Cbn and nanocloth comparison 0.5 poly

[ken123]

https://youtu.be/zZquY-zAC6U

I'm posting this here. It is a relative comparison of various stropping techniques using my half micron poly diamond emulsion against other preparations.

This is a very long video. The punchline is that it easily exceeded other preparations including the Jende strops and compounds. If you can survive the length of the video, I would appreciate your comments both on results as well as techniques used.

Ken

[ken123]

I know this is a long video. I'm curious if anyone has watched the video or attempted watching it?

Ken

[Santas_101]

Hey Ken,

Yeah, I saw the video. Greg is a good guy. He gets real excited when he puts out a new video. You should recommend he try some of your stones.

As far as my technique. I have Mark’s stropping kit and have added denim, kangaroo, and various other leathers. I have four or five various compounds/sprays. I mix up my progression depending on the type of knife.

[ronnie_suburban]

I watched the video (1.75x speed and an occasional 5-second jump forward helped). Not really sure what to make of it, other than stropping has a favorable effect, nanocloth seems more effective than leather and if you're willing to ingest stropping emulsion, your knives will be sharper for it. I thought my wife was the most patient person on earth but after watching this video, I'm not so sure about that.

[d_rap]

Ronnie, I went you one better: 2x speed. I got through most of it. And yeah, fat chance my wife makes that video with me.

Congrats on the results Ken.

I had some questions about his methodology but I edited them out and will withhold judgment until I spend some more time looking at the video and thinking about it. It's intriguing for sure.

[ken123]

Thanks to all who had the patience to watch this video! Such patience! I do appreciate his hard work and his ever patient wife! I'm pleased to see his results but lacking all modesty, I'm not too surprised with his results. FWIW he did purchase my products at full price so that helps eliminate some bias. All testing including mine can always be improved and hopefully he will do more videos in the future.

Ken

[orezeno]

Sorry Ken. I could not make it through much more than 5 minutes of the video. The signal-to-noise ratio was way too low for me.

As an aside, I'd love to try your nanocloth strops. Mine have been on order with you since the end of Feb.

[ken123]

Sorry Ken. I could not make it through much more than 5 minutes of the video. The signal-to-noise ratio was way too low for me.

As an aside, I'd love to try your nanocloth strops. Mine have been on order with you since the end of Feb.

Please send me a PM so we can clear this up!

Ken

[michael1778]

Sorry Ken. I could not make it through much more than 5 minutes of the video. The signal-to-noise ratio was way too low for me.

As an aside, I'd love to try your nanocloth strops. Mine have been on order with you since the end of Feb.

I look forward to our thoughts on them once you receive them.

[orezeno]

I look forward to our thoughts on them once you receive them.

I'll let you know; either by replying here, or to your post on the subject, or by starting my own thread. You should know, though, that I consider strops with paste on them to be just another level of abrasion. For years I just used a Shapton Glass 16K or 32K as a strop to perform a final level of edge deburring.

However, I have a bunch of strops in leather, horse hide, kangaroo, balsa, and denim. Some of these are loaded (diamond pastes, chromium oxide), and some are not. For reasons unknown even to me, I started using my horsehide strop loaded with 1 micron diamond paste again. I'm not getting better edges -- just felt like using the strop again. I reached out to Ken about nanocloth strops and polycrystalline diamond so I could get an abrasive progression starting at 0.75 micron and descending to 0.1 micron. I want to experiment with this on the toughest high-vanadium steels (Maxamet, 10V, S110V, etc.). Others have done this, but I think It will be fun to get my own experience. My info may not be of use to those sharpening chef knives.

[FisherMAn1298]

Sorry Ken. I could not make it through much more than 5 minutes of the video. The signal-to-noise ratio was way too low for me.

As an aside, I'd love to try your nanocloth strops. Mine have been on order with you since the end of Feb.

I look forward to our thoughts on them once you receive them.

You have one that slipped through a crack here Ken. Not like you! Take care of him!!

[FisherMAn1298]

I look forward to our thoughts on them once you receive them.

I'll let you know; either by replying here, or to your post on the subject, or by starting my own thread. You should know, though, that I consider strops with paste on them to be just another level of abrasion. For years I just used a Shapton Glass 16K or 32K as a strop to perform a final level of edge deburring.

However, I have a bunch of strops in leather, horse hide, kangaroo, balsa, and denim. Some of these are loaded (diamond pastes, chromium oxide), and some are not. For reasons unknown even to me, I started using my horsehide strop loaded with 1 micron diamond paste again. I'm not getting better edges -- just felt like using the strop again. I reached out to Ken about nanocloth strops and polycrystalline diamond so I could get an abrasive progression starting at 0.75 micron and descending to 0.1 micron. I want to experiment with this on the toughest high-vanadium steels (Maxamet, 10V, S110V, etc.). Others have done this, but I think It will be fun to get my own experience. My info may not be of use to those sharpening chef knives.

I like that idea. Very interested in the results of your progression. Please post when you finish, love this type of experimentation. This is how we get better!

[orezeno]

Please send me a PM so we can clear this up!

Ken

You have one that slipped through a crack here Ken. Not like you! Take care of him!!

And he should!! I'm a long-time customer! I have 5 Nubatama stones for freehand sharpening, 7 (just counted) bottles of different-sized Ken Schwartz CBN emulsion, and I'm pretty sure that 4 of my JNats were purchased from Ken also. He may have decided that I've purchased enough and cut me off.

[ken123]

...not a chance

Ken

[orezeno]

[/quote]

I look forward to our thoughts on them once you receive them.

I like that idea. Very interested in the results of your progression. Please post when you finish, love this type of experimentation. This is how we get better!

OK. I've had the nanocloth strops for a little while now and have some thoughts.

I purchased three 8" x 3" nanocloth strops and three polycrystalline emulsions ( 0.75μ, 0.25μ, 0.10μ) from Ken. I'm still waiting on the 0.25μ emulsion but I've loaded two of the strops.

As stated before, my intention was to try these on the high-alloy steels for producing super-fine highly polished edges. I have knives in S110V, Maxamet, K390, CPM 20CV, CPM 10V, and knives in more common steels like M390, CTS-204P, S35VN, etc. At the moment, my progression is Venev diamond stones finishing with the 2-3μ stone, followed by a horse hide strop loaded with 2μ CBN, then the nanocloth 0.75μ and 0.10μ strops. In the past, I've used Shapton Glass (SG) stones with a matched-grit CBN emulsion on each stone ending with 16K and followed by horsehide or kangaroo loaded with 0.5μ diamond paste.

I'd say that edges off of the Venev stones are on par, perhaps a little better, than edges I get off of a DMT XXF stone or a Spyderco UF stone; better than what I get with the SG/CBN combo. The Venev stones have a nicer scratch pattern than the DMTs, and the 2μ strop helps clean that up to produce a nice shine. SG/CBN seems to produce a better mirror polish on the bevels than the Venev/2μ-strop progression, but again, SG/CBN edge performance at this level of refinement is inferior for these steels.

I like the feel of the nanocloth strops very much. This contributes to angle consistency when using the strop. I've also experienced what others talk about; that the feel of the strop changes as the edge is cleaned up. I sense this on the 0.75μ and the 0.10μ strop. I think the scratch pattern and polish improves with the 0.75μ strop but it is subtle. I can't see perceptible improvement with the 0.10μ strop. I have not looked at these through a loupe or microscope, but I assume that each strop is actually abrading, thereby adding to the level of polish. I just can't perceive it.

I've only done my standard phone-book paper with-grain and cross-grain slice and push-cut tests. To me there's noticeable improvement on test performance when a diamond sharpening sequence (vs. SB/CBN) is used with these steels. The 2μ strop produces slightly cleaner cuts, and, for me, there is a very slight improvement after the 0.75μ strop is used. Honestly, I think only I would notice. I don't find any improvement after the 0.10μ strop is used. There might just be too big a jump from 0.75μ.

I have access to an Edge-On-Up sharpness tester so, at some point, I'll be able to quantify performance a bit better.

As an aside, yesterday I sharpened a brand new Yoshimi Kato santoku in SG2/R2. I used a SG progression ending at 8K following with the 2μ horsehide and 0.75μ nanocloth strops. Pretty stellar edge!

[FisherMAn1298]

I'm dying to get the Kato sg2 damascus 210mm.Had it in my cart Christmas Eve and didn't pull the trigger. Next morning when I came to my senses it was sold!Been waiting for it ever since!! I got a 3k diamond plate from Ken, read my review, and it put the most amazing polish on my blades. It turned my paper cuts into whispers. I envy you having all those blades and stones. I also have great success from the Naniwa Snow White 8k. Again, super clean edge, awesome polish, quiet paper cuts. Just got Suehiro 10k with micron equivalent to a 16k. Wish I had the EDge-On-Up tester myself. Let me know what you think of the 3k diamond plate. The Ken Nano strop with .10 pdp emulsion has been a home run hitter for me. Puts a great finish to my knives. Do you have any Nubitama knives? I'd like to hear someone talk about that proprietary black steel they use to make those blades. Looking forward to your posts!

[XexoX]

I'm dying to get the Kato sg2 damascus 210mm.Had it in my cart Christmas Eve and didn't pull the trigger. Next morning when I came to my senses it was sold!...

Do or do not. There is no try.

[ken123]

There is 'try again' lol.

Ken

[orezeno]

I'm dying to get the Kato sg2 damascus 210mm.

The one I sharpened was black-etched Damascus. It was a stunningly beautiful knife. The knife came with the core steel unexposed (or poorly exposed) so it was clear that the intention is for the owner to put their edge on it. Sharpening it was no challenge, just fun. I taught the owner how to slice paper with it so she could see how the edge changed as she used the knife in the kitchen. She told me that she spent an evening making paper bits. (Admittedly, that just never gets old.)

I got a 3k diamond plate from Ken, read my review, and it put the most amazing polish on my blades. It turned my paper cuts into whispers.

Let me know what you think of the 3k diamond plate.

I have a lot of experience with the DMT plates. These use the same technology (diamond aggregate bound in nickel) as Ken's plates. I would assume that Ken places high demands on his suppliers for diamond uniformity, and perhaps has better control over particle size than DMT. But like all things, there are strengths and weaknesses to the diamond/nickel approach. I recall that a couple of years ago Science of Sharp had a blog post about the DMT stones. If it is still around, you might want to check it out. The finest grit DMT stone I have has (nominally) 3μ diamond abrasive on it. That's about 8K.

I envy you having all those blades and stones.

I spend money as if I have it.

Wish I had the EDge-On-Up tester myself. The Ken Nano strop with .10 pdp emulsion has been a home run hitter for me. Puts a great finish to my knives. Do you have any Nubitama knives? I'd like to hear someone talk about that proprietary black steel they use to make those blades. Looking forward to your posts!

The Edge-On-Up testers are fun toys in my opinion, but kind of impractical. They give you a measurement of how sharp your knife is at the position on the edge where you test, but don't really provide information on edge uniformity or edge linearity; both of which are more important in practical use.

I don't own any Nubatama knives but would love to see one. I bet Ken will be happy to tell you all about that black steel.

[ken123]

How is the .25 poly working out?

Ken