After a long wait, the Chosera and Shapton WEPS stone microscopic progressions are up!

The Shapton Progression can be found here.

Chosera Progression can be found here.

Also, the Stock diamond and ceramic progression can be found here.

My next blog post will discuss the similarities/differences between the series.

Enjoy!

WOW! That's amazing to see microscopic evidence of what is really going on when sharpening/polishing with various stones.

You have made it possible for some of us to re-evaluate previously held beliefs about sharpening. And that's a good thing.

Thank you, Tom, for your expertise and for all the hours that you have already put into educating all of us.

Thanks again Tom! The Shapton progression with your commentary is great.

Really looking forward to your comparison of the stones, especially of the medium grit ones!

tom, what would you go to after 10k choseras? have you seen what works best from the microscope? thanks bro!

Now we are on the topic, did anyone take a close look at the pictures in the grit comparison chart of an edge after the 1200 grit ceramic stones and after the 1600 grit ceramic stones? Is that an optical illusion or is it a lot of microchipping that does not show up in pictures of the edge after Shapton and Chosera stones of similar grit sizes?

mark76 wrote:


Nice observation. I hadn't seen the difference before, but it does look that way. I guess it shouldn't be surprising given the quality of the Shaptons and Choseras. Another thought is that the presence of moisture with the waterstones. I'd like to retry the ceramics lubricated with a little soapy water to see if there is a change.

I'll answer soon guys - I promise

Josh - I think I found the answer to your problem... I'm doing the paste progression now, and it's confirming what I thought. Short answer, you'll need pressure when transferring from the 1K WEPS diamond to the 14micron paste.... Pictures to follow soon... I'm in the middle of sharpening now!

wickededge wrote:


Is there a reason you think it might not have happened if the ceramics were lubricated, Clay? (I've wondered before what the main difference is between synthetic wet stones and the WEPS ceramics, why do wet stones need to be kept wet and the WEPS ceramics not.)

For what it's worth, I have never observed this amount of microchipping after using the 1200/1600 stones. (One stone progression I did can be seen here.) I have seen only a tiny amount, and Toms explanation of this (scratches from lower grit stones becoming apparent when polishing with higher grits) is quite convincing.

I thought this microchipping had also happened to the knife on the photographs in the grit chart and that it was pure coincidence that they showed up in the WEPS ceramics pictures and not in the Chosera/Shapton pictures.

mark76 wrote:

Good points. My initial thought was that there might be metal particles on the stones that were causing the chipping so I want to try with soapy water to see if that makes a big enough difference to account for the chips in the image. I also want to explore any other differences between the stones and techniques for each one, moisture being an obvious one, hardness and friability being a couple others with the stones themselves. If the results aren't an effect of the stones themselves, then I guess it has to be technique, in this case, not enough time spent removing deeper scratches. I'm going to browse my images and see if there are other progressions I've done that include the ceramics.

In looking at these images further and going back through the whole progression, it looks as though I wasn't hitting the edge with the ceramics. I'm going to have to go back and do it again. I have a brand new Farid mule in CPM-REX 121 just asking for me to sharpen it and document the process.