Unexpected Side Effect of Sharpening New Tools

[lowell holmes]

Lee Valley has a product you should be aware of.

http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/pag...84&cat=1,43072

[ken hatch]

Those Japanese contests are amazing. Your last sentence is in conflict though. You discount the effect of a mirror polished edge but acknowledge that “closer to zero” with respect to serrations is ideal. Zero serrations = perfectly smooth = mirror polish. To clarify, all I’m talking about is the cutting edge. I don’t bother finishing the whole back of the plane iron.

Rob,

perfectly smooth=mirror polish

I could be wrong but I expect if it were possible to achieve a perfectly smooth surface it would act like a “black body” and not reflect light. Kinda like when your edge is sharp there is no reflection. It takes a flat surface to shine.

ken

[phil harold]

What's far more important for a smooth finish is how small the serrations of the edge are, as well as the shape. The closer you can get the zero, the better the result will be.

getting closer to zero results in a mirrored surface...
I was just sharpening my chisels for work, today
I noticed that with just the 1000 grit stone my chisels will still slice end grain and leave a glossy cut
but I still take the edge to 8000 grit which is pretty reflective

[Thomas Wilson]

That's what I use! Just a little dab will do ya!

On stropping versus not, there are a lot of ways to skin a cat and I don't think the cat would care whether the blade was stropped or not. I have tried slicing paper with and without stropping. The paper <seems> to slice better with stropping. This is not scientific at all. But is my justification. All my efforts are comparing me to me. Brian Holcombe threw a little shade by suggesting that stropping was only helpful for poorly sharpened blades. Nice. Jessica de Boer suggests that polish is not the focus. Whatever. This is depressing. I went and bought myself another plane.

Does anybody want to hear about the timberframe workshop I am building?

[Tony Shea]

Love these debates!

IMO, mirror polish does not equal sharp. I think we are all comparing apples to oranges. It all comes down to what stones and method you are using to get to sharp. If you are using a set of synthetic water stones, film on glass, or any other similar method to sharpen then YES you do need to get to a mirror polish. This is the nature of that media. What can happen with this method is that you polish a nice rounded edge and you end up with a beautifully polished dubbed over edge. Or if your coarse stone doesn't get past the wear bevel you will end up with an nice polished wear bevel that barely cuts wood.

More importantly than getting that polish is getting the scratches out left by the previous stones. You have to spend enough time at each stone and if your final edge has a nice heavy polish because that's the nature of the media you're using to sharpen than so be it. Most of us do end up with polished edges as we don't have thousands of $ wrapped up in natural stones. The polish is certainly not the tell tale sign of sharp but is the result of using synthetics therefore many of us assume this means we are sharp.

[Brian Holcombe]

The mirror reflection is a byproduct of the type of scratch created by the media being used, it’s not because the scratch is finer than that which produces a hazy finish.

A hazy finish is produced by a rounded scratch pattern, a mirror is created by a sharper scratch pattern. The rounded scratch pattern is more durable because creates a gullet, rather than a sharp inside corner.

[Brian Holcombe]

That's what I use! Just a little dab will do ya!

On stropping versus not, there are a lot of ways to skin a cat and I don't think the cat would care whether the blade was stropped or not. I have tried slicing paper with and without stropping. The paper <seems> to slice better with stropping. This is not scientific at all. But is my justification. All my efforts are comparing me to me. Brian Holcombe threw a little shade by suggesting that stropping was only helpful for poorly sharpened blades. Nice. Jessica de Boer suggests that polish is not the focus. Whatever. This is depressing. I went and bought myself another plane.

Does anybody want to hear about the timberframe workshop I am building?

We’re providing hard won insights, use them as you see fit. I don’t insist that anyone do as I do, except my students.

You’ll likely need to continue stropping with A2 blades, the burr formed by A2 is very durable so I typically strop them when someone asks me to sharpen A2. I quit using A2 a few years ago, giving preference to plain carbon steel or O1 when plain carbon is not available.

[ken hatch]

The mirror reflection is a byproduct of the type of scratch created by the media being used, it’s not because the scratch is finer than that which produces a hazy finish.

A hazy finish is produced by a rounded scratch pattern, a mirror is created by a sharper scratch pattern. The rounded scratch pattern is more durable because creates a gullet, rather than a sharp inside corner.

Brian

Thanks. What you posted says what I’ve been trying to post better than I have. As we said in the 60’s “Right on brother “.

Ken

[Brian Holcombe]

Brian

Thanks. What you posted says what I’ve been trying to post better than I have. As we said in the 60’s “Right on brother “.

Ken

Cheers! I like that, I'll have to put that to use.

[Gary Ragatz]

Lee Valley has a product you should be aware of.

http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/pag...84&cat=1,43072

That looks like the same product I got with a kit from SharpeningSupplies.com. No Veritas brand name, but a few bucks cheaper:

https://www.sharpeningsupplies.com/G...pound-P26.aspx

[Alexander Zagubny]

Did you guys see that blog? There are interesting micro photos of edge being sharpened and stropped.
https://scienceofsharp.wordpress.com...-stropping-do/

[bridger berdel]

I agree that shiny isn't sharp.... but.... watching the change of surface finish as you sharpen can be a useful indicator of what is going on, and that each finer stone tends to leave a shinier finish than the last. It's very easy to generalize shiny as sharp....

[phil harold]

If you can see the edge, it is not sharp.

[JimA Thornton]

Looks like I'm in the ballpark with my sharpening. Veritas BU Smoother, PM-11 blade, sharpened with a set of DMT diamond stones, .0015 thick shaving on European Beech. OH yeah..........no polished shine on the back. Guess I won't be concerned about that anymore.

Jim

[Thomas Wilson]

JimA, you are good. I see a tournament unfolding. Will post some rules soon.