Quote Originally Posted by heavydutysg135 View Post
Does creating the bevel refer to making the thin metal fin that cuts the whiskers after being aligned with the strop, or is the bevel something else? If so, is the bevel created with the 4K and polished and refined with the 8K?
Creating the bevel is simply cutting the flats until they meet at the edge. The actual edge is made up of these roughly triangular teeth left after the abrasive particles have gouged out microscopic grooves down the bevel. This series of cutting teeth is called the "fin" though it's really a series of finlike structures all down the edge. Once the 4k hone has cut the basic bevel, then the higher grits are used to polish the bevel and form these teeth.

The reason this is tricky is that the abrasive particles distort the steel at the edge because of the violence of the action (they're ripping a channel down the bevel, after all). Going to finer abrasives, slower abrasives, and using very light pressure helps keep this distortion down to a minimum so you can get a very clean, sharp, well-formed fin.