I've been getting used to my new ZT0560 and am now tinkering with the edge. I've carried it for about 3 weeks with the factory edge, using it for small tasks. It was never very sharp when I got it, just barely shaved but did cut boxes and things well enough.

Today I mounted it up and set about equalizing the bevels. It was pretty far off, a difference of over 4 degrees from one side to the other. I set it at a precise 19 degrees per side and got after it with the 50# and 80# stones. After the 80#, it shaved roughly and slashed double walled cardboard nicely. I then stropped it with the 14um strops which made it shave more smoothly and still cut the cardboard aggressively. I did 23x 36" long cuts through the cardboard before the blade started getting hot and snagging.

After that little test, I straightened the edge with the 100# stones before progressing directly on to the Micro-Fine stones. Now the edge is extremely aggressive, shaves smoothly and slashes through copy paper, even push cuts it easily. It's not a mirror finish, but has a nice bright look and some wicked micro-teeth. I'll try to get some pictures taken tomorrow and will post them.

I wanted to see what skipping some stones would do and I'm pleased with the results. I'm hoping others will fiddle around with different progressions, omitting various grits and doing some tests. I think some things to study are a rough finish with some stropping to clean it up a little, a super polished bevel with a toothier micro-bevel and a toothy bevel and polished micro-bevel. I'm specifically interested in edges customize for specific tasks e.g. cutting veggies, opening boxes, cutting rope etc....

Here is my first pick of the edge after the following stones: 50#, 80#, 100#, Micro-Fine Coarse, Micro-Fine Fine

It looks like I need to do some work cleaning up the edge of the edge, will work on that tomorrow.

sweet! first pics from your new microscope?!

I too am curious about the results... I have never thought of doing this before. I would like to play around with stropping with some type of cloth (felt or nanocloth maybe?) that has little fibrous bristles (would look like carpet if you zoomed up close enough) loaded with a compound. I am courious if you can actually polish IN the micro serrations, instead of just the peaks themselves (like leather would do)...

This one isn´t from my new scope. I was in a hurry and so used the 500x instead since it´s really quick. Felt or split grain leather work really well for loading up compound and getting into the grooves.

razoredgeknives wrote:

I took a fresh look at the knife this morning and got it up under the new scope. I'm still having issues with the 100x objective, so for now, I'm limited to 800x which is still pretty awesome. Here is the edge at 500x:



Here it is again at 800x:



It's really clear how the edge needs refinement. It's natural that it's fairly serrated looking, that was intentional, going straight from the 100x to the Micro-Fine ceramics. What really interested me was the little burr, so I decided to give it 10 strokes per side with the 14um strops. My goal was to clean up the edge and deburr the blade while leaving it toothy. Here it is at 800x after stropping:



It shaves extremely smoothly now, a big difference after just those few strokes with the strops. I'll carry the knife toothy like this for a few day, maybe tinkering around with some coarse strops of various configurations to see what kinds of edges I can get and how they perform on real world tasks.

Couldn't resist tinkering a little bit right away so I took a set of balsa strops loaded with 15um CBN from Ken Schwartz and spent a little time on the blade. Here it is at 800x:



Just what I was looking for in terms of edge tooth. I'm excited to use this knife around the office, will probably invent some cutting tasks so I can see how it performs.

A couple quick tests after the 15um CBN and Balsa strops:

Shaving - effective but not as easy as after the 14um Diamond and Leather Strops
Copy Paper - easily slashes through, cuts curves and push cuts well

Off to attack some boxes

Just completed 80 cuts, 24" long without the blade getting hot. It's no longer shaving nor going through the copy paper easily, but still, 80 cuts through double wall cardboard is pretty impressive, especially for such a thick blade. So far, I'm liking the 15um edge.

Thanks! Keep us posted! loving the new pictures from your microscope!