Sharpening only on super coarse, progressive polishings after

[hititlong]

Hey guys, noob trying out different sharpening methods/progressions here. Currently using king 220/1000/6000. Have another 1000/4000 stone as well.

Recently added a 220 to fix chips from cracking open durians with a gyuto - not a good idea.

Tried a new progression yesterday, inspired by Murray Carter and Outdoors55 on youtube - sharpening to a strong burr on the 220 (really quick, only 3 passes each side) - lighter pressure alternating deburrs on the 220 - lighter pressure alternating strokes on the 1000 - even lighter pressure alternating strokes on the 6000.

What I got was a pretty good edge for rock hard sweet potatoes, but it sorta turned dull (uncomfortable to shave arm hair with) right after. I really like how fast the whole process was though.

Does anyone have a similar sharpening approach/progression? Any views on how to improve this?

 

[slickmamba]

I only go as low as I need to to set a new edge. If its a beat up knife I will go down to 320/400, otherwise if its a decent edge with maybe tiny microchipping, I'll start at 800, get a burr on both sides, deburr, light strokes, then repeat with the rest of the stones, just lightly getting a new burr/cleaning up scratches from prev stone.

After you set a good even edge on the lower grit stones, you do less and less work as you go up. I spend a little more time on 3000, and treat the 5000/8000 as a strop basically.

Are you deburring after the finer grit stones? If you are just doing lighter and lighter strokes you will end up with a wire edge. The 220 will leave lots of deep scratches/gouges in the edge that will create a thin burr on the finer stones

 

[hititlong]

Yeah. before and during the 6000 stone by pulling thru wood a la Murray Carter. Is there a more effective way to do this?

 

[psfred]

Unless you spend a good deal of time on the 1000 grit stone you will have a coarse "toothed" edge with the teeth polished. May or may not suit you, but the edge will be fragile, especially with softer steel.

I'm not all that impressed with "you can sharpen a knife on the sidewalk" thing. Yes, it will cut, but so will a soft German steel or French carbon steel knife sharpened with a sharp serrated steel. I don't like those edges either, and they don't last.

Of course I also prefer Japanese style knives, and I'd never use a 220 grit stone with one except to grind out a major chip. For routine sharpening, a few passes on the 1k stone is all they need. A coarse stone, lots of pressure, and hard steel is likely to end up giving you an edge very prone to microchipping.

 

[hititlong]

Unless you spend a good deal of time on the 1000 grit stone you will have a coarse "toothed" edge with the teeth polished. May or may not suit you, but the edge will be fragile, especially with softer steel.

I'm not all that impressed with "you can sharpen a knife on the sidewalk" thing. Yes, it will cut, but so will a soft German steel or French carbon steel knife sharpened with a sharp serrated steel. I don't like those edges either, and they don't last.

Of course I also prefer Japanese style knives, and I'd never use a 220 grit stone with one except to grind out a major chip. For routine sharpening, a few passes on the 1k stone is all they need. A coarse stone, lots of pressure, and hard steel is likely to end up giving you an edge very prone to microchipping.

I see. So this is why the edges dont last long. How do you guys generally progress from 1000 to higher stones? Do you repeat the burr/deburring on higher stones or just progressively strop?

 

[psfred]

For cooking knives (which is what I sharpen most) I raise a minimal burr on the 1k, deburr, then polish on a 6k without worrying about a burr, just work the edge until it feel right on the stone and then deburr just in case I raised one. Don't check for one, actually.

If I want a super fine edge for something like slicing citrus for marmalade, I'll use a 3k stone before the 6k.

I usually lightly strop on CrOx on wood to finish.

 

[Ochazuke]

I think the easiest way to get better edge retention is to shore it up with microbeveling. I’ve found that extremely thin, unsupported edges tend to dull rather quickly.

Raising and removing burrs is the backbone of sharpening, but I’ve found the supporting angles behind the edge to be really important to longevity of edges.

 

[hititlong]

Nice comments so far. So it seems like I should probably move away from relying too much on the 220s for speed's sake. Im still having a hard time feeling what's "right" on the 6000 stone tho. The only way I can test if its enough is thru shaving arm hair and see if it can do so smoothly without any snagging

 

[Knife2meatu]

I very much try never to form a burr on anything coarser than whatever "1k" stone I'm using.

I watch light reflecting on the edge to avoid taking very coarse scratch all the way to the edge.

 

[slickmamba]

Paper test and nail test help a lot to see how much bite it is and how even/refined the edge is

 

[rick alen]

Aside from a bone cleaver anything below 400 is going to cause significant damage to an edge. Like another above I never go below 1K at the edge.

I also take much of what Murry says with a grain of salt. In one video he"allegedly" demonstrates sharpening a razor on a cinder block, of course the whole thing looked completely faked. He comes from a tradition that is heavily imbued with fable, and he seems to like to work this.

 

[Benuser]

In addition only: the jump from 220 to 1k is far too large. I would put two others in between, say 320 and 600. And keep pressure rather low with coarse stones, or the edge stability will suffer.

 

[M1k3]

In addition only: the jump from 220 to 1k is far too large. I would put two others in between, say 320 and 600. And keep pressure rather low with coarse stones, or the edge stability will suffer.

Definitely lower pressure on coarse stones when setting the edge. I just recently figured out how to use my Naniwa SS 220, the trick was super light pressure. I still don't like that stone though.

 

[streak]

Nowhere near in the league of the pros here but see my earlier post about my progression here

https://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/threads/my-very-simplistic-sharpening-setup.41944/

 

[Knife2meatu]

In addition only: the jump from 220 to 1k is far too large. I would put two others in between, say 320 and 600. And keep pressure rather low with coarse stones, or the edge stability will suffer.

Definitely lower pressure on coarse stones when setting the edge. I just recently figured out how to use my Naniwa SS 220, the trick was super light pressure. I still don't like that stone though.

I suspect the Naniwa SS 220 is only a really good fit for rough shaping of very hard, high-carbide steel where taking the coarse 220 scratches all the way to the edge would risk resulting in a jagged edge due to carbide tear-out on many other coarse stones. Cliff Stamp produced an very interesting review of the stone, including illustrative pictures, which showed the edge gotten off it on such steel to be much cleaner, and possessing of a surprisingly fine scratch pattern due to the particular slurry the SS 220 produces. This would perhaps allow for eliminating at least one stone in a progression, compared to a more standard 220.

That said, I also suspect any soft cladding is bound to result in a distastefully over-abundant slurry production on the stone; which would mean that it is really particularly well adjusted to hard, high-carbide monosteels. Or so I would guess, I don't have anything exactly fitting this description to test the hypothesis.

 

[loqman026]

I see. So this is why the edges dont last long. How do you guys generally progress from 1000 to higher stones? Do you repeat the burr/deburring on higher stones or just progressively strop?

After 1k grit, i still use burr/deburring process but with lighter pressure just to make sure the edge got the most refinement. Even with the 8k stone.

Maybe you should try watch peter nowlan videos on youtube since hes go more detail on every stage of sharpening than murray.

 

[M1k3]

I suspect the Naniwa SS 220 is only a really good fit for rough shaping of very hard, high-carbide steel where taking the coarse 220 scratches all the way to the edge would risk resulting in a jagged edge due to carbide tear-out on many other coarse stones. Cliff Stamp produced an very interesting review of the stone, including illustrative pictures, which showed the edge gotten off it on such steel to be much cleaner, and possessing of a surprisingly fine scratch pattern due to the particular slurry the SS 220 produces. This would perhaps allow for eliminating at least one stone in a progression, compared to a more standard 220.

That said, I also suspect any soft cladding is bound to result in a distastefully over-abundant slurry production on the stone; which would mean that it is really particularly well adjusted to hard, high-carbide monosteels. Or so I would guess, I don't have anything exactly fitting this description to test the hypothesis.

I don't have any hard carbon mono steels. I only used 3 knives on it. 1 cheap stainless Wusthof knockoff (lots of mud), Takamura Chromax cladding (muddy but not as muddy as the first one) and a cheap carbon Mercer paring (muddy still but less mud). I'll have to check out that video by Cliff.

 

[Benuser]

With most of my knives, carbons, the last stone I use with a full sharpening is a 800 or 2k Chosera. From then on, only stropping and deburring with two finer ones, no full polishing, except for fun. But I rarely push cut, mostly 'guillotine and glide'.
As for raising a burr, only with the coarsest stone. After that, as the bevels meet, burr appears again after one or two strokes.
Most work with the coarsest stone. I only go to the next one if I can't reduce the burr any further, even with the lightest touch, and it only flips.