Wire Edge Prevention

[KnifeGrinders]

Brass-rolling test on a Spyderco Chaparral, freehand sharpened to 17dps.
Procedure: Sharpened on fine diamond, then stropped on CrOx/leather (whole blade).  Then resharpened half of the blade on extra-fine diamond (which usually leaves a burr). I rolled with less pressure this time, maybe 1/2 lb.

No-Burr section pre-rolled: Avg 185.7 StdDev 11.5 - rolled: 191.7/25.8
Burred section pre-rolled: 275.3/10.5 - rolled: 297.0/18.7

This is a pretty coarse edge, so I expected quite a bit of variance.  What I didn't expect was the very high numbers, the no-burr section of the blade still easily push-cuts newsprint and phone-book paper across the grain even after being rolled, and could nearly whittle hair right after sharpening.

The relatively high pre-roll "no-burr" edge score and post-roll increase in its score deviation tell us that the base burr is still there sitting on the apex.
What you actually have on your Spyderco Chaparral is half blade with the base burr, and half blade with a feather burr from the extra-fine diamond.
Thanks to the high-carbon excellent steel, this base burr is more like the structural continuation of the apex, rather than a common burr - and that is what makes the high-end knife deburring different from the mainstream. But as you start real cutting, the base burr will behave as a wire edge, only on high-end knives the wire edge performs well longer than on mainstream.

Don't you feel that from the fine diamond to CrOx is too big of a jump? - before taking the burr to CrOx it should be substantially thinned away. I would add an in-between honing with a 3-6 micron metal polish like Autosol or Flitz - the CTS-XHP should respond well to it. After that, finishing on CrOx at a little higher angle cleans away the base burr - in freehand sharpening this step is usually done on a hanging strop as it naturally flexes allowing for a higher angle.

Yet, looking at your S30V and CTS-XHP, and my Elmax results, I believe we can safely generalize that in response to "gentle" brass/copper rolling a deburred edge scores <= 10 BESS worsening, and an edge with micro-burr > 20 BESS worsening in higher-end steels.