Apologies if this has already been covered but was wondering if anyone has used this honing wheel in the way set out by Vadim in the knifegrinders video for lower end knives.? IE: setting the edge on a 400 grit CBN wheel. Honing at exact angle on the composite wheel then cleaning up at exact angle on chromium oxide on a leather wheel. If anyone has I would be interested to know what results this gives with Bess scores. From memory Vadim was getting scores of 70 or so as outlined in the appendix to his book. Thanks.
I have tried it using 160 CBN, then composite and then ChromOx.... 100-120 BESS at 15 dps. I would guess at Vadim's preferred 12dps I might be below 100, but not 70. I've never been able to match the master :)
I think I can do better with my ChromOx wheel. The knife doesn't slide smoothly across, it seems bumpy. I'm going to clean it off, sand it down, and reapply the green goop.
Quote from: BradGE on February 16, 2022, 11:59:23 AM
I have tried it using 160 CBN, then composite and then ChromOx.... 100-120 BESS at 15 dps. I would guess at Vadim's preferred 12dps I might be below 100, but not 70. I've never been able to match the master :)
I think I can do better with my ChromOx wheel. The knife doesn't slide smoothly across, it seems bumpy. I'm going to clean it off, sand it down, and reapply the green goop.
I would think something finer than a 160 CBN would get you closer...
I did consider a finer grit, but I'm taking cues from Vadim's work that 160grit was enough to get sub 100 BESS. When I deploy this technique I do it for speed/time so I don't want to get too involved with swapping wheels. My standard sharpening is 160–400–1000 - leather wheel- felt - strop which takes 15-20 minutes, and the 160-composite-ChromOx is about 10min, so there's not a lot of room time-wise to add extra steps..
Ok. Thanks for your replies. I'll see what happens. Was thinking it may be the way to go on unidentifiable lower end knives where going through a series of runs to determine best protocol would become redundant. I'll see if I can get it below 100.