Thread: Sharpening Stainless Steel

So last night and today I've been working on sharpening my Hess 44 stainless. It's the first SS blade I've sharpened.

It had some microchipping in it, so I decided to start from scratch; work out the microchips with some light breadknifing, set the bevel, sharpen, refine, etc.

I used a DMT 8E for the breadknifiing and bevel setting. This part took a very long time. After all the visible microchips were removed, I'd set the bevel, then looked at the edge again. I kept getting new microchips after setting the bevel with the 8E. Apparently, the 8E is just a bit harsh for such a brittle blade? I was finally able to get an acceptable (but not perfect) bevel using the very lightest touch I could. And then I had to stop before the blade was really as sharp as I would like to see coming off of the 8E.

I then went to the 8EE. Again, I had to use the very lightest strokes I could. This took *forever*, and countless number of strokes. I had to start over again several times after getting an unacceptable amount of micro chips in the edge. I was about ready to lose my cool at this stage, it was taking so long, and the chips kept coming back. I finally got an edge with just a few microchips that was acceptably sharp.

I then put some 1 micron 3M film on a marble slab. It took 200 laps to remove the marks from the 8EE. This was followed up by 50 laps on .25 diamond paste, and 200 leather.

The blade looks very good (but not perfect) under the microscope. There are no visible scratch marks, but there are a few microchips.

I'm gonna go shave with it right now...

Is it normal for stainless steel to be so brittle and difficult to sharpen??

If it doesn't pass the shave test, I'm going to start over again, only this time using 3m films for the entire process. The DMT's just seem too harsh.