EDGE RETENTION/ROLLING PART II

[KnifeGrinders]

You're going to have to let us in on your secret KG. If we read correctly your ceramic knives were sharpened to BESS 100 when your ceramic knife SET test began. We had trouble trouble breaking 300. We purchased some 1 X 30" diamond belts and a top-of-the-line Harbor Freight ($55.00) belt sander to run them on and went to work. It seems to us that ceramic blades like small diamonds. We couldn't get below 400 with the 30 micron and but then did get below 300 (288) when we switched to the 20 micron and very light pressure. Any suggestions for how we "all thumbs" Arizonans might up our game?

What we know of steel sharpening cannot be extrapolated to ceramic.
Unlike steel blades, where you get a well cutting edge off the grit  #400 (30 micron), and a shaving edge off #1000 (20 micron), the ceramic edge will be blunt after #400, and hardly cutting after #1000 - it has to be sharpened further on the finer grit of 5-6 micron (#3-4000) to get it sharp.

Have a look at our BESS scores we get in the process of sharpening ceramic, they are similar to you numbers, and generally speaking correlate with the abrasive grit more than the steel.

CBN#400 500-700 BESS >>  CBN#600 500 BESS >> CBN#1000 280-400 BESS >>  5 micron diamond 105-120 BESS >> 0.5 micron diamond 55-90 BESS