Sharpening help please

[Rangeball]

Thanks Ron.  Of course I got all ansy and did it wrong.  Good thing with this nicholson file, I can get a new burr real quick and try again  

[Sharpster]

Tom,

Yes, and no. Lets back up a few steps. When sharpening a single bevel 90% of the work is done on the bevel side. I'll raise a burr with my coarsest stone or file, then just continue polishing the bevel side through several more successively finer grits. As you do this the burr will get slightly bigger and heavier.

At this point, the "first" stropping is done on the bevel side. It's only 1 or 2 passes and they're very slow and deliberate. As you move the blade across the leather or cardboard you are continuously raising the angle so that at the end of the pass the head is raised to 45 degrees or even higher. This is not stropping to remove the burr, this is stropping to be sure the burr is folded completely over to the unbeveled side.

Then I'll go back to a med/fine grit stone and using only into the edge strokes on the unbeveled side, do the absolute minimum required to remove the burr.

Next back to the bevel side and polish on the finest grit stone I'm gonna use, then a couple more quick burr folding strokes on the bevel side with the strop, then back to the stone on the unbeveled side to remove the burr again.

At this point the head should be very sharp and now that we're completely done with the stones, we can strop the head in the traditional sense with multiple passes on each side to finish it up.

Hope that wasn't too confusing. This is one case where a 2 minute video would be worth more than all the words I could ever type.

Ron

[newtradgreenwood]

Thanks Ron, that explanation helped.

I am trying to go from what the average person calls sharp (about NAP Thunderhead or Magnus Stinger out of the box) to if you barely touch it you got a bad cut sharp. After I get done with these rough cut hard steel single bevel Grizzly BHs everything else should be relatively easy.  

Just bought your KME broadhead sharpener.  Like it.

[Rangeball]

Helped me immensely, I think I'm now crystal clear  

Thanks!