Show your Paper Wheel edges

Since 2009 i've been sharpening knives on Paper Wheels, and i hope i'm not i'm the only one on this forum.

From time to time i will post my results here and i hope that others will do the same,

Here's one i did a few days ago, a Spyderco Paramilitary 2 in Elmax steel.

The factory edge had some light brown discoloration near the tip on one side, traces of some unknown black stuff that couldn't even be removed with acetone (visible in pic 1 & 3), and it could also barely cut copypaper.

This is how it looked before sharpening:

First i removed the apex of the old edge by cutting a few times in a silicon carbide stone, then resharpened it with a Paper Wheel coated with 15 micron diamond compound, followed by removing the tiny burr with a second Paper Wheel coated with 1 micron diamond compound.

This time i also polished the bevels a bit more with the same Wheel, just to see how the Elmax would do.

According to my Tormek angle gauge the new edge measures 30 degrees inclusive, can slice single ply toilet paper and easily whittle the hairs on the back of my hand from heel to tip.

A while ago i reprofiled & sharpened this Ontario Afghan Bush in (probably) 5160 steel for a Dutch forum member, who when he received it tested it quite rigorously to see how the the knife would hold up with it's new edge.

The pictures show the knife with it's new edge measuring 35 degrees inclusive, a 15 micron diamond compound Paper Wheel finish, and a treetopping sharpness.

This was the mail i got from him when he was done testing:

(translated from Dutch)

Hereby i send you the results of the batonning test: my arm hurts and the knife just laughs at me.

I started with batonning through some standard firewood, which didn't cause any problems.

Then i proceeded to baton right through a hardwood pole with a big burl (?) in it (with a lot of effort from my side)

I then replaced the baton with a hard rubber hammer for a bit more comfort and hitting power, and with this i managed to drive the edge about half an inch crossgrain into another piece of tropical hardwood.

After this i cleaned the knife, and the edge would still pushcut through paper.

I almost forgot to mention that i also put the knife sideways with the point on a wooden block and gave it about 20 hard whacks with the rubber hammer on both sides of the knife.

Then i tested the point strength by stabbing it into hardwood and breaking it free sideways.

I think the knife already has endured more than it will ever have to in real life.

After all this i could still shave the hair on my leg on skin level, and after a bit of stropping it could treetop again.

A Chinese Ganzo 704 as i received it from Hong Kong:

A very nice knife for the money (i paid about 17 US dollars including shipping from Hong Kong to the Netherlands), but with quite an obtuse edge angle of about 35-40 (ish) degrees inclusive and also a bit blunt not a very good cutter.

On the blade it says 440C stainless steel, but it's more than likely it's Chinese cousin 9Cr13MoV.

Reprofiled with a standard Paper Wheel with silicon carbide grit to 30 degrees inclusive, refined it just a bit with a second Paper Wheel coated with 15 micron diamond compound, and finally removed the tiny burr with a third Paper Wheel coated with 1 micron diamond compound.

It cuts hair above the back of my hand and can slice single layer toilet paper.

Zitat von Nightstalker

kwakster Sorry for that really stupid question... But what is Paperwheel sharpening? I really didn't heard that before... But I'm really interested because the edges look really nice!
Regards

Basic sharpening with a standard set of Paper Wheels is shown here:

I started sharpening with a set like this in 2009, bought from Armin Dobstetter from Custom Leather in Germany:

http://customleather.ellvis.de/index.php?go=detail&ID=1001

If you or anybody else has any questions about what you see here, fire away,

Some time ago i did this rather large Strider fixed blade in S30V steel for a Dutch forum member.

According to my Tormek angle gauge the factory edge measured 50 to 55 degrees inclusive and it wasn't very sharp either.

Grit progression: reprofiled on a standard Paper Wheel with 220 grit SiC, refined it a little with a second Paper Wheel coated with 15 micron diamond compound, and finally removed the tiny burr with a third Paper Wheel coated with 0,25 micron diamond compound.

The new & slightly convex edge measures around 35/36 degrees inclusive, and can both slice single layer toilet paper and treetop the hairs on the back of my hand.

This brand new Endura ZDP-189 sadly had a less than optimal factory edge, and since this beautiful steel deserves better i reprofiled & sharpened it myself.

My guess is that these knives are belt sharpened and then have the burr stropped of on a buffer.

On this knife however it seemed like the buffer ran out of cutting compound (or the sharpener just did a sloppy job), as through my loupe i could see remains of a burr almost along the entire edge. (some of it is partly visible in picture 2)

Due to this the sharpness was of course severely lacking.

I also measured the edge angle to be 35 degrees inclusive, which i think is a bit too large for a folding knife in ZDP-189 steel.

Before sharpening:

First i removed the old apex by cutting a few times straight into a silicon carbide stone, then reprofiled the edge to a slightly convex ~ 25 degrees inclusive angle with a Paper Wheel coated with 15 micron diamond compound, and finally removed the tiny burr with a second Paper Wheel coated with 0.25 micron diamond compound.

This leaves the scratch pattern created by the 15 micron diamond particles intact as much as possible, creating an edge that with the naked eye almost looks like a mirror, but which has the bite of a coarser edge.

I call this a "bling & bite" finish, and i have found it to work very well in EDC use on harder high carbide steel types.

It's also quite difficult to show correctly in pictures, as the lens of my cheap camera has a tendency to show more of the scratch pattern than can be seen in reality with the naked eye.

With the reduced edge angle & the much finer edge finish the knife will not only cut in a completely different league, it can now also be kept sharp on the 30 degrees slots of a Spyderco Sharpmaker or Lansky Turnbox.

After sharpening:

Specs:

Length open: 22,2 cm

Length closed: 12,7 cm

Blade length: 9,6 cm

Blade thickness: max 3,0 mm (ricasso)

Edge length: 8,8 cm

Steel: ZDP-189 powdered steel

Hardness: 64-65 HRC

Weight: 103 gram

Handle material: British Racing Green FRN on steel liners

Spyderco Southard with CTS-204P blade, which has been in use for a few years now with a Dutch scout leader.
It has already been sharpened several times by him on stones, plus two times by me on Paper Wheels (once up to 6 micron diamond compound, and once up to 15 micron diamond, the latter performing noticeably longer for the owner)

This time the knife was reprofiled from about 30 degrees inclusive to 25 degrees inclusive with a standard Paper Wheel with 220 grit SiC, then deburred with a second Paper Wheel with 0.25 micron diamond compound.
This produces a polished semi-coarse edge with an aggressive bite, as the knife is going to be used to cut a lot of 10 mm polyprop rope in the coming weeks.
You can click the pics 2 x for a bit more detail.

Update:

The owner just informed me how the edge on his Southard is doing so far.
He had used the tip of the knife to cut open about 50 dusty/dirty cardboard boxes filled with porcelain mugs, and this resulted in blunting that tip to a point that it could only barely cut copy paper.
But according to the owner this was most likely due to the fact that the tip hit the mugs every now & then.

After all 50 boxes were opened & emptied the Southard was used to cut down each box, which he measured to be a total of about 80 meters or 262 feet of cardboard.
Afterwards the edge was still able to easily shave the hair from his legs (except about 15 mm of the tip), and the owner feels that the knife isn't due for a touch-up yet.
He also noticed that the CTS-204P steel holds this edge noticeably longer than the S30V steel in his Spyderco Sage, which he had sharpened himself and used earlier for the same job.

A few weeks ago a knife collector asked me if i could sharpen the false edge on a Gerber Applegate Fairbairn folder.

On this knife the blade is completely shrouded by the handle when closed, so there is no risk of injury while carrying it.

The owner also wanted the new bevels to be a bit shiny.

This older YouTube clip by Nutnfancy showcases this mod:

This was the knife before sharpening:

And the result.

Ground the new bevels with a Rubber Wheel coated with 230 grit diamond powder, then refined all bevels with a Paper Wheel coated with 15 micron diamond compound, and finally removed the tiny burr remnants with the Tormek leather wheel & some 1 micron diamond compound.

The edges measure 35 degrees inclusive and are treetopping sharp.

The factory edge of this Spyderco PM2 in S110V steel was barely shaving armhair on skinlevel, and according to my Tormek WM200 the edge angle was near 35 degrees inclusive.

The old apex was removed by cutting several times straight into a silicon carbide stone, and then i used 4 different Paper Wheels coated with diamond compounds (15, 6, 3, and 1 micron) to create & refine the new edge.

Normally i don't take high carbide steel types this far, but in this case i wanted to see how the S110V steel would do.

The new & ever so slightly convex edge measures a hair below 30 degrees inclusive, and can easily whittle a normal chest hair towards the point along the entire edge.

Thinner ones will sever immediately upon touching.

My cheap camera is not really able to show full details, but at least it gives some impression.

A Belgian member of the Dutch forum who's also into sharpening sent me a USB-camera as a gift, and although i still have lots to learn about what it can do i managed to take a couple of pics of the current edge on the PM2 in S110V steel:

The Manix 2 lightweight in S110V is a superb knife, and it exemplifies Spyderco's motto "simplify and add lightness".
The model only seems to have two possible disadvantages: it takes up quite a bit of real estate in your pocket, and some people can't seem to get over the fact that it has an ultra lightweight plastic handle, which to them makes the knife feel cheap and not worth the asking price.
But after providing them with some links to real life tests with this knife some of them change their minds

I do hope however that the factory edges get some more attention in the future, as i already had to resharpen 5 pcs of this model that couldn't even slice copy paper.
Upon inspection all these edges had visible burr remains and edge angles measured around 35 degrees inclusive.

This is one of them with it's new bling & bite edge, as i call them: reprofiled to +/- 30 degrees inclusive with 230 grit diamond powder on a Rubber Wheel, refined with 15 micron diamond compound on a Paper Wheel, and deburred with 0,25 micron diamond compound on a second Paper Wheel.
To me the shiny bevels are actually a side effect, as it's the clean cutting of the large amount of vanadium carbides that i'm after.

That depends on how much steel from which steel type i have to remove, as factory edges can be all over the place regarding edge angle, edge finish, and visual appearance.
When only a slight regrind is needed i just use my Paper Wheel coated with 15 micron diamond compound, which is the same Wheel i also use for the edge finish on a bling & bite edge like this one.
But when more steel needs to be removed to get to the edge angle i'm after (especially high vanadium carbide steel types) i choose my Rubber Wheel with 230 grit diamond powder or even my Tormek.

Since i started working with Paper Wheels back in 2009 i've experimented with quite a few regritting methods, and the recipe below is what has been working best & longest for me:

1 - First remove all traces of the old wax layer.
For this i use a steel wire brush on the spinning Wheel until most is gone, then i shut the machine down and remove the last remnants with an old rag & brake cleaner.

2 - Then remove all traces of grit & glue until you get to the bare cardboard surface.
For this i use an old coarse silicon carbide stone first and a semi-coarse diamond stone second, but coarse sandpaper on a piece of wood also works well.

3 - Take a good quality water resistant wood glue and coat the bare cardboard surface evenly.
I just use a clean finger while turning the Wheel with my other hand.
Let dry at least overnight.

4 - The next day apply a new and just a little thicker layer of the same glue, and immediately after coat the surface with the grit.
For this i put a thick layer of grit in a small rectangle box or a deep plastic lid from a jar and gently push the surface of the wheel in it, evenly and all the way around.
Put the wheel back on the machine and let dry at least overnight.

5 - The next day run the machine with the wheel for just a few seconds so any loose grit particles fly off.
I also hold my diamond stone shortly to the sides of the Wheel to remove grit particles that stick out there.
Stop the wheel and coat the gritted surface with a very thin & even layer of the same wood glue, so thin you can still feel the grit under your fingertips when you're done.
Let it dry at least overnight.

6 - The next day run the machine and hold an old junk knife a few seconds to the wheel (still without the wax), as this will lay bare the highest points of the grit particles.
Now you can put some wax on the surface (don't overdo it) and sharpen away.

As you can see the process takes some time, but to me it's worth it.
The triple layer of glue makes for a much stronger bond of the SiC grit to the cardboard surface compared to just one layer of glue, and each grit particle is also held better in the glue since it's almost completely encapsulated by it, while the glue itself will wear away easily during sharpening.
This method provides me with a grit Wheel that works perfectly and also lasts longer between regrittings.