next a whole new direction....

Next I wanted to examine what happens when you go straight from the 1000 grit stones to a specific grit e.g. 1000 grit > 10 micron, 1000 grit > 3.5 micron and 1000 grit > 1 micron:


510x - 1000 grit diamond stones after 3.5 micron diamond and leather strops finish


510x - 10 micron diamond and leather strops after 1000 grit diamond stones

100 passes with the strops after the stones.

After the 10 micron strops, I re-did the edge at 1000 grit diamond. Then jumped straight from the 1000 grit diamond to the 3.5 micron diamond and leather strops:


510x - 3.5 micron diamond and leather strops after 1000 grit diamond stones

100 passes with the strops after the stones.

I again re-did the edge with the 1000 grit stones before skipping straight to the 1 micron diamonds and leather strops:


510x - 1 micron diamond and leather strops after 1000 grit diamond stones
100 passes with the strops after the stones.

I went on and did another 200 passes with the strops:


510x - 1 micron diamond and leather strops after 1000 grit diamond stones
300 passes with strops after the stones.

Next I wanted to see how the bevel turned out going incrementally but using the same number of passes as the direct 1000 grit to 1 micron test before, so I re-did the edge once more with the 1000 grit diamond stones and then did 100 strokes each with 10 micron, 3.5 micron and 1 micron diamond and leather strops for a total of 300 passes:


510x - 1000 grit diamond> 10 micron> 3.5 micron> 1 micron - 100 passes each

To compare, here again is the 1000 grit to 1 micron:

510x - 1000 grit diamond> 1 micron - 300 passes

I also took a couple of pictures by request:


510x - 1 micron with scale


510x - .5 micron with scale

This was a challenging set to take and I'll have to try again to get more contrast and visibility with the scratches.

Great pictures again, Clay. And a lot. You must have had a fun night .

How many strokes did you do with the polishing tapes? If you did a large number, the results surprise me as well. (Well, I almost get used to stuff not working as expected according to grit size.) You might get clearer results if you made scratches (almost) perpendicular to the scratches of the 1000 grit stones. Or did you do this already? (In which case I am not surprised, but flabbergasted .)

wickededge wrote:


Yes, you cannot write them off that quickly. But this doesn’t look encouraging. The scratch pattern is… well, it’d hardly call it a pattern . I think you need a set of somewhat even and repetitive scratches for the tapes to be abrasive in an effective manner.

wickededge wrote:


That is definitely looking good! Which 1 micron compound did you use?

I find these two pictures very interesting:



It seems the 3.5 micron compound causes a little more burnishing than the 1 micron compound. Not a lot, since 200 stropping strokes with the 1 micron diamond compound seem to create a better result than 100 strokes with the 3.5 micron compound. But still, the stiction is different.

wickededge wrote:


Thanks a lot . I am working on the scratch sizes as you might have seen. When I make pictures like these myself, one where the edge is almost white and another one in which the edge is quite dark, I find it very difficult to compare them. The scratches also seem different. How do you deal with this (other than by making the photographs again)?

I'm definitely going to redo the lapping film tests, starting from a polished edge and count strokes and possibly alternating stroke directions, maybe from polished down through 7k to 3k and then back up. I rotated the scope to get the dark and light images in an effort to see the scratches better but wasn't very satisfied with darker image, have to keep experimenting with it. As far as the 'stiction' of the different strops goes, I think it might be a function of how much paste is on the surface and how much moisture it has.

Whoa! New scope Clay? Nice pics... what is it?

WOW! Those are some interesting photos and observations Clay! It would seem that there is no sense in going 10>5>3.5>1 when you get the same, if not better results with just going straight to the 1m! Is this observation correct?

wickededge wrote:





Also, it seems as if, when you started w/ the 1k grit and on you weren't really hitting all the way to the edge of the edge, am I right?

BTW, Clay, which knife is that a pic of? I am curious as to how hard that Aus 8 steel is on the HRC scale...

Thanks for checking on the lapping film... still curious as to what your further testing will reveal

That's a good question and I'm not sure I've discovered an answer yet. I'd like to do a lot more testing because I don't think I controlled the experiment enough. I think I need to at least repeat it but perform the exact number of strokes with the 1000 grit stones. I think I may not have done enough strokes with them when I rebuilt the bevel each time which could be skewing the results. You can see in the first 1000 grit picture that I didn't do enough strokes to reach the edge, so I'll repeat and see how it turns out. I'll also need to control for age of strops and amount of paste applied.

The new scope is the Dino-Lite AM-413T5. I'm really liking it so far!