Curtis,

So anyway, in light of the above and my experience, if somebody is buying the stones as WEPS has them mounted, the 800/1000 would be the first purchase that I would make if I was starting over. A 1K/2K would be a great option if someone will build them for you.

Phil

Nice.... but what is it?

Sauce wrote:


Thanks for the feedback Sauce. I'm not sure yet what we can get done on pricing - they're not cheap but the quality is awesome. Do you have a sense of what you feel like a reasonable price is? The company we're working with is trying to make it happen for us and they're much more reasonable than Pelican, but the cases are still expensive.

I'm in the same boat as you. My WEPS PP1 is still on backorder and it has yet to leave my mind. I watch videos and browse the forums daily. In fact, I've been nothing but a lurker since this post. I have a SOG Twitch 2, Twitch XL, and a Fallkniven PXL on the way. So excited to put a beautiful edge on those knives. Call it what you will, but I am totally obsessed with this thing and I don't even have it yet.

Sauce wrote:


Try not to raise a burr at 100 grit, rather raise a burr, preferably at 1000 grit or 800 grit. The less time you spend on the lower grits, the less damage you'll do. Don't get me wrong if there are scratches any of the techniques shared will work.

Most common rookie mistakes are thinking they need to use their coarsest stones, and that they need to raise a burr on course grits.

Happy sharpening,
Nick

With the progression you describe I usually get a pretty mirror edge.

It’s hard to judge from a distance what is going for you on exactly. It could indeed be that your stones are not fully worn in yet. However, if you’ve done eight knives already they should at least be somewhat worn in (depending on the steel and the amount of strokes you do).

My best guess is that at some point with one or more stones you have not completely erased the scratches form the previous grit stones. As Tom said, a loupe is a good tool to judge that. (And they’re pretty cheap. Chefknivestogo sells a good 45x loupe for about $14.)

The first thing I’d do is to make absolutely sure that you have raised a burr on both sides of the blade with your initial stones. If you haven’t done that, that’s probably the reason. The sharpie trick helps well in this, too.

Then it’s a matter of wiping out scratches. Again, if you’re not sure, you could use the sharpie trick here, too. If your stones are not fully worn in yet, it just takes a little longer, but you can get there. If you first use moderate pressure and then light pressure (as Geo recommended) you should get there. Maybe it just takes a little more strokes. Also, I usually do more srtokes with the higher grit stones to make sure I wept out the scratches from the previous stone.

It’s probably overkill, but if nothing works, you could try to raise a burr and apply the Sharpie trick with the higher grit stones as well.

A final tip I could give you is to use quite a bit of pressure with the strops. Not everyone on the forum does it that way, but it works well for me.

Success! Eventually you get there. And though there is a bit of a learning curve, I’ve found it’s not too steep.

Let us know how you fare. And if you can provide us more information, we might be able to give more focussed advise.