Why are burrs so malleable?

[me2]

So I checked the knife block at home and found I have 4 knives in the condition described. There are 2 stainless, relatively inexpensive kitchen knives, a Santoku and a chef's pattern, and 2 relatively inexpensive Japanese kitchen knives. One is a small petty, the other a stainless laminated Bunka. I'll sharpen these later and see if there is a lot of difference with how they sharpen up. I also use 2 different methods. For the Petty and Bunka, I use 220, 1000, and 4000 grit water stones. For the 2 stainless knives, I typically use a Norton Economy Coarse/Fine combo stone with a DMT Aligner clamp. Edge angles are 12 to 13 degrees with a 3 to 4 degree increase for microbevels.