono Swedish Carbon, very finely grained, no clustering carbides rearranging or so. Room temperature with some fluctuations: it's my home kitchen, so it varies between 17 and 24 degrees Celsius. I mention the temperature fluctuations because they explained why after air shipping with their very large temperature fluctuations it happens you get carbons with surprising burrs the sender would certainly have noticed, as in the case of a very serious sharpener taking pride in his work. It takes some time before wood gets stable. Steel won't be affected by changes in air humidity I guess. But it takes a bit of time before an edge of a few microns recovers from pressure and stability can be obtained, is my impression.
I will play a bit more with the edge trailing vs. leading and try to eliminate other factors, as pressure, different stones before in the progression, more or less finely grained steel. Great fun!

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