How many go above 8000 grit

[Richard Hutchings]

I know, sharpening, like there isn't enough discussion about it. I've been watching RC make those fluffy full width shaving with his 16000 grit stone on end grain. I go as far as 8000 and switch to the strop. I use Shapton 1000 and 8000 ceramics which are awesome, they don't need to be soaked and seem to hold flat pretty well. Would a 16000 really make that much difference? I would think it would make the strop redundant at the least.

[Tony Shea]

I personally do. I typically run a 1K Shapton Pro, 5K Shapton Pro and finish on the 12K Shapton Pro or of late the 16K Shapton glass. Right after grinding the bevel back and starting a fresh micro bevel I skip the 5K. Once the micro bevel is no longer micro I start hitting the 5K in between. After the secondary bevel is about half the size of the entire bevel I will go back to the grinder. I personally use the LN honing guide therefore am not free handing my sharpening. I have no reason to stop using the guide as it is so quick for me I just don't see the benefit of switching to strictly free hand. My results are extremely consistent and razor sharp.

Having said all of this, I don't think there is a big benefit from 8K to 16K. There is a spreadsheet somewhere out there with the particle size of the different brand abrasives and if memory serves me correctly Shapton typically rates their stones much higher than most brands relative to actual particle size of the abrasive. Years ago I used to dig into all this hoopla about sharpening but at this point my method is so automatic I'm just not interested in changing anything.

[John C Cox]

It depends on what you're doing. I think there's more chance of lasting benefit on plane irons than on chisels due to the fixturing of the blade and better control of the chip (both thickness and evenness.). I doubt there's much benefit to a roughing plane iron where you're hogging off trash, but there might be in a final smoother on clean, abrasive free wood.

Several sharpening experts claim some additional benefit out of super fine honing. Theoretically, the edge should last a bit longer because of leaving the surface steel more damage free from prior grit. The trouble is that if there's any abrasive or corrosive residue in the wood, that ultra fine finish wears off vanishingly fast... As in the 1st pass and the beautiful mirror finish is already tracked by scratches...

I can't point to any benefit on wood in my own work with chisels from going finer than P1500 (around 1000 grit) prior to stropping or buffing. The wood scratches my edges up worse than that after a few passes... I tested out stopping at coarser grits and did see a reduction in edge life below P1000 (around 600 grit.) prior to stropping or buffing. That's way way coarser than anything you're talking about, though, and chisel edges take a massive beating compared to planes.

I will say, the silky feeling of the first few clean passes on a super finely honed edge is something else. I just wish it lasted longer on my edges.

[steven c newman]

I usually stop at 2500 grit....then a strop with green compound....which is what those 2 planes were sharpened to..

[Joshua Lucas]

Nope. DMT Extra Fine (only 1200 grit!) and then strop.

[Andrew Seemann]

I go from the Tormek straight to a 4000 grit water stone and then hit the stropping wheel on the Tormek for a few seconds.

Sometimes I wonder if the internet gurus sharpening on those one million grit stones (or whatever the number is) are doing it just to sell stones.

[Kevin Jenness]

I've been watching RC make those fluffy full width shaving with his 16000 grit stone on end grain


That's awesome! How fine a stone do you have to use to get a 16000 grit stone that sharp?

[Richard Hutchings]

Hardee har har! Yeah, I could have worded that better.

[Jack Dover]

Whoever is stropping is going above 8000 to around 10k-12k.

The thing is, though, that a stone grit isn't the only factor in the equation. You also need steel that can be polished and most importantly hold this edge. There's no point in polishing it to such a high grit for an edge to crumble on a first cut.

The second question is pragmatism: how often do you need to take a full width end grain shaving? Or are you dissatisfied with the surface finish from your tools? Just to give you some prospective: I'm using synthetic oilstones 90% of the time, no problems taking a full with shaving whatsoever, shavings hold together and all that. My finest stone is fine India (approx. 400 ANSI grit) and then stropping. Chisels leave surface that reflect like a dull mirror and chips look oily. It took me a while to figure which stone works best with a particular chisel though.

[Frederick Skelly]

I get tempted to buy a 16,000 stone, so Im very interested in your question.
Today, I hone to 6000 and then go to the strop with green compound - and my shavings are lovely.
I dunno!

[Luke Dupont]

If I really am planing or paring end grain or concerned about tearout or am working with soft wood or something, I finish on a blue black arkansas and bare leather. Grit doesn't really apply here, but I'm guessing it would be around 12-14k or something. This is how I finish my straight razors, and I can get an incredible shave off of this stone.

But most of the time, a Lily White Washita followed by 30-40 strokes on a plain leather strop will give me a very fine edge that is easily enough. Again it's hard to quantify grit. The stone itself is probably technically a really low grit, like 500-800 or something, but the resulting edge I get is probably around 5-6k.

Occasionally I sharpen on waterstones and use a cheap but effective Jnat with similar results as a hard arkansas, maybe 8-9k or so. I haven't found coarser stone that is as versatile as the Washita though.

I used to just use a fine India and a leather strop with compound, sometimes with a soft ark to bridge the gap. That worked just fine too.

[Richard Coers]

I've never gone above 3,000, now nor even before you could buy such a thing. How could I ever do woodworking for 50 years without mirrored tools!

[Monte Milanuk]

I've been going from an 8000 grit diamond stone to stropping... but even with a 25 degree blade in a Veritas LAJ I'm just getting powder off end-grain. Where am I going wrong?

[Jim Koepke]

There is a spreadsheet somewhere out there with the particle size of the different brand abrasives and if memory serves me correctly Shapton typically rates their stones much higher than most brands relative to actual particle size of the abrasive.

Here is one copied from the internet:

475131

• See my next post for a more recent chart.

It appears a Shapton 5000 has the same particle size (3µ) as the Norton 8000, variations abound.

This piece was done with a #5:

475132

To the right of the dark smudge on the left is the face of a piece planed with a freshly sharpened blade in a jack plane. Taking a picture of the smoothed face is difficult. The real question may be did the blade create the surface or did the sole of the plane do little burnishing?

My Norton 8000 grit stone produces a blade capable of taking nice fluffy shavings:

475130

This shaving measures in at a little under three ten thousandths of an inch. The micrometer has a friction clutch so the shaving isn't being compressed in the measuring.

This light of a shaving is only useful at final smoothing.

In clean wood the surface will not start showing scratches for a while. A light shaving equals less stress/wear on a blade than a heavier shaving.

A finer stone has been on my want to get list at times. Though now days it is more often oilstones do the sharpening on most of my blades.

To give it a try some 0.5 micron abrasive sheets were purchased from Lee Valley > https://www.leevalley.com/en-us/shop/tools/sharpening/sheets-and-belts/33004-3m-micro-abrasives-for-sharpening

Still haven't gotten around to giving them a try.

jtk

[Jim Koepke]

Oops, found a more recent grit chart:

475133

It has more color! :D

jtk

[chris carter]

DMT extra-fine (1000-1200?) and then green compound on a strop. I have tried going to 2000 and 3000 with sandpaper before the strop and it turned out to be utterly pointless. I should point out that I rarely go to the DMT plate. I just keep stropping until I feel like I need to redo the whole bevel or I damage the edge.

[Richard Hutchings]

Whoever is stropping is going above 8000 to around 10k-12k.

The thing is, though, that a stone grit isn't the only factor in the equation. You also need steel that can be polished and most importantly hold this edge. There's no point in polishing it to such a high grit for an edge to crumble on a first cut.

The second question is pragmatism: how often do you need to take a full width end grain shaving? Or are you dissatisfied with the surface finish from your tools? Just to give you some prospective: I'm using synthetic oilstones 90% of the time, no problems taking a full with shaving whatsoever, shavings hold together and all that. My finest stone is fine India (approx. 400 ANSI grit) and then stropping. Chisels leave surface that reflect like a dull mirror and chips look oily. It took me a while to figure which stone works best with a particular chisel though.

I can only see a possible benefit when shooting endgrain and that's really all I'm talking about. Will it make it easier to push through gnarly end grain like my curly maple board. I really don't care about a perfect finish, just ease of cutting without buying an expensive shooting plane.

[Jim Koepke]

I really don't care about a perfect finish, just ease of cutting without buying an expensive shooting plane.

The ease of cutting is not only determined by the sharpness of a plane's blade. It may be influenced more by angle of attack. Before purchasing a Low Angle Jack Plane a lot of my end grain shooting was done with a Low Angle Block Plane. It was less stress on my bum shoulder than using a bench plane.

A comfortable way to hold the plane involved also influences the ease of effort.

A simple 'hot dog' helps to obtain a better grip the plane > https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?130114 < My first handle made me worry about breaking the cast iron so it was changed to a more traditional 'hot dog' design.

Derek Cohen has a more elegant 'hot dog' construction on his site > http://www.inthewoodshop.com < Secondly it is also shown in old posts here.

Derek Cohen has many times shown his slopped ramp shooting boards as a means of easing the impact of shooting. He also has posted a few times about the relationship of the bedding angle of a plane's blade correlates to the effort required to use the plane.

A sloped shooting board has an effect of slightly skewing a plane's blade. It first creates a lower angle of attack. Secondly it results in a slicing motion, easing into the wood instead of having a sudden impact with the end grain.

jtk

[Richard Hutchings]

Definitely plan to make a ramped shooting board and a hotdog. I really enjoy Derek's website. I go there every so often just to read.

[Kevin Foley]

I do 800 when needed, then 4000 followed by a strop.

475164

[Kevin Foley]

I've been going from an 8000 grit diamond stone to stropping... but even with a 25 degree blade in a Veritas LAJ I'm just getting powder off end-grain. Where am I going wrong?

Assuming a sharp iron possibly the mouth is set to narrow, open it up and ease out just a touch more iron, or it might be that your work piece is kiln dried to crackers. Just guesses.

[Jack Dover]

Oh, then yeah, 13k grit isn't going to be very noticeable difference.

For shooting end grain with a good surface quality a few things come into a play.

A good well fettled plane that allows precise blade adjustment. Nothing too crazy, a minimally worn vintage is just fine. It's better to pick a longer and heavier plane - for direction control. The force needed to push a plane through depends on how much blade is set, so a fine thread adjuster is more important than edge polish. It should also hold the set well, I have a few planes that retract a blade a bit by themselves, not using these for anything precise. You might also move a chip breaker all the way back, that would reduce effort as well.

To ensure quality keep an eye on blade nicking. Sometimes on some stones you can actually chip an edge, esp. on hard tempered steels - contamination, careless handling, too much pressure, etc. Chipping will result in white lines on planed surfaces. In my experience this happens on oilstones most often, waterstones need to be very dirty (grit, sand, etc) for this.

A good shooting board - must be solid and square. I don't care for ramped boards, regular works just fine, so my area of attention is ergonomics of the board: must be light, must be around. My first board was from 3/4" MDF, still have it and it's a bear to pull out. Other are light, made from laminated flooring scraps, the base is a thin torsion box, the ramp is sunk maybe 1/8" or whatever is the laminate thickness. This actually allows truing a board up every once in a while.

Shooting end grain was probably my first "non-intuitive" technique adopted, my only plane was a Stanley Duo-tone and it was sharpening by holding sandpaper with my fingers on some old joiner's table. Never went higher than 400 and then stropping, yet it produced a glassy surface. Had to learn how to do it properly though: found some scraps and just messed around until satisfied. These days I shoot end grain with LV BU jack - length, heft, better grip. Not that it's required, just nice to have.

Some people claim a bit of alcohol helps. I prefer working sober, so neither can attest nor deny.

One more note: I personally shoot for squareness, not surface quality, because joinery is better when all pieces as square as possible, esp. dovetails. Sometimes to trim length a trifle, something none of my machines can do. I guess a dedicated special shooting plane is nice when there's a dedicated shooting station, kinda like Stanley 51, which is not just a plane, but a whole set, a muscle powered machine. My space is very limited, I can't afford to spend even an extra square feet (or I might get stuck and never make it out), but maybe one day...

[Jim Koepke]

I've been going from an 8000 grit diamond stone to stropping... but even with a 25 degree blade in a Veritas LAJ I'm just getting powder off end-grain. Where am I going wrong?


Assuming a sharp iron possibly the mouth is set to narrow, open it up and ease out just a touch more iron, or it might be that your work piece is kiln dried to crackers. Just guesses.

Monte, How much do you strop?

Too much stropping can round over an edge.

What kind of wood are we talking about?

A well sharpened blade will be able to cleanly lift a shaving on most pines or firs:

475196

A plane blade should be able to do the same out of the plane.

If your blade is sharp, what Keven posted abut needing a touch more iron is the likely answer. When adjusting my shooting planes they are often set by planing edge or face grain. Then for shooting end grain a little more blade is "eased out."

The ribbons of end grain will turn to dust when picked up.

If you ever have plans to travel to Portland with a little spare time, send me a PM if you would like to come by for a little time in the shop.

jtk

[Thomas Wilson]

I have 1000, 3000, 6000, 8000, and 10,000 Ohishi water stones. I sharpen to 10,000 for everything, then strop lightly. For a touch-up I skip some of the coarser grits. I find shooting end grain dulls the blade really fast. Maybe more frequent touch-ups would help. That said, I pay more attention to the surface of the end grain cut than the curly shavings. My hand tool work is mostly in softwood and most of the time the shaving is powder. I am trying to cut the soft early wood between the rings without compressing it. Blade has to be really sharp to do it.

[Richard Hutchings]

I almost never work with soft wood.

[Jim Koepke]

Alder is technically a hardwood. It is one of the softer hardwoods.

This image is of shooting end grain:

475197

The shavings come off like ribbons of butter. They will crumble to dust when rubbed between my fingers.

The plane used is an LN #62, purchased before either of our favorite premium plane makers introduced a dedicated shooting plane.

jtk

[Monte Milanuk]

Monte, How much do you strop?

Too much stropping can round over an edge.

What kind of wood are we talking about?


Maybe 20-30 strokes on leather with green compound.

Pine and/or doug fir.

[Andrew Seemann]

Maybe 20-30 strokes on leather with green compound.

Pine and/or doug fir.

Try skipping the strop and see how the blade cuts straight from the stone. If you get shavings instead of powder, then you likely have some rounding going on from the strop.

[Jim Koepke]

Maybe 20-30 strokes on leather with green compound.

Pine and/or doug fir.


Try skipping the strop and see how the blade cuts straight from the stone. If you get shavings instead of powder, then you likely have some rounding going on from the strop.

Have to agree with Andrew.

My stropping on straight blades is usually limited to five or less strokes on each side.

With a gouge, more strokes may be taken.

jtk

[Kevin Jenness]

As Jim said, the rake angle is more important than ultimate sharpness for shooting end grain.

[Robert Engel]

I quit using leather and now use MDF.

I think the dubbing effect with leather is real.

The highest grit I have is a 16K Shapton. I can’t see any difference stopping at 8k/strop.

[Luke Dupont]

Have to agree with Andrew.

My stropping on straight blades is usually limited to five or less strokes on each side.

With a gouge, more strokes may be taken.

jtk

I agree that eliminating variables such as stropping might help pin point the problem.

A bunch of thoughts that might help the OP troubleshoot stropping, if that be the problem:

Personally, I'm in the camp that strops a lot. I sometimes take 40-50 strokes, and found that I can refine the edge just as well as I can on a finishing stone, even with just plain leather and no compound.
Some say strops do more harm than good if you "over do it" but I found that this is not true at all. If you find that to be the case, something is off about either your strop or the compound or your technique. If 30 strokes degrade your edge, 5 strokes will degrade your edge, only to a lesser degree, so your edge is not benefitting from either.

Bad technique can lead to dubbing the edge and changing geometry at the tip, creating too high and blunt an angle of attack.

Bad compound, a dirty strop, or bad leather can actually degrade an edge.

One compound that I tried which is popular with straight razor folks was very thin and too "liquidy" -- not solid and waxy, and thus smeared as I used it. This resulted in instantly rounding over my edge every time I used it. I never could make that compound work for me.

Another problem I had is with some pieces of leather. Some say to use the smooth side or the rough side, but it depends on the leather. Some leathers I have used, the smooth side doesn't do much of anything, but the rough side works wonders. Other pieces I've used, the rough side actually dulls my edge every single time. There are no hard fast rules here -- you just have to do a lot of testing and figure out which pieces of leather work and which don't.

Geometry is important too. A straight flat bevel is going to have two "hard edges" that are likely to be rounded over if pressed hard into a soft strop, whereas a convex bevel will spread the pressure evenly across the bevel and prevent rounding over the edges even when used with a fairly soft strop. You may need a harder strop (thinner leather, glued to a stable piece of wood) or just more careful technique and less pressure to avoid dubbing the edge.

Of course, you can eliminate all of this by just ending on the stone, and if you get a better edge, you know to examine your strop and stropping technique.

[Luke Dupont]

I quit using leather and now use MDF.

I think the dubbing effect with leather is real.

The highest grit I have is a 16K Shapton. I can’t see any difference stopping at 8k/strop.

The dubbing effect with leather is the result of bad technique.

You can know whether you're dubbing your edge or not by taking heed of the angle and eagerness with which a chisel or a plane iron bites into wood bevel down. If you sharpened it at 30 degrees and it's biting the wood and thin shavings / curls at 35, you've really dubbed your edge.

You should be able to take any number of strokes that you want on a strop without dubbing the edge.

Other problems with a strop or the compound used may result in degrading your edge or dubbing it as well.

Learning to sharpen straight razors can be a potential teacher in these regards.

[Jack Dover]

If you get shavings instead of powder, then you likely have some rounding going on from the strop.

I'm using a power buffer (please don't shoot me), so I know for sure my edge is rounded, probably way more than yours. Yet no problems with getting an end grain shaving, so I assume rounding is not the issue here. I would bet the issue is that an edge is not polished all the way. This happens very often, people just don't get to the cutting edge while sharpening. Stropping doesn't care, it will somewhat sharpen even a ragged edge, sufficient for the second type of a shaving, so they conclude an iron was sharpened.

As a side note: it seems we're concentrating on shavings too much. Shavings are waste, nobody cares whether it was a shaving or powder, the end grain of a piece is what's important. If it's square, flat and clean - it doesn't whether there were shavings or powder.

[Rob Luter]

I go from 6000 to 16000 and then strop lightly to eliminate the fine burr. Like Jack, I don't care about shavings. I care about how well the plane cuts and what the resulting surface finish looks like.

[Jim Koepke]

I'm using a power buffer (please don't shoot me), so I know for sure my edge is rounded, probably way more than yours.

This is more likely a convex bevel.

if it is power buffed as in the unicorn method, then it still has a sharp edge.

If it is buffed on both sides it is more likely to produce what is called a dubbed edge. This is two rounded sides meeting along a rounded border.

The result is what is important, more so than the means.

475403

End grain will not look like the top of this mallet handle from a dull blade.

jtk

[Luke Dupont]

I'm using a power buffer (please don't shoot me), so I know for sure my edge is rounded, probably way more than yours. Yet no problems with getting an end grain shaving, so I assume rounding is not the issue here. I would bet the issue is that an edge is not polished all the way. This happens very often, people just don't get to the cutting edge while sharpening. Stropping doesn't care, it will somewhat sharpen even a ragged edge, sufficient for the second type of a shaving, so they conclude an iron was sharpened.

As a side note: it seems we're concentrating on shavings too much. Shavings are waste, nobody cares whether it was a shaving or powder, the end grain of a piece is what's important. If it's square, flat and clean - it doesn't whether there were shavings or powder.


Good observations, and good hypothesis. I suspect the same.

[John C Cox]

I think a few here have mentioned that poor results on the strop is often a matter of poor technique. I had a problem of raising the end of the tool towards the end of the stroke and rolling the edge down into the strop and dragging it across. One or two passes like this may be ok, but more rounded edges severely. It wasn't until I watched a tutorial on razor stropping that I realized what I was doing. Now, I pull straight through the stroke, and lift edge first. Stropping then produced the results I was after.

The other thing I ran into is... The more you have to fiddle with getting something to work right, the less likely it will. So if you have to fiddle with a strop endlessly to get it to work, results will probably be poorer.

I think buffing is sort of the same, in that you have to sort out what works for you. For example, I found softer (greasier) abrasive bars far excel harder (drier) abrasive bars on my setup. Harder bars seem to work very slowly as received, but do a bit better once loosened up with a spritz of WD-40. Maybe it's just that my shop is cold, but I got better edges a lot faster with a bar that's softer. With the softer compound, it cuts better at a lower angle against the wheel, and there's less jockeying it around and chasing it up by mistake.

[Jack Dover]

I think a few here have mentioned that poor results on the strop is often a matter of poor technique.

I would argue it's a matter of a technique on stones rather than on a strop. A strop just refines an already formed cutting edge. If the edge wasn't formed properly on stones, stropping will have just a minimal effect: it's all about abrading, polishing compound abrades, so we can treat a strop as just a very fine stone. And I think everyone would agree there's no point moving to the next stone if you didn't do a proper edge forming on the current stone. When this happens we should just make a step back and repeat. I.e. my edge usually shaves before a strop. If it doesn't I don't even bother and go back to a medium stone.

I also think that rounding issue is overblown. Or maybe not even an issue at all. We could've gotten a definitive answer by looking at the OP's edge under a microscope or x40 jeweler lenses. There might be some burr left too thick to be stropped off (happens if we make a burr too big on steels at around 57-59HRC), or the issues with a chosen angle on this particular steel — both of these result in a rapid degradation of an edge on the first cut. We're just guessing here, basically.

[Jack Dover]

Yeah, your guess is correct, I'm a Unicorn zealot now.