08-28-2018, 11:31 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-29-2018, 05:10 AM by KnifeGrinders.)
It is following Mike's posts on his SET rolling tester which initially used only 100 grams impact, and my own experience with its current version of 150 grams impact, that made me appreciate how gentle strokes on the steel should be for the best effect, and also role of the smooth steel and importance of the steeling angle to be as close to the edge angle as possible, especially for the smooth steel.
As Todd Simpson notes, the force applied in steeling is just enough to make contact, but the pressure on the edge is enormous because the contact area is small.
The sharpness scores improve by 100 points after very light passes on the smooth steel, but with more edge rolling and steeling the sharpness restores less and less down to 50 points, and where it is less than that it is time to use the grooved steel.
I haven't tried edge-trailing steeling, am curious to try, but steeling into the edge is logical considering the steeling mechanisms of ironing the roll up against the edge face and micro-beveling; for these experiments I steeled the way the meat plant operators steel.
What we've seen and what others say, steeling is not for every knife; there is a group of knives to which it is detrimental, in our experience grooved (abrasive) steeling is bad for blades of HRC <= 54, and both smooth and grooved steeling is not good for blades >= HRC 62.
I have tried jeans, cork, plain and loaded leather for recovering the edge:
- jeans effect is usually nill to slightly worse;
- drawing through a cork is unpredictable, may improve or worsen;
- plain leather is always good, and leather loaded with a fine honing paste is even better.
I am yet to compare leather stropping to smooth steeling, will do some day. Todd has SEM images for both on his website https://scienceofsharp.wordpress.com and interesting thoughts on mechanisms through which they recover the edge.
As Todd Simpson notes, the force applied in steeling is just enough to make contact, but the pressure on the edge is enormous because the contact area is small.
The sharpness scores improve by 100 points after very light passes on the smooth steel, but with more edge rolling and steeling the sharpness restores less and less down to 50 points, and where it is less than that it is time to use the grooved steel.
I haven't tried edge-trailing steeling, am curious to try, but steeling into the edge is logical considering the steeling mechanisms of ironing the roll up against the edge face and micro-beveling; for these experiments I steeled the way the meat plant operators steel.
What we've seen and what others say, steeling is not for every knife; there is a group of knives to which it is detrimental, in our experience grooved (abrasive) steeling is bad for blades of HRC <= 54, and both smooth and grooved steeling is not good for blades >= HRC 62.
I have tried jeans, cork, plain and loaded leather for recovering the edge:
- jeans effect is usually nill to slightly worse;
- drawing through a cork is unpredictable, may improve or worsen;
- plain leather is always good, and leather loaded with a fine honing paste is even better.
I am yet to compare leather stropping to smooth steeling, will do some day. Todd has SEM images for both on his website https://scienceofsharp.wordpress.com and interesting thoughts on mechanisms through which they recover the edge.
http://knifeGrinders.com.au