Lots more fun being had here today! A customer sent in an Outdoor Edge, Swingblade AUS-8 steel for sharpening. This was a great knife to sharpen for our progression because the softer steel made the work go very quickly and showed up the grit scratches easily. I used the stock Wicked Edge stones for this sharpening progression:


Just 20 passes per side at 20° per side was all it took to re-profile the edge

On the 600 grit stones I made a few errant strokes which showed up immediately.

At this point, I took a detour to examine a technique a customer had been telling me about and had written about in Blade Forums. He has been jumping straight from the 600 grit diamond stones to the 14 micron strops. I followed that path for a while with the following progression: 600#> 14µ> 10µ> 5µ> 3.5µ


I started with just 20 passes per side on the 14µ strops


An additional 80 passes per side


An additional 100 passes per side


10µ strops - 50 passes per side


5µ strops - 50 passes per side


3.5µ - 50 passes per side

when you get to the higher levels, are you going to be alternating stroke directions?

it must be because it is a softer steel.... because even after the 1k stones and going to the 14m paste, i did around 800 strokes per side and could still see the scratches left from the 1k with the naked eye...

razoredgeknives wrote:


In the next phase, I dropped back to the 600 grit stones and then progress up through the 800, 1000, 1200 and 1600 grit stones before using the strops again.

wickededge wrote:


Sweet! I can't wait to see the results... so when you refer to "split grain" leather, what are you talking about? just the smooth side out? from what I have read, split grain is much harder than the full grain, is this true?

After my little detour around stropping straight from the 600 grit stones, I wanted to get back on track, so I went back to the 600 grit diamond stones for 20 strokes per side:



Next were the 800 grit diamond stones, also 20 strokes per side:



And finally the 1000 grit diamond stones, also 20 strokes per side:

Now the ceramics:


20 Passes with the 1200 grit.


20 Passes with the 1600 grit.

I wasn't satisfied with the 20 passes so I did another 30 for a total of 50 per side:


I liked the way this looked much better.

Next came the strops.

Finally back to the strops, starting with the 14 micron:



Then the 10 micron:



5 micron:



And finally the 3.5 micron: