Felt Wheel Deburring

[BUTCHER]

I have a question about the felt deburring.
I use the rock hard felt wheel at .65 density from piriui polishing in China loaded with a 1 micron diamond paste which I'm not sure is penetrating into the felt. I deburr 3 passes lightly at +2 dps setting the angle with the cal cap calculator.
after high angle honing the bess score is consistently at 160 to 145 bess.
Does this mean the wire burr has not been removed properly and if thats the case what can I do to improve the process?

[cbwx34]

I have a question about the felt deburring.
I use the rock hard felt wheel at .65 density from piriui polishing in China loaded with a 1 micron diamond paste which I'm not sure is penetrating into the felt. I deburr 3 passes lightly at +2 dps setting the angle with the cal cap calculator.
after high angle honing the bess score is consistently at 160 to 145 bess.
Does this mean the wire burr has not been removed properly and if thats the case what can I do to improve the process?

I'm guessing you're using info from the "Knife Deburring" book?  Depending on the steel, that book says that after deburring on felt you'll get a BESS score of about 150.  You then need to finish on a strop, paper wheel, or leather wheel to remove the "foil edge". (p.40)

So, I guess give one of those a try? 

[John_B]

I finish with a strop. I have 2 Tormek leather wheels. First one uses Tormek paste and the second 1µ diamonds. You want to progressively use finer materials to deburr. My leather strop uses no abrasives.

[Sir Amwell]

Agree with previous 2 posts.
The felt honing wheel is designed to remove the core of the burr from the apex. After that you need to have a final clean up, usually at the exact edge angle. A hanging leather strop will also usually remove a wire or foil burr if the felt wheel has not done so.

[BUTCHER]

Thanks for the replies, everyone.
I found a couple of kangaroo tails from my leather braiding days so I'm experimenting with stropping on the hanging leather.
I don't see much better bess results but I will keep trying to get it better.
I find it interesting on the last page of Vadim's knife deburring book where he talks about using the composite honing wheel and then the cleanup step and still reaching 85 bess.
That might be something I will try in the future just to have fewer steps.
I also bought a used second machine that has a reversible rotation which would be a really handy feature on the Tormek T8

[John_B]

I don't have a tester but I found the sharper you go the more you need to pay attention to the smallest details and technique. I only play with the extra work for my own knives. For my customers their knives are sharper than they were from the factory just using the standard stone wheel and leather strop with Tormek paste.