Thread: Is This Excessive?

The goal is not a shiny bevel, though a good metal polish will can remove all visible stria at 400X, it is to lay a finish stone stria pattern on a fully set bevel with no other stria on it. The only stria is the finish stone.
Theoretically if you go through a proper progression you end up with just the finish stone stria, but not always. Is it really all that different from some Jnat progressions?

And yes it is excessive, but it works and it’s not all that much works and no the edge does not crumble.

Yes, if you use a CBN progression the bevel can be shiny, depending on how many laps you do, but there is no degradation of the edge, and it is a smooth shave, but at .10um it is very keen.

We are talking excess here. And yes, TBS on some of the Knife sites guys are doing this and more, cutting down high grit synthetics and naturals for honing jigs, on EDC knives, just to get a shiny bevel.

Whatever floats your boat… but it all moves the needle forward eventually.

There is a limit to how far the needle can go. Whatever happens on the bevel ends up on the edge and taking the polish to the extreme described here may yield a (relatively) more pristine edge; but as I already said, a single stropping or shave will diminish that edge. I have much greater faith in edges of high quality hones. They may not yield something as pretty under the microscope, but they produce a high quality and durable shaving edge.

Then, don’t strop on leather. An edge can be maintained on CBN and a paper or cloth strop with one of the higher grits, .25,.125 or even .10um for a very long time, with just a few laps and without any edge degradation, it will convex the bevel slightly but that is a good thing, just like Chrome or Cerium Oxide.

Not all that many years ago, an 8K Norton was the hot ticket, and some crazy guys were using 12k stones and taping spines, OMG can you believe it?… Here recently, many fought the GS20 stones as excessive waste…

It all moves the needle forward, who knows what the limit is. It is not just about keenness, comfort is more important than keenness. And we are making strides in both directions, the finer the stria the straighter, smoother the edge.

We are talking about “a high quality and durable shaving edge” and about Excess in this post…

Today’s excess is tomorrows normal. Like I said, guys are cutting up Jnats and GS20s to hone EDC knives on jigs. And some guys still hone razors on a full natural progression… Do what makes you happy.

Like a wise man once said… “Have Fun”.