My experience with the strops is that the tackier the better. I get the best results when my strops are really grabbing the metal.

Deputy115 wrote:

Deputy115 wrote:


I had a different result as far as mirror edges. I sharpened a Kershaw Blur from 100 diamond thru 1600 ceramics. Then I switched to 5,000/10,000 Choseras before going on to the 1.4/0.6 micro ceramics. The mirror edge after the 10,000 Choseras was great, to the naked eye. But after the micro ceramics, the mirror edge had changed - inconsistent polish thorughout the edge that just didn't look right. Has anyone else noticed this?

However, at 400x magnification, the edges seemed about the same.

I couldn't get the lightening right with regular photos showing the mirror edge difference but I did take some 400x photos of both 10,000 Chosera and 0.6 micro ceramic edges.

After 10,000 Choseras:



And here are two more photos of the same blade after the 0.6 micro ceramics (different lightening):



This is just one knife so I'll try some more after lapping the micro ceramics.

holymolar wrote:


Not quite the same experience. But tonight I sharpened another knife, finishing with the micro fine ceramics and again I noticed some scratches similar to the ones in the first photograph of the edge in my blog post. Don't know exactly why.

Clay, can you tell us why you think lapping the stones would be a good idea?

For two reasons - 1) I had noticed that one of the brown stones had a rougher surface than the other 2) I'd read somewhere that the only difference between the Spyderco Fine and Extra Fine stones was how they were finished i.e. they were the same stone but one that was lapped to a finer surface which led me to think it would be worth a try since the same company (Coorstek) that is making our stones makes the stones for Spyderco. I'll try to dig up the post I read for reference later. I contacted my rep at Coorstek to ask about it but he didn't know anything and is supposed to get back to me.

mark76 wrote:

The quote about the F and UF Spyderco stones comes from Cliff Stamp on his blog:

When I first used the micro fine ceramics (esp. the "brown" stone) , I did notice a different scratch pattern on the edge, however, after lapping them, the scratch patterns appear to be much more refined and consistant although I am not looking at them under 200x. Just my 2 cents but I'm curious to see other results.