Wacky

[SavantStrike]

So I'm not sure exactly why this is, but not too long ago I honed a blade that seemed to require the pyramid treatment.

It honed up alright (except the micro chip I missed that required me to do it all over again *facepalm*), but when I was at the 8k stage there was a section on the toe that just didn't get as smooth as I would have liked it to. Some time on 12k removed the grittiness that I felt with the TPT and I was able to finish it again on 8k before giving it an overkill polish at 12k.

My C12k is a slower hone than my Norton 8k, yet it was able to remove grittiness that the Norton didn't seem to want to remove. Why?

 

[Samouraï]

this is all beyond me for the most part, but do you use a microscope when honing a blade?

 

[chess1]

i am having problem to understand this word. grittiness .
i checked in dictionary and seems like means sandy feeling.
what you with 12 k you just polish the blade that is all. 8 k done it is job and cannot go more you use 12k and it fixes the problem . Nothing is unusual.if this process will opposite then it will be strange.

 

[English]

First I have never used the Norton. They are not readily available in Europe.

But I do understand the problem.

I am assuming that the Norton has perfectly flat surfaces,

The problem is that at the 1000 grit bevel setting stage you have not formed a V along the full length of the blade.

Any failure at the bevel setting stage will not be removed as you refine the
grit.

The Norton was not honing the poorly set bevel.

Simple as that.

You need to reset the bevel and check it with a 10X "quality" loupe. If the V is not perfect along the full length of the blade, whatever you do in the sharpening process will end up with failure.

1000 grit wet and dry sandpaper used wet on a level surface will set a perfect bevel.

Hope this helps.

 

[SavantStrike]

First I have never used the Norton. They are not readily available in Europe.

But I do understand the problem.

I am assuming that the Norton has perfectly flat surfaces,

The problem is that at the 1000 grit bevel setting stage you have not formed a V along the full length of the blade.

Any failure at the bevel setting stage will not be removed as you refine the
grit.

The Norton was not honing the poorly set bevel.

Simple as that.

You need to reset the bevel and check it with a 10X "quality" loupe. If the V is not perfect along the full length of the blade, whatever you do in the sharpening process will end up with failure.

1000 grit wet and dry sandpaper used wet on a level surface will set a perfect bevel.

Hope this helps.

I see what you're saying and you're right, I did screw up the initial bevel, but that didn't explain this particular occurence. The initial bevel was fine, but I needed to stay at that stage longer because I missed a tiny chip in the blade. It wouldn't have been much longer, a 1k grit DMT makes short work of things.

What I mean by grittiness was the feeling I got during the TPT. The blade was smooth at 8k except for an area in the toe which (while it cut smoothly), it did not feel as smooth as the rest of the blade. Additionally this area of the edge had a much duller sheen to it than the rest of the blade.

I kept honing at 8k trying to remove this dull spot and make it feel smoother but I got fed up and went to 12k and figured I would just try the darn thing. Maybe I lost track of how many strokes I did on 12k, but I got results with the 12k, enough so that the sheen was even on the blade and I was happy with the results. It shouldn't have taken a hone this fine to do this. I must not have been patient enough.

As for the edge, I usually didn't use any magnification to look at the blade. I looked at my first blade under a loupe and my Rat Shack pocket scope, and I felt that it was a lot of time spent looking under magnification when I could simply have relied on the TNT and the TPT and the ultimate shave test to tell me whether or not I did things right. Since this was my third blade, I didn't use the magnification. The chip I missed in this blade told me two things:

1. I didn't have enough experience when I honed this blade for the TNT to have actually told me hat a mini chip feels like. The failure to find the chip this time taught me what to feel for the next time, and I can now feel chips with the TNT most of the time.

2. Looking at the initial edge under a loupe (not even the scope) is worth an extra 1 or two minutes. Goodness knows I spend my time doing the rest of the work (it takes me about an hour to put an edge on a blade right now).

The dull sheen on parts of the blade problem I described seems to be better solved at 12k though, and I'm not sure why other than perhaps that sheen is really just an indicator how how polished the edge is.

All ended up well though and after I didn't like the initial shave with this blade (that chip probably made it feel a bit rough), I went back and gave it the whole 9 yards again (removing the chip required this). It ended up the sharpest blade I had ever used, and it was so sharp I went back and gave a similar treatment to the other blade I'm using right now (though I only went as far back as 4k with that and 8k probably should have been enough).

 

[leighton]

Its probably the "too much time on one hone" phenomenon. Sometimes you just have to put down the hones, do something else and come back to it.

Applies to sandpaper and probably a lot of other things in life too.

 

[SavantStrike]

Its probably the "too much time on one hone" phenomenon. Sometimes you just have to put down the hones, do something else and come back to it.

Applies to sandpaper and probably a lot of other things in life too.

This sounds like a 100 percent plausible explanation.