Mat_ski wrote: ↑Wed Apr 03, 2024 8:27 am
I have been trying to learn to free-hand sharpen on diamond stones. For that I decided to start on the cheap Ultrasharp stones. I gradually progressed from cheap knives laying around the house to various models from my usual rotation. I was finally "brave enough" to free-hand my Sage 5 Maxamet.
There were few tries with crap results, but after playing around with my technique and angle I finally got it to hair-popping sharp. Decided to take some micrographs at work and share one of them here along with regular pic.
What do you guys think?
Looks to be a bit excessive in convexity, along with an additional bevel being formed, where somewhere in your sharpening progression you made your bevel a bit too obtuse, deviating from the originally intended angle, which didn't
quite get convexed all the way. This can happen if you aren't diligent in checking your movements/progress, or you become impatient, which can become a bigger detriment when you're dealing with this class of super steel.
My honest recommendation would be to sharpen the secondary bevels to a more consistent angle (more "lock" in your wrist when holding the knife during sharpening). At your current rate, it will become excessively hard to sharpen to the apex upon further sharpenings, as you will be motivated to sharpen the entire bevel, eventually finding yourself perpetually chasing that convexity. This can lead to over-sharpening and the inability to establish a clean apex without doing-so (continued sharpening); giving you the illusion (and effect) that you cannot get the knife sharp and will ultimately discourage further progress with the steel. Perhaps this is what happened when you had a few "crap results" from previous sharpenings?
I would recommend a coarse electro-plated diamond stone to correct this, as they are aggressive cutters and can sort-out any bevel issues with a bit of patience. Just be diligent on how much of the bevel that you're removing, and exactly where the bevel is being corrected in doing so. The Sharpie trick can help sort you out with a better visual if you need it.
Of course, this is just my opinion. If you're happy with the performance, along with the adeptness and comfort in sharpening with that level of covexity; by all means, do your thing. Otherwise, the apex looks clean. Good job.
Make Knife Grinds Thin Again.