08-23-2017, 08:38 PM
The meanest, most gnarly and aggressive belt I have at the moment is a new 40 grit blue zirc belt. It’s a very sharp beast indeed, and not something I would want to bump my knuckles into when it’s moving. I was looking at the thing and thought, why not?
Using light pressure so I wouldn’t turn the blade into a toothpick, I sharpened it. It only took two light passes on each side to raise a nice burr. Then I did a quick job of deburring using a leather belt. Really I was just playing around and did not expect too much from the edge, so my sharpening and deburring effort was minimal at best.
The bevel does not exactly have a mirror finish. In fact, it has such deep scratches I actually used it as a fingernail file by sliding my fingernail along its length. It worked well as a file, smoothing the end of my fingernail and visibly removing fingernail material.
Here’s an image of the bevel. Gnarly, eh?
The edge felt very sharp, so I took three sharpness readings. To my surprise they were 90, 110 and 130 gf on the PT50B. Of course it hangs on my fingernail and feels very sharp to my fairly educated sharp detection fingers. It push cuts paper, melting through under its own weight. It shaves the hair on my arm. Melting through the skin of a ripe tomato is not a problem. Using only the weight of the knife, it easily slices through folded paper towel and everything else I tried. An interesting edge. Here’s an image of the edge.
The fun thing about sharpening with a very coarse grit is that it is very, very quick and automagically produces a nice, toothy edge. I noticed in Mr. Mark’s post, he was using a 60 grit Cubitron II at Sturgis. It’s interesting to me that once you start down the road of using coarse grits, it’s hard to stop. I have a couple 120 grit Cubitron II’s that I have not used yet, but now I think I’ll have to order a couple of those 60 gritters to play with too!
Using light pressure so I wouldn’t turn the blade into a toothpick, I sharpened it. It only took two light passes on each side to raise a nice burr. Then I did a quick job of deburring using a leather belt. Really I was just playing around and did not expect too much from the edge, so my sharpening and deburring effort was minimal at best.
The bevel does not exactly have a mirror finish. In fact, it has such deep scratches I actually used it as a fingernail file by sliding my fingernail along its length. It worked well as a file, smoothing the end of my fingernail and visibly removing fingernail material.
Here’s an image of the bevel. Gnarly, eh?
The edge felt very sharp, so I took three sharpness readings. To my surprise they were 90, 110 and 130 gf on the PT50B. Of course it hangs on my fingernail and feels very sharp to my fairly educated sharp detection fingers. It push cuts paper, melting through under its own weight. It shaves the hair on my arm. Melting through the skin of a ripe tomato is not a problem. Using only the weight of the knife, it easily slices through folded paper towel and everything else I tried. An interesting edge. Here’s an image of the edge.
The fun thing about sharpening with a very coarse grit is that it is very, very quick and automagically produces a nice, toothy edge. I noticed in Mr. Mark’s post, he was using a 60 grit Cubitron II at Sturgis. It’s interesting to me that once you start down the road of using coarse grits, it’s hard to stop. I have a couple 120 grit Cubitron II’s that I have not used yet, but now I think I’ll have to order a couple of those 60 gritters to play with too!
, but I get that sharpness almost every time without really trying. 
with that? I’m not doing anything special at all. I just sharpen and deburr and that what happens. Weird, huh! The only thing I can think of is that I use an adjustable rest when sharpening so I maintain a consistent angle. Other than that, I just raise as small a burr as I can on one side, turn the blade over and do the same again, then deburr the thing. I just use one belt, not some series of grits. Like I say, nothing special at all.