u/Weakest_Serb

I've been sharpening for about 3 years now, with very mediocre results. At most, just about hair shaving and that's it.

I've followed Outdoors55 for most of that time and I love his stuff, but I never got the hang of it.

And here is my issue. I would apex, and then try my hardest to chase the burr. That sounds like a decent plan, but it never worked for me.

I'd use inconsistent angles, watching the burr's location after every pass with a flashlight, and paradoxically, focusing on the burr made it so i'd never actually remove it.

I'd be left with a bad apex, and a large burr.

And here's my advice to break free of that. Don't even think of burrs or sharpening.

Think of polishing the apex.

Polishing will put in your mind the idea of what type of pressure you should use (no one thinks of featherlight, nor gigantic pressure when they think of polishing an item).

And it will get you away from this burr-focused mindset.

If you sufficiently "polish" each side, the burr will have nowhere to hide. You don't need to chase it or draw it out like I used to do.

A good angle, and a good rhytm and you can't go wrong.

Keep the exact same angle, pretty light pressure, and just polish it in circles (or whatever is your preffered method, I have a very small stone, so I do circles) for a decent length of time.

Don't worry about where the burr is, or if you've apexed yet. Keep a decent grit stone (800 grit for me) and polish each side for a minute or so, and when you feel or see that you are close to apexing, start slowly tapering it down.

It might be 15 seconds, and after a few alternations, 10 seconds, and so on. Don't focus on the exact time.

MAKE SURE THE ANGLE IS CONSISTENT. And then keep doing what you were doing previously.

Polish for a few seconds, flip, polish the other side, flip, etc, each time taking away few seconds.

DON'T FOCUS ON THE EXACT TIME YOU SPEND ON EACH SIDE. Develop a feel from it. Nothing bad will happen from overpolishing.

You won't develop a massive burr on the other side from 3 extra passes. Don't be scared.

And at the end, do a single pass on each side, alternating a few times. And that's it.

So, to summarize, think of sharpening like polishing. Keep a good angle, a decent pressure, and go to town on it. Reduce the amount of passes gradually when you feel you've apexed or are close to apexing, until you are down to single passes.

Then do a few single passes. Done.

Don't chase or monitor the burr. It's fine to check on it occasionally, but don't get too focused on it.

Most people are well aquainted with the videos of the Spyridon firing both of it's main cannons at once, the cannons shaking all around.

That's true. The cannons vent the fumes toward each other, creating a constant loop of causing the other to shake.

But that doesn't impact it's combat effectiveness. Let me explain.

For the BMP-T, one cannon is always loaded with HE, and the other with APFSDS. This means that only one cannon will ever be fired at one time, where such shaking isn't present, and the accuracy is completely satisfactory.

There is not a single type of target where you'd want to fire both cannons at the same time.

Now, it's main issue and why it isn't used anymore. Drones. It is that simple.

To counter the danger of drones, most tanks are relegated to "sniper" roles most of the time.

Firing HE round from kilometers away, sometimes even beyond line of sight.

That prevents them from being detected and destroyed by drones.

But the Spyridon is completely ineffective in this role. It has no large-caliber main gun, so it doesn't have the range nor the damage to be useful in this role.

And that makes sense if you look at what it's designed for. Supporting armored columns advancing in urban areas.

It's 2 cannons with great elevation angles are fantastic for clearing out rooms in buildings from infantry, or destroying lightly armored vehicles with it's APFSDS. It can even destroy tanks with it's ATGM's, although it isn't perfectly suited for this role of course.

But given large armored assaults on cities just aren't possible with today with the amount of drones, it's a vehicle built for a role that no longer exists. Atleast until good counter measures for drones are developed.

Looking into making one as my first forge and burner, I'm personally looking into a (roughly) 1/2 inch burner, for a forge roughly the size of a fire extinguisher.

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I heard that's roughly a good size of burner for that forge. But, I live in Europe, and all parts sizes I could find are all in imperial units.

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Does anyone have some metric ones?

Thanks.

It's a very interesting phone, a flagship of it's time, yet tiny by todays standards. And it's processor still (kinda) hangs with current (low end) phones.

I'm thinking of getting it as a work phone, mainly because of it's size.

Battery will be an issue, but I have a powerbank basically everywhere, so it'll be fine.

Does anyone have one, and how is it today? Thanks in advance.