What finishing stone to add for a Toothy-refined edge

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I was in a sharpening mood yesterday, so got out one of my cotis to demonstrate speed (the stone is still dished from when I got it, so I've flattened it into a 'V' shape and use half of the stone at a time). This is without raising slurry, just a spray of water, and if you look at the surface of the stone you can see just how quickly it's swarfing up pretty much instantly. I've raised and flipped burrs in this vid several times, as you can probably tell by how long it takes me to deburr - the stone just keeps forming new ones at all but the lightest of pressure.





This coticule I admit is slightly unusual; it is seriously fast, while being very fine, and finishing with incredible bite if you don't overwork it. Other cotis I have do this kind of thing, but not to the same extremes that this one does.

The only other stone I've used that's anywhere near it in terms of performance is a Nakayama Kiita Tomae from Alex G's hoard. Though that's not as fast, nor as fine, and leaves slightly more polished edges. But it's not a million miles away.
 
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cotedupy said:
I was in a sharpening mood yesterday, so got out one of my cotis to demonstrate speed (the stone is still dished from when I got it, so I've flattened it into a 'V' shape and use half of the stone at a time). This is without raising slurry, just a spray of water, and if you look at the surface of the stone you can see just how quickly it's swarfing up pretty much instantly. I've raised and flipped burrs in this vid several times, as you can probably tell by how long it takes me to deburr - the stone just keeps forming new ones at all but the lightest of pressure.





This coticule I admit is slightly unusual; it is seriously fast, while being very fine, and finishing with incredible bite if you don't overwork it. Other cotis I have do this kind of thing, but not to the same extremes that this one does.

The only other stone I've used that's anywhere near it in terms of performance is a Nakayama Kiita Tomae from Alex G's hoard. Though that's not as fast, nor as fine, and leaves slightly more polished edges. But it's not a million miles away.
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What are you stropping on, if I may ask?
Is it a piece of denim laying on carton/a towerl?
 
Emieloss said:
(A hybrid edge would probably also work, but it's much more fun to buy something new :))
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None of my finishing stones used as standalone stones can do what you are wanting, produce a super keen edge with solid bite. These stones include SG2K, SP2K, Naniwa Pro 2K, GreenBrick 2K, Chosera 3K, Suehiro Ouka 3K, King 4k, Morihei 4K, SG 4K, Rika 5K, Nubatama 5K, Geshin 5K, SP5K, King 6k, Suehiro 6K, SG6K and a number of other higher grit stones. On the natural side, I've got an Aoto, Miera, Belgian Blue and a couple others I cant remember what they are called but they too cant do it.

To me, a single stone cant get close to a hybrid for bite with extreme keenness.
Through experimenting, I've kind of landed on liking 1K to 2K for the base stone and 6K for the high stone.
Basically sharpen as normal on the base stone, create a clean burr free edge, and then strop on the high grit stone.

If you haven't much experience with hybrids, use a tomato and a couple other things to dial it in to your liking, i.e. once sharpened on the 1K, test cut and then strop twice on the high grit, than cut again, then strop twice more and cut again etc. Doing this you will find the sweet spot.

As to specific stones, you can use a verity, hybrids are pretty flexible.

As a base I tend to use a SP1K as its a pretty no nonsense S&G with a feel I like. I also use a Suehiro Cerax 1K, Nubatama Platinum 1K, King KD1K, SP1.5K, King KD1.5K, Nubatama Platinum 1.5K and the SP2K when I get board. All of them work amazing in this capacity.

For high stones, I've really just use the King G1 6K. Now before all you haters pile in, yea, its a totally numb feeling stone that is slow. I agree. Its a shi% stone. But when it comes to hybrids, its slowness is a boon and its specific keenness just works great with hybrids. As to its numbness. Well, luckily it only takes three or 4 strops to get the job done so you don't have to suffer long :) Another stone I use a bit in this capacity is another horrible feeling stone, the SG16k but for the most part I just use the King.

If you want to try a totally different type of hybrid, try slurry from a mid grit stone on your finisher. I find Suehiro Cerax 1K slurry on the Morihei 4K to be super interesting. Its also good on the SG8K and no too bad on hard naturals like the Meara and Belgian Blue.
 
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Kawa said:
What are you stropping on, if I may ask?
Is it a piece of denim laying on carton/a towerl?
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Ah... no it's actually just a bit of old newspaper, but the picture on the front page was mostly blue.

I do quite like denim / cotton / cloth for stropping - either that or paper/card would be my favourites. Though *apparently* that's not what our tea towels are for. So it's newspaper most of the time.
 
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branwell said:
None of my finishing stones used as standalone stones can do what you are wanting, produce a super keen edge with solid bite. These stones include SG2K, SP2K, Naniwa Pro 2K, GreenBrick 2K, Chosera 3K, Suehiro Ouka 3K, King 4k, Morihei 4K, SG 4K, Rika 5K, Nubatama 5K, Geshin 5K, SP5K, King 6k, Suehiro 6K, SG6K and a number of other higher grit stones. On the natural side, I've got an Aoto, Miera, Belgian Blue and a couple others I cant remember what they are called but they too cant do it.

To me, a single stone cant get close to a hybrid for bite with extreme keenness.
Through experimenting, I've kind of landed on liking 1K to 2K for the base stone and 6K for the high stone.
Basically sharpen as normal on the base stone, create a clean burr free edge, and then strop on the high grit stone.

If you haven't much experience with hybrids, use a tomato and a couple other things to dial it in to your liking, i.e. once sharpened on the 1K, test cut and then strop twice on the high grit, than cut again, then strop twice more and cut again etc. Doing this you will find the sweet spot.

As to specific stones, you can use a verity, hybrids are pretty flexible.

As a base I tend to use a SP1K as its a pretty no nonsense S&G with a feel I like. I also use a Suehiro Cerax 1K, Nubatama Platinum 1K, King KD1K, SP1.5K, King KD1.5K, Nubatama Platinum 1.5K and the SP2K when I get board. All of them work amazing in this capacity.

For high stones, I've really just use the King G1 6K. Now before all you haters pile in, yea, its a totally numb feeling stone that is slow. I agree. Its a shi% stone. But when it comes to hybrids, its slowness is a boon and its specific keenness just works great with hybrids. As to its numbness. Well, luckily it only takes three or 4 strops to get the job done so you don't have to suffer long :) Another stone I use a bit in this capacity is another horrible feeling stone, the SG16k but for the most part I just use the King.

If you want to try a totally different type of hybrid, try slurry from a mid grit stone on your finisher. I find Suehiro Cerax 1K slurry on the Morihei 4K to be super interesting. Its also good on the SG8K and no too bad on hard naturals like the Meara and Belgian Blue.
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All edge trailing for the high grit "strop"?
 
stringer said:
Coticules and bbws are like half sisters. They are made of basically the same abrasive material (spessartine garnets) in different concentrations. And they are found together in the same seams of rock. Traditionally they would cut the stones so that you get a natural combo of both. The coticules have more garnets. Bbws have more other stuff. For me I find it more useful to raise a coticule slurry on a coticule with another coticule. The Japanese tradition would call that a tomo nagura. Which means a slurry stone made of the same material as the base stone. Same thing with a bbw. It works best with bbw slurry. @cotedupy mentioned raising a slurry with an atoma diamond plate. Ends up having the same effect. Except you don't have to have two of all your stones. So it just depends on your wants and budget.
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I like mixing grits a lot. No problem using a coticule for it, but be aware the coticule covers a huge range, from 800 to above 8k. Have used thick coticule saliva slurry to reprofile a SAK, so very abrasion resistant soft stainless. I was quite successful in using the coticule to raise — water-based — slurry with a Chosera 2k: it added some refinement in the end result, and some extra speed at the beginning. The initially aggressive Chosera particles broke rapidly down the coticule garnets, and vice versa.
The same garnets only get available from the BB at some 4k. I don't understand the mechanism. Must have to do with the BB's slate vs. the Coticule's clay.
 
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Emieloss said:
Man, I thought I could get my knives pretty sharp. But seeing how effortless you cut that paper towel.. I still have a lot to learn.
Nice job!
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Ah just a good stone, good knife, and practice. Plus lots of learning from the experts here :).

The only really important thing is being able to tell when you've raised a burr, and got rid of it properly. That's why I spend a lot of time in that vid touching the edge (obviously there are other ways to tell too).
 
I feel like I might often have a burr that I can't feel or or see. Which results in my edges dulling too quickly. Any way to detect burrs or get rid of them more?
I see you do a lot of edge leading but not really any edge trailing strokes in that vid. I usually do a mix but with more edge trailing. And what about the effect of slurry's and/or pressure on those hidden burr's?
 
Bear said:
I can maintain almost any degree of fresh bite with these.
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sweet garden.
where are those sprays from? all i've tried so far is 10μ diamond spray. i like it, but i've always wondered what kind of edge smaller particles would give.
 
Emieloss said:
I see you do a lot of edge leading but not really any edge trailing strokes in that vid. I usually do a mix but with more edge trailing. And what about the effect of slurry's and/or pressure on those hidden burr's?
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The stone is so fast that it was raising a burr almost instantly during normal sharpening at the start. So quite a lot of that short vid I'm actually deburring, hence a lot of edge leading, full length strokes. Which is how I like to do it, and with very light pressure on a relatively clean stone.

On extremely fast stones, or annoying steels, I sometimes do what people call the 'Kippington Method' of deburring.


Emieloss said:
I feel like I might often have a burr that I can't feel or or see. Which results in my edges dulling too quickly. Any way to detect burrs or get rid of them more?
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TBH I think this probably happens to most of us from time to time, but with practice you'll gradually start getting a better and better feel for it. I find the way a knife cuts through paper (any kind) is a very good burr or wire edge test once you've calibrated how it should feel.

You can see there that at various points I've; felt for a burr using the tips / pads of my fingers, checked it using the 'thumbnail test', and then seen how it cuts kitchen roll at the end. These certainly aren't the only ways to evaluate the state of an edge, but they're the ones I use and know, so kinda just do instinctively when sharpening.


sansho said:
i've never gotten a knife that sharp. i can kinda cut paper towel, but not like that.
i'll get there eventually...
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Yeah it is very literally just a matter of practice. And in practical terms - a knife that'll go nicely through normal paper is quite enough. It's cool to get something very sharp but still with a good amount of teeth, like my Mazaki there, but it's far from essential!
 
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Emieloss said:
I feel like I might often have a burr that I can't feel or or see. Which results in my edges dulling too quickly. Any way to detect burrs or get rid of them more?
I see you do a lot of edge leading but not really any edge trailing strokes in that vid. I usually do a mix but with more edge trailing. And what about the effect of slurry's and/or pressure on those hidden burr's?
Click to expand...
Improving burr control and deburring were (and will probably continue to be) key milestones in my "sharpening journey" (this phrase makes me cringe a bit because it reminds me of the "food journeys" that the Masterchef judges would talk about just before kicking someone off the show).

I find that pressure control is key to burr minimisation. Check out Pete Nowlan's (@Sailor) sharpening video on Knifeplanet.net. as you progress through the lower pressure levels, you will likely feel (and maybe see) bits of burr in the swarf.

After minimising the burr, I perform feather-light edge leading strokes (2 or 3 per side for simple steels, more for high alloy steels), followed by a longitudinal deburring stroke.

Subsequent stones are only for polishing with low pressure, followed by feather-light edge leading strokes and a longitudinal deburring stroke.

I then repeat the last few sharpening steps (which may be the light pressure levels on the last 2 stones or the last 2 pressure levels if only touching up on a fine stone), a technique borrowed from Dave Martell. After pressure regulation, this has made the most difference to my burr control and deburring.

As a final step, I usually pull gently through a cork or block of hard felt.

The Belgian Blue Whetstone is renowned as a stone that abrades the burr as it sharpens. In my limited experience, this does seem to have some basis, but I still do need to do some deburring and burr minimisation.

An alternative is to use the @Kippington deburring method (search "Kippington deburring video"), which results in a microbevel with a well cleaned edge. The advantage is it's quicker, especially with high alloy steels. The disadvantage is that a microbevel is a slightly less sharp edge (but it does suit high alloy steels better). For these reasons, I tend to use the KDM for high alloy steels.

The other disadvantage of KDM is that it can be pretty difficult to exactly match the micro-bevel angle for a touch-up, so a multi-stone sharpening may be required.
 
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A lot of great tips, I'm currently reading the KDM threat as well to further understand the forming -and removing of burrs. I'll play around with different techhniques to see which suits me the most. Thanks Nemo & Cotedupy!

Does high alloy steel mean stainless steels? Does that also include VG10 / SG2? Because those are the stainless steels in some of the knives I use.
 
Emieloss said:
A lot of great tips, I'm currently reading the KDM threat as well to further understand the forming -and removing of burrs. I'll play around with different techhniques to see which suits me the most. Thanks Nemo & Cotedupy!

Does high alloy steel mean stainless steels? Does that also include VG10 / SG2? Because those are the stainless steels in some of the knives I use.
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I would include most stainless steels in "high alloy". The simplest, such as Ginsan, SKD11 and AEBL are relitavely easy to deburr but many others will hang on to the burr tenaciously.

I haven't sharpened VG10 but it is renowned as a steel that requires careful and determined deburring. SG2 less so (maybe because it is a PM steel) but it still needs careful deburring compared to simple steels. I often do use the KDM on SG2/R2, SRS15 and HAP40 knives.
 
inferno said:
for me the glass 4k will create "toothy yet refined" edge. it doesn't hesitate on tomatos and peppers, yet it feels very sharp somehow.
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@inferno looks like you really love your SG soo much that every time I read your comments there is always a shapton glass in it. Lol JK
 
@Emieloss This website might interest you. Lots of scanning electron microscope images of edges sharpened different ways, deburred different ways etc. If you do check it out, scroll down as you go. There is a comment sections under each article with lots of interesting discussion.

https://scienceofsharp.com/home/
I'll give a +1 to the technique @cotedupy demonstrated. Simple, effective, and that website has some cool images that show edge leading for deburring too :)
 
Emieloss said:
I feel like I might often have a burr that I can't feel or or see. Which results in my edges dulling too quickly. Any way to detect burrs or get rid of them more?
I see you do a lot of edge leading but not really any edge trailing strokes in that vid. I usually do a mix but with more edge trailing. And what about the effect of slurry's and/or pressure on those hidden burr's?
Click to expand...
Be aware that while edge trailing does abrade the existing burr just as well, it tends to create a new one. It isn't just flipping the old burr. Edge trailing removes a lot of steel.
 
Se1ryu said:
@inferno looks like you really love your SG soo much that every time I read your comments there is always a shapton glass in it. Lol JK
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i like many stones, pros, glass, naniwa pros, suehiros, kings etc etc. the glass are very allround and easy to use, and they are all similar, just finer or coarser. i find the 4k to be the sweetspot. well, the 3k is a favorite too but it wont make knives as sharp.
 
Nemo said:
I find that pressure control is key to burr minimisation.
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This is an exceptionally important point I think - it's all about pressure control.

You can't really tell in that coticule video but I've gone from starting with a decent amount, and gradually reduced it down to barely touching the stone at the end.
 
I'd also second @Nemo's suggestion of pulling through cork at the very end. I don't actually do it very often myself, but when I have it's seems to just finally clean up and align the edge without any really noticeable degradation (ime). If it removes some degree of 'toothiness', then it's only the kind of teeth that would dissolve as soon as the knife hits a board anyway.

I did a little experiment with this a while back, pulling this knife edge through a piece of wood about 50 or so times after sharpening it (you can see the grooves I've cut there). Camphor may not be the hardest wood in the world, but it's a helluva lot harder than cork or felt, and the knife is still HHT3 ish afterwards. A few pulls through a cork is gonna be just fine.


 
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