Yep, 18 degrees each side for 36 inclusive


Progression was

Diamond:
100
200
400
600
800
1000

Sandpaper taped to the 1000 grit diamond stone:
1000
1500
2000

Balsa Strops:
5
3.5
1
.5
.25
.125

Cow Leather Strop
.025
blank

Awesome, exactly what I needed. Means I can pull off most of that (Pro Pack 1 with some 3m 1000/1500/2000/2500 sandpaper).

I would assume you use the sandpaper dry (since loading shouldn't be much of an issue with metal, as opposed to paint)?

Ya I use it dry, the only thing I add water to are the diamond sprays on balsa. While the pastes stay slightly moist and don't really need maintenance, the sprays dry out and work better when slightly wet.

Just be careful while stropping that you lower your sharpening angle a degree or two and dont use too much pressure. You can get a blade to pass the HHT/whittle hair after 2500 sandpaper, but it's easy to go backward with bad stropping.

MathewWhaley wrote:


I've read more often that people use sandpaper. Any idea how the 1000 grit sandpaper compares to the 1000 grit diamond stones?

Where I live I can get sandpaper up to 2500 grit. However, thats the (FEPA) P-scale, which is different from the ANSI scale that Wicked Edge use for their stones. You can compare the scales here.

I don't have access to a microscope to give a real side-by-side comparison, but I can tell you that after the 1000 grit diamonds, the surface is still scratched and toothy, whereas after the 1000 grit 3M sandpaper, it starts to take on a mirror finish and lose its teeth. I don't know WHY this is, just that it happens.

To be honest though, unless I'm feeling particularly OCD on a given day, I skip the 1000 and 1500 sandpapers, and go from 1k diamond to 2k sandpaper. It doesn't get rid of every scratch, and it takes awhile longer, but it's such a pain cutting out little rectangles of sandpaper and taping them to the same stone three times for each knife.

I think the answer is the hardness of the diamonds vs the abrasives on the sandpaper along with the friability of the abrasives on the sandpaper. The diamonds don't give at all and cut deeper grooves. They also don't break down easily (though they do break down somewhat) and most likely the abrasives on your sandpaper do break down quite quickly into smaller particles.

MathewWhaley wrote: