The Benefits Of A Light Touch

So after a few months of trying, I was able to get my sharpening touch back for getting a high sharpness edge. One thing I learned was that for achieving a high sharpness was to use a light touch during the edge refinement stage of sharpening and the burr removal (if burr sharpening) or a micro-bevel (if either burr sharpening or no-burr sharpening). This is ususally the last stage of sharpening, for me it is with the Spyderco UF and Dan's Surgical Black Arkansas stone. Lately I have also been using the Rozsutec stone also as part of my finishing routine.

I tend to use Spyderco ceramics (mostly the medium, sometimes I refine wirh the fine) for finishing the edge, these stones I believe have to be used with the lightest touch possible to achieve a good edge, if you apply too much pressure the hardness of solid ceramic will create annoying micro-burrs along the edge in my experience. 3/4 passes per side at an higher angle to microbevel are usually enough if the stone surface is not worn/loaded: for conditioning spyderco ceramics I use F180 Sic grit for the medium and F400 for the fine.
I no longer use the stones for grinding the edge to refine the scratch pattern, they seem to load too quickly to be useful.
I use them dry, I know they would benefit from oil to help reduce fraction, I will give it a try and report on the forum
Of all the finishing stones I have, the medium is the most used, as I like my edges rather toothy and aggressive.
I also came to think the Norton Fine India as the Coarse Spyderco Ceramic, the stones have very similar properties imo



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/05/2022 10:12PM by Millscale.