Knife Sharpening Using Traditional Methods: Pressure Tactics

Tuesday, 7 July 2020

Pressure Tactics - Changing it uo

Hi folks,
I’m still here and still sharpening despite the shitshow going on in our world.

Some who read my Blog (Thank you so much) know that I use four levels of pressure when I sharpen. I still do but I’ve simplified things and it has resulted in an improvement to my edges. We are always improving anyway, we should be anyway and our Ego is the only thing stopping that.

Previously I used heavy/moderate pressure, P4, starting out. This is just the pressure necessary to

raise the Burr, it can change with every knife so I don’t just go to town on the pressure I use a level that results in Burr formation, it’s usually a little heavy. Then, as I progressed to the next stone I dropped to a lighter level, I only used P4 pressure once basically.

I did this because I thought that I’d be wasting metal if I used anything but light/moderate pressure after the initial burr formation so in my mind I was only forming the one Burr. My mind was wrong 😊

I learned from a man who has taught me many things , Jon Broida that the amount of metal removed by additional burr formation is trivial, a drop in the ocean. So now I use the same 4 levels of pressure on every stone but with one major difference.

My goal is to form one Initial Burr on the first stone. Then on subsequent stones I form micro burrs. This ensures that I’m reaching my target: The Edge of the Edge. In reality I was doing this micro burr formation anyway, it’s inevitable really.

To summarize: I manipulate pressure as necessary to reach the edge of the edge on every stone and I also continue to remove the burrs on every stone by continuing to use diminishing levels of pressure.

The bottom line is that this has been a mindset change. I’m not wasting metal because I’m careful with pressure. I’m striving to remove metal in a controlled manner, always. The knives are exceptionally sharp.

Forming micro burrs has also taught me to really finesse my application of pressure.

This is easy folks, you don’t even need to be stringent on the four level thing. Two levels works, an initial and micro burr level and a lighter level to remove those burrs.