Burr Formation SO IMPORTANT

Hello Sharpeners,

I just realised that I am getting 50 people a day looking at my Blog, I don't know if that is 5 people interested in knife sharpening and 45 spammers or people who are bored but I'll happily take the five folks I know are reading due to emails.

As my obsession grew, and I think the real ignition point was about five years ago, I went at things the wrong way. I focused on getting the best high grit stones I could gather and patted myself on the back for having a 15K Shapton Pro and longed for his big brother the 30K.

If you starting out and want to be an awesome sharpener know this:

1. You won't be an awesome sharpener at first, you need to brace yourself and understand that all you need to do is make the knife a little less dull. If that takes 6 months that is OK, it won't happen with one knife, it will with 100 knives if you are playing your cards right.

2. Concentrate on gather three decent stones, forget anything above 5k for now, that can come later,
a 10k stone isn't going to make your knife sharp if you are not getting it sharp off of your 400, 220, 500 or 320.

3. Fixate on technique, get that down and use the sharpie a lot , on the same knife to keep yourself on target.  Whatever works for you, whatever is improving the edge is the style you can adopt and make your own. I use pressure on my trailing strokes only, I changed a year ago from edge leading pressure but either works.  I started doing the knife in sections but I changed that up as you can see on my video. Section sharpening works though, get comfortable and confidence, build layers of confidence by becoming better.

4. Don't count, instead, find a rhythm, counting tends to automate the process and can lead to you flipping sides or stones too early. Listen and feel and look at the edge instead of just counting to 40 and then switching sides.  Not to mention, that is so freaking boring, I tried it and I hated it.
It is OK to have a rhythm count like 1-4 then slide your fingers along the edge or if you are on the Edge Pro just slide the stone but don't sweat that. You will get a feel for it after awhile.

THE BURR

I probably asked 20 people 20 times whether or not you need to form a Burr with every stone and I did not get an answer that I liked, nothing that made sense to me. (Except from a couple of folks that I really admire, but that came later)

The burr is the fatigued metal that has made the knife dull, it is what is left of the primary edge so your sharpening, your abrasive action of the stone on the steel is moving that debris from one side of the knife to the other, to the opposite side of side you are working on.

If you do this on both sides of the blade, and this is the most important aspect of sharpening success, so if you have done this, if you have removed the bad stuff and exposed the fresh strong steel underneath. WHY do you need to do that again.

You don't, you just need to make sure that if subsequent burrs do form, and they will, that you remove them. I hope I am making sense here.

I was told that you need to form additional burrs to ensure you are hitting the edge, I don't agree with that, I agree of course that you need to hit the edge of the edge but forming a burr again and again is just a waste of metal. You'll know that you are on target and sharpening the edge of the edge because the knife is getting sharper, you'll see the scratch marks change, start to smooth out.

You can use the sharpie to keep yourself on target so the burr formation is crucial on the first stone only.

Burr removal is crucial on every subsequent stone or at the end of the process.

I"ll talk about burr removal soon.....I have over 100 knives left to sharpen and more coming.

(With ref to Ceramic knives, you won't form a burr on those, I hate em :) )

Coarse Stone edge but clean, no burr there.

WRAPPED UP AND READY TO GO HOME