How is it possible for scratches that were there earlier to suddenly appear now as Tom suggested. If they were there in the first place, wouldn't they have been visible earlier. Again I can't understand...no doubt brain plaque setting in. To me I think there may have been some contamination as Clay suggested...but no big deal anyway.

Leo the dense

Hmmm! As I drink my morning coffee the fog from last night clears. When I think of it, that knife has been through a lot of use and experimentation with various edges. It is quite possible that I inflicted some deep scratches on that blade early on, even before I got the WEPS. I suspect now that I am the culprit here, not contamination. It definitely was not done by the maker. I examined that blade when it arrived and it was pristine.
Good thinking Tom! Bad Leo!

Leo

Good morning Leo

I took about 10 minutes to go back through the grits, starting at 1500# to remove the scratches. It was definitely some kind of contamination on the stone because I could clearly see the big scratches with the naked eye. Here is the knife at 8000# again after reworking it:


Zoom In - 230x

And finally, the 15000# Shaptons stones:

And finally, the 15000# Shaptons:


Zoom In - 230x

I spent a little more time with the 15k stones to try and ensure that we were only seeing the scratches from that grit.
Approximately 240 strokes per side. Elapsed time: 00:04:00

Here is a shot (for Tom) with the blade slightly tilted so I could get a better focus on the edge:


Zoom In - 230x

Here are a few shots of the TK2 after being sharpened:


Zoom In

Zoom In

Zoom In

Yowsa. That's an egde.

Will the recommendation be to buy all of the grits of the Shaptons (from 220# on up), or will they be able to be integrated as higher grits to the existing diamond and ceramic stones after 1600#. As an example, I might like to be able to add the 2000, 5000, 8000, 15000 shaptons (maybe in stages based on budget) and preserve my existing investment (from 50#-1000# on diamond and 1200# 1600# ceramic), but the switchover on angle due to the thicker Shaptons sounds tricky.

dschur wrote:


Your thinking on the progression is right - I'd probably stick with the existing diamonds and ceramics and then jump to the Shaptons at 2000#. The switch over shouldn't be too tough, it's an almost perfect 3 degree difference. I'll try to do a knife soon with that progression and document the progress.

Excellent results once again Clay. You do such meticulous work and at the same time are informative and clear. I wish I had had you on my teaching staff back when I was in the education business.
Will you continue with the PXL folder and the Choseras tomorrow?
Thanks very much Clay!




Warm regards
Leo

That sounds awesome, I can't wait to see the stones. I really like the idea of stones up that fine, and a lot less strops.

Any idea if I was gonna refresh the wickededgeusa.com website looking for them what might be a good week to mark on my calendar?

My new Richmond Remedy is sitting at home right now with a factory edge. I can't wait to see it and put it on the wicked edge. It might be number 2 in line though as I also got an S30V Spyderco Military delivered today also. It was a good day for my mailbox.