# Cork - does it work?



## Ruso (Jun 4, 2020)

Does deburring on cork really works, or is it just a myth? Thoughts, opinion?

My thoughts:
When I started sharpening I was “deburring” on corck constantly. It was the norm, fashion, just the thing you do back then. Now, I almost never use cork or anything similar to aid deburring. Looking in retrospect, I think cork does very little to the burr. Am I missing something or you have similar experiences?


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## crockerculinary (Jun 4, 2020)

I think just about any of the usual options can work for deburring if you use them effectively and create/weaken the burr effectively. None of them seem to be the right or only way, and you can also choose to not use any of them.


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## Marek07 (Jun 4, 2020)

As @crockerculinary said, many work well "*if*_ you use them effectively_" Cork, felt, balsa, various leathers, cardboard, denim, scourers, sharpening stones - all can be used. Just find the technique that works for well for you and achieves the desired outcome.


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## M1k3 (Jun 5, 2020)

I never found it to truly get rid of it. Granted I never looked with a loupe. But in my experience, it helped weaken it.


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## bahamaroot (Jun 5, 2020)

I never used the cork until after I started to see the burr coming off one the stone. Then I would run it through the cork and it did a good job of removing any pieces left and cleaned the edge up. You could really see the difference with a loop. I still use a felt block or cork but only after I know the burr is fatigued and see pieces starting to come on the stone first.


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## captaincaed (Jun 5, 2020)

I find that deburring on a wood board, then touch up on the stone, wood board, touch up until it stays toothy after a stroke across the wood has been a fairly reliable final process. The first cut thru wood kills the nail bite test almost every time. Then, the touch up strokes on the final stone get the apex clean and toothy. Once the edge can survive a couple strokes on the wood board and pass the nail bite test, I'm usually good to go. I wouldn't call it a professional process. When Jon advocates for his finishing methods, I listen, and assume I haven't found knife nirvana yet, but I'm doing OK going down the road for now. 

Had the same "meh" experience with cork. 

I found that a nice hard material like wood was a good bet since that's what the edge will endure in actual use. The cork doesn't give the same feedback. Why deburr in a weaker material that may not remove all the burr? When you go to the board, you're going to tear off more metal from the harder wood that you could have taken care of when you were sharpening.


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## panda (Jun 5, 2020)

bahamaroot said:


> I never used the cork until after I started to see the burr coming off one the stone. Then I would run it through the cork and it did a good job of removing any pieces left and cleaned the edge up. You could really see the difference with a loop. I still use a felt block or cork but only after I know the burr is fatigued and see pieces starting to come on the stone first.


X2


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## AFKitchenknivesguy (Jun 5, 2020)

What do you all think of this:








Kanayama Cordovan Strop 3311


Selected Japanese natural sharpening stones Toishi, Handmade by Best Blade smiths Japanese Knives, Razors and Tools




www.japanesenaturalstones.com


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## panda (Jun 5, 2020)

AFKitchenknivesguy said:


> What do you all think of this:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Contact dave Martell for one of his hard felt blocks, best debuting tool.


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## valgard (Jun 5, 2020)

panda said:


> Contact dave Martell for one of his hard felt blocks, best debuting tool.



I'm more a fan of the stropping pad, find it to be the best medium to do the final cleaning of the edge. But I own both, that hard felt is good stuff.


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## valgard (Jun 5, 2020)

AFKitchenknivesguy said:


> What do you all think of this:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Probably useful, but I have leather, cork, balsa, linen, and felt strops all just plain without compound just for deburring (I have others loaded for different purposes). I find that I use the leather the least for deburring purposes as it doesn't seem to work that great for that, but it's great for loading with compound and for razors.


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## kayman67 (Jun 5, 2020)

In the past, with softer alloys, this was reliable. Right now, not so much and opens a lot of new problems for people since they don't understand what they do wrong.


AFKitchenknivesguy said:


> What do you all think of this:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



In Europe, this might be the best bang for the buck 









Stroppi lauta 400x75


Iso nahkainen stroppi lauta valmistettu ruotsalaisen härän kasvisparkitusta nahasta, joka on liimattu suomalaisen filmivanerin pintaan. Nahka on 2,2 – 2,4mm paksu. Valmistettu Suomessa. Pitkä stroppi lauta




www.hiomakivi.fi


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## Ultrafiche (Jun 7, 2020)

bahamaroot said:


> I never used the cork until after I started to see the burr coming off one the stone. Then I would run it through the cork and it did a good job of removing any pieces left and cleaned the edge up. You could really see the difference with a loop. I still use a felt block or cork but only after I know the burr is fatigued and see pieces starting to come on the stone first.


Noob question here, but how do you know when the burr is coming off of the stone? Do you feel for it, or is there some visual indicator that shows itself?


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## M1k3 (Jun 7, 2020)

Ultrafiche said:


> Noob question here, but how do you know when the burr is coming off of the stone? Do you feel for it, or is there some visual indicator that shows itself?


It'll look kind of like a piece of hair..


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## big D (Jun 7, 2020)

I have only tried cork the last two times I have sharpened and it does work because I have been prone to inspecting under a 20x loop after an incident awhile back. It has a weird feeling to it though ,and I think it is really dependent on how weak the burr is as to it's effectiveness. Going to order a hard felt the next time I need something. Just don't think the cork is that wonderful even though it did work for me. 
D.


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## Ultrafiche (Jun 7, 2020)

M1k3 said:


> It'll look kind of like a piece of hair..


Got it. And do you look for this throughout the entire sharpening process, or when you're applying some "finishing strokes"? I think I'm getting the terminology wrong, but I'm referring to the strokes near the end of sharpening that are intended to remove what is hopefully a fragile burr.


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## M1k3 (Jun 7, 2020)

Ultrafiche said:


> Got it. And do you look for this throughout the entire sharpening process, or when you're applying some "finishing strokes"? I think I'm getting the terminology wrong, but I'm referring to the strokes near the end of sharpening that are intended to remove what is hopefully a fragile burr.


I don't really look for it. It kind of just happens. Steel and burr size dependant. But it generally only happens when trying to weaken and get rid of it.


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## Ultrafiche (Jun 7, 2020)

Got it. Thanks for the explanation. I'll look out for the burr coming off next time I sharpen.


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## M1k3 (Jun 7, 2020)

In my experience, the more stainless and bigger the burr, the more likely you are to see it.


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## captaincaed (Jun 7, 2020)

Ultrafiche said:


> Got it. Thanks for the explanation. I'll look out for the burr coming off next time I sharpen.


It helps to rinse your stone when you're at the final deburring step, that way you can hear/feel/observe the burr coming off more clearly as compared to feeling the stone particles.

Also, I'm not the expert here, but I find that softness/non-cryoed stainless is more correlated to difficult deburring than being stainless in general. My AUS-8 Mac deburrs really nicely, and was cryoed. My Sabatier is carbon, but soft, and is difficult to deburr well. Some alloyed steels, if not cryoed, have seemed quite difficult to deburr.


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## Ultrafiche (Jun 7, 2020)

Thank you! I'll definitely do that.

Not to totally hijack the thread, but one thing I've been struggling with is knowing when it's time for the final deburring step. I've been following Jon Broida's videos and think I've gotten a feel for the basic motions of sharpening and understand the principle behind it. However, how do you know when the burr is weak/fragile and it can be removed?


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## captaincaed (Jun 7, 2020)

It's a process of trial and experience. I find that there are some symptoms you can detect around the time you're deburring. These are beginner notes, you should add to the conversation.

I definitely had the same question after watching his vids and trying things for myself. 





Steel is like cheese (troubleshooting deburring)


This reflects my current understanding, not to be interpreted as gospel. When I envision sharpening, I want that hard, clean apex with no trace of a burr. My sharpening improved by miles when I focused on burr removal, and found it different for different steels. I like to have mental models...




www.kitchenknifeforums.com


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## Ultrafiche (Jun 7, 2020)

captaincaed said:


> It's a process of trial and experience. I find that there are some symptoms you can detect around the time you're deburring. These are beginner notes, you should add to the conversation.
> 
> I definitely had the same question after watching his vids and trying things for myself.
> 
> ...


Thank you! I'll take a look through and move the conversation to a more appropriate thread.


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## ma_sha1 (Jun 7, 2020)

Ultrafiche said:


> However, how do you know when the burr is weak/fragile and it can be removed?



High hardness carbon steel knives, the burr coms off easy, no need to decide when. Just run the edge on stone at higher angle than sharpening, both sides, they’ll come off. I don’t dare to run it near vertical like Kippington does. 

For vg10 or lower hardness, tougher stainless blades, the burr doesn’t come off easy. I do the above first alternating sides, if still some left over, I run the blade gently through the side of soft wood chopsticks, they’ll be gone.


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## bahamaroot (Jun 7, 2020)

Ultrafiche said:


> Noob question here, but how do you know when the burr is coming off of the stone? Do you feel for it, or is there some visual indicator that shows itself?


You'll notice small pieces of "debris" in the swarf on the stone.


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## Ultrafiche (Jun 7, 2020)

bahamaroot said:


> You'll notice small pieces of "debris" in the swarf on the stone.


Cool! Bigger than just the grit/slurry that you see when sharpening, I assume?


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## bahamaroot (Jun 7, 2020)

^^Yes^^


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## Ultrafiche (Jun 7, 2020)

Got it. I'll look out for debris / hair! Thanks for all the help here, guys.


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## ian (Jun 7, 2020)

Ultrafiche said:


> Thank you! I'll definitely do that.
> 
> Not to totally hijack the thread, but one thing I've been struggling with is knowing when it's time for the final deburring step. I've been following Jon Broida's videos and think I've gotten a feel for the basic motions of sharpening and understand the principle behind it. However, how do you know when the burr is weak/fragile and it can be removed?



Good replies to this above. But after you sharpen with decreased pressure, you can then also just flip the burr back and forth a few times using edge trailing strokes, and remove it with a horizontal pull across the stone like in Jon’s deburring vid. I’ve been doing that lately and enjoying it. Kippington’s deburring technique also works well, where he aggressively pushes the burr to one side using a near vertical angle edge trailing stroke, and then strips it off with an edge leading stroke. Or you can just do edge leading strokes and be confident that the burr will eventually disappear.

Regardless of which method you choose, just try it a few times to figure out the timing. If the burr doesn’t all come off during your deburring, it probably wasn’t weak enough, so try again with more weakening. Etc... It’s all kind of dependent on technique, so it’s hard to say “do this many weakening strokes”. That said, I do less than 10, just to reassure you that the correct number is not 10000.


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## Robert Lavacca (Jun 9, 2020)

I love felt myself. I usually use loaded leather for touching an edge up at work if I need it. When I sharpen, I’ll usually try to get the burr off on the stone as much as possible. Then i’ll switch over to a clean felt strop I built. Maybe pull it through the felt block if need be. Probably going to build another felt strop to keep one loaded also. I’m not a huge fan of leather. Idk why..


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## Marek07 (Jun 9, 2020)

ma_sha1 said:


> <_snip_>
> Just run the edge on stone at higher angle than sharpening, both sides, they’ll come off. I don’t dare to run it near vertical like Kippington does.
> <_snip_>


I was very reluctant to use the angle that @Kippington showed in his video. Seemed counter-intuitive to use such a steep angle after sharpening at a very acute angle. After having it explained and then demonstrated, I gave it a go. Very happy with the result. 

As already mentioned, many materials and techniques can work for you. Just feel and practice. Done well, the steep angle method above removes burrs very quickly. YMMV.


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## captaincaed (Jun 10, 2020)

Yeah I like Kippington's example more than I expected. You need to do some extra polishing/touch up strokes afterward, but it's pretty darn reliable.
All respect to Jon's methods, but it needs a little finesse.


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## kayman67 (Jun 10, 2020)

Because that might be a bit like gently "killing" the edge on a razor and easily getting it back. You remove everything that would be problematic, but just in the right amount.


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## Marek07 (Jun 10, 2020)

captaincaed said:


> Yeah I like Kippington's example more than I expected. You need to do some extra polishing/touch up strokes afterward, but it's pretty darn reliable.
> All respect to Jon's methods, but it needs a little finesse.


For the record, I didn't intend to dis Jon's methods at all. They are great instructional videos. I learnt about deburring from him: the final stropping motions on the stone, the lateral pulls, then using cork or a scourer. 

Using the high angle approach is not for the faint-hearted. It requires a deft touch and a good understanding of the remaining burr. Even after doing it, I will usually do a couple of very light "slicing the water" strokes (edge leading) and may still go with cork/felt/napped leather etc. Am I obsessive? You bet!


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## ModRQC (Jun 10, 2020)

Deburring is best done with dental floss, making sure all those microscopic teeth are really really clean.

But yeah otherwise, it's always nice to see it coming off on the stone first. If you find it hard to make happen, just flip the burr as many times as it takes. Even on the coarser sharpening stone (say you use a progression), flipping a burr patiently enough usually starts to yield some results towards deburring - then just the passage to the next finer stone of the progression is usually good enough to deburr in little time.


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## ModRQC (Jun 10, 2020)

On soft stainless a burr is like making love to a nympho though... you’d almost need many different sets of stones. Seriously.


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## turko (Jun 13, 2020)

"Kippington's technique" has been mentioned several times in this thread. Can someone point to the video or explanation please?


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## soigne_west (Jun 13, 2020)

Anyone have a good source for hard felt and rock hard felt other than Martell or Cktg?


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## M1k3 (Jun 13, 2020)

turko said:


> "Kippington's technique" has been mentioned several times in this thread. Can someone point to the video or explanation please?








Stropping on medium grit stones


Uwe, you started a thread on a very interesting topic, but it is somehow turning into a pointless stone versus jig discussion. I consider that a pity. Threads with interesting content about knives or sharpening became rarer around here in the past few years, I think the larger KKF audience...




www.kitchenknifeforums.com


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## ModRQC (Jun 13, 2020)

***... 

I either cry or convince myself he time-lapsed this video like a movie-editing voodoo.


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## Knife2meatu (Jun 17, 2020)

A suspiciously relevant video posted today:

How effective is cork for removing fine burrs, Edge On Up Bess Test PT50B -- NORTHWEST_KNIFE_GUY


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## ModRQC (Jun 17, 2020)

Vacuity... I don't have any knife to sharpen..

So I first listened to your link - interesting.

Then I listened to a sharpening session with an angle clip from sharp edge shop... basically it's ok though. Just unnerving music and general lack of interest. 

Then I listened to Gage from SKS taking out his top pics... knife porn pause, and not so good.

Then I listened to the Outdoor Chef reviewing cheap Amazon knives...

Why did I get trapped into this **** IDK.

Going to sandpaper polish my Victo Santoku now... I feel like a bad hollow grind job.


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## ModRQC (Jun 18, 2020)

Ok so that's done - 40 minutes dirty cheap job. Plus a couple of smokes.

See here:


ModRQC said:


> Thought I'd cut in with a 40 minutes dirt job sandpaper polish... using my fingers, mind you.
> 
> I present to you... the new and improved two tones Victorinox Santoku.... Or... what have you... cheap stainless steel core Victorinox cladded with the same cheap stainless steel...
> 
> ...




Back to more vacuity... although that polishing seems to have taken a bit of a toll out of the Victo's edge. Time to get the brand new Naniwa 800 out I believe.


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## Kippington (Jun 18, 2020)

turko said:


> "Kippington's technique" has been mentioned several times in this thread. Can someone point to the video or explanation please?





M1k3 said:


> _Link_


There's a better explanation (and to-the-point thread) here:






Kippington Deburring Video


Good morning team! I am trying to find the thread where Kippington posted a video showing a quick way he deburs that is different than the regular ways people deburr. I found it in google once but I can't seem to find it again. Also, what do you guys think about the pros and cons of this...




www.kitchenknifeforums.com


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## bryantcw (Jun 18, 2020)

I also just drag the knife through the edge of my cutting board. I actually do that with some regularity, after a long chopping session or whatever. After sharpening I can hear scratching, feel rough dragging, and seeing a little black matter show up on the board. After a pass or two it smooths out. If it hasn't smoothed out then I know its time to touch up on the stones.

I find soft wood like that to be the most aggressive fastest method of deburring, for me.


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## ModRQC (Jun 18, 2020)

Tried @Kippington method just today with two Victorinox sharpened on NP800. It works amazingly well even though I’m sure I could do it better. Surprising still, very quick sharpening job, just follow with a couple of one handed edge leading strokes as instructed, and in my case some cork to remove small remnants, and both knives where used in a long prep and kept an amazing edge. Still glide through paper.

Very nice of Kip to share such amazing tricks.


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## ModRQC (Jun 19, 2020)

And again after polishing my Moritaka blue 2, made a light burr on sp2K, flipped it, « kipped » it, one leading stroke per side, cork, and finished with half a dozen light swipes per side on sp5k. Nice no nonsense edge, push cuts paper, good bite, can’t wait to test it on some food tomorrow.


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## ModRQC (Jun 20, 2020)

Moritaka's edge tested - very true. And yet a weird stone progression that I didn't know what results would come out. The knife needed a full sharpening and the SP2K is a weird place to start that - it takes patience. Still, the fact is this knife now push cuts - and tap cuts - like a demon. Of course it's been slowly re-grinded to something new altogether. Another subject entirely - but I'm still impressed at how Kippington's trick works even from a noob's standpoint, and from Krupp to Blue #2, and with very different behaving stones.


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