Thread: arkansas between sandpaper and blue belgian

I put this question to Randy at the end of the sandpaper-bevel thread, but there's lots of you whose expertise on this will be helpful to me. I've got a glass plate and 1000 and 2000 grit sandpapers on their way from handamerican. My plan for a few ebay salvages was to set the bevel with the two sandpapers, then move up to Belgian blue. Josh, Randy, and others however have been talking about the slight rounding that sandpaper can produce; they deal with it by moving from there to Norton 1K and/or 4K after the sandpape. I don't have Nortons, and given that the Belgian blue is ~6K and very slow, I think it's not going to be practical for correcting any rounding.

I don't really want to buy another stone. I have soft and hard Arkansas stones for kitchen knives, and I'm wondering if I could use these as an intermediate step after the papers and before the blue.

I'm sounding you guys out for a or a or a .

If you glue the sandpaper to something flat, there is no rounding...

Nenad

I think that if you use the 1k sandpaper and then move to the blue belgian, initially with some pressure and with a slurry. you will do just fine. The important part is the slurry, it makes a big difference in the rate of cutting that the hone does.

Thanks Randy!

Check the help files. The grit size on wet- dry paper is not the same as for water stones. That 2000 paper is about a 1 micron grit size. The Belgian blue is usually referred to as a 4K stone is 3 micron. I got the size off the Norton grit card in the help files

Originally Posted by superfly

If you glue the sandpaper to something flat, there is no rounding...

Nenad

Depends on the compressibility of the sandpaper and the glue.

Originally Posted by dylandog

I don't really want to buy another stone. I have soft and hard Arkansas stones for kitchen knives, and I'm wondering if I could use these as an intermediate step after the papers and before the blue.

I don't have any belgians, but I use hard arkansas between the sandpaper and the 4k Norton. However, I've got a big stone and I'm fond of the hard and translucent arkansas stones anyway; I'm not sure that a 2k norton or similar grit shapton wouldn't be a better choice.

Originally Posted by mparker762

I don't have any belgians, but I use hard arkansas between the sandpaper and the 4k Norton.

You're talking about the hard white, right? I.e. not the surgical black.

Yes hard white arkansas. I don't have a black at the moment. Just a big (8x2.5x1.5) hard white, and a small (4x3x0.5) 1st grade pink translucent.

Do you have any idea about the relative grit sizes of the arkansas stones, white and black, and roughly how fast and slow each is?