masterswimmer
.450/400 Nitro Ex
I just sharpened my EDC CRKT Burnley 2495k. I've sharpened it many times, both on my electric Ken Onion and with my whetstones. Although the Ken Onion does a decent job fast, I prefer the slow process of the whetstones. It allows me to 'feel' the blade.
That said, today I skipped the 400 grit and started at 1000. Moved on to 3000 then 8000. I've been very diligent about sharpening before the knife gets too dull. This allows starting at 1000. Too dull and I'd need to take off more steel and start at 400. I probably could have started at 3000 today. I just like the edge to be as close to scalpel sharp as I can get it.
Anyway, the reason for this post is this. After going through each grit with 20 passes on each side, then 18, 15, 12, 10, 8, 5, 4, 3, 2, and then 1 pass alternating each time about 15-20 times each side, I cleaned up the knife. Dried it off, and proceeded to do the paper slicing test.
Typically this blade, after sharpening, will slice through paper with precision. This time the blade kept tearing the paper. I was getting P/O'd, big time. I was about to start resharpening the blade when I realized I'd forgotten to strop the blade. I know it's important to finish the process by stropping, but I never thought the actual blade sharpness would be affected all that much. Bottom line, when I did the paper test after stropping, the blade sliced the paper like the hot knife through butter that I was expecting.
The blade sharpness was so dramatically better after finishing with the strop that the thought of needing to go through the sharpening process again was absurd. Absolutely an eye opening experience.
For the record, I use the green compound on the strop.
That said, today I skipped the 400 grit and started at 1000. Moved on to 3000 then 8000. I've been very diligent about sharpening before the knife gets too dull. This allows starting at 1000. Too dull and I'd need to take off more steel and start at 400. I probably could have started at 3000 today. I just like the edge to be as close to scalpel sharp as I can get it.
Anyway, the reason for this post is this. After going through each grit with 20 passes on each side, then 18, 15, 12, 10, 8, 5, 4, 3, 2, and then 1 pass alternating each time about 15-20 times each side, I cleaned up the knife. Dried it off, and proceeded to do the paper slicing test.
Typically this blade, after sharpening, will slice through paper with precision. This time the blade kept tearing the paper. I was getting P/O'd, big time. I was about to start resharpening the blade when I realized I'd forgotten to strop the blade. I know it's important to finish the process by stropping, but I never thought the actual blade sharpness would be affected all that much. Bottom line, when I did the paper test after stropping, the blade sliced the paper like the hot knife through butter that I was expecting.
The blade sharpness was so dramatically better after finishing with the strop that the thought of needing to go through the sharpening process again was absurd. Absolutely an eye opening experience.
For the record, I use the green compound on the strop.
