An odd Spyderco Mule test...

Theonew, when you say "whittling hair" do you mean that you're holding the knife off your skin and cutting part of the hair off, or a normal shaving motion? New guy, unsure of the terminology...

Parker
 
catspa said:
Theonew, when you say "whittling hair" do you mean that you're holding the knife off your skin and cutting part of the hair off, or a normal shaving motion? New guy, unsure of the terminology...

Parker
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I can understand the confusion, I'm not sure it's an industry standard term, lol :D I'm using it to mean that I hold a hair by the end in one hand and then cleave a sliver of it off with the knife's edge. Here's a pic:

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Welcome to Bladeforums, Parker :thumbup:
 
I gave her the Mule. She comes back in a minute and tells me the knife isn't very sharp.
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I'm surprised as a married guy you immediately thought it was the knife.

My thought process would be, "Here honey, I just re-sharpened it, try the hairballs again..."

Then, I'd shadow her to the garbage disposal where she digs out last night's rib bones.

Then, I'd follow her to the bathroom where she scrapes the soap scum out of the drain, then the grime off of the tile.

Then, I'd peer at her through the window as she digs out a few weeds from her garden.

Then, I'd just have to rush back to the living room in time to catch my breath and look puzzled when she shows up and complains the knife was too dull to cut cat hair.:thumbup:
 
Oh. Wow.

I'd have to borrow someone else's hair to do that, as none of mine is long enough.

Thanks for the welcome, glad to be here.

My father passed away this summer, and I inherited about two dozen knives he had. Although he liked knives and found them interesting, he wasn't very good at sharpening. His way was to lay the blade flat down on the stone (or the grinder, sometimes) and grind away any secondary bevel at all, producing two flat sides. As you would expect, this made the edge very acute, but also very fragile. I would show him my knives, which I buffed or stropped to a sharp convex profile, but he was convinced that only a flat grind was sharp enough for him. More than once I had to take my knife away from him just before he ruined it on the grinder.

Anyway, I guess my point is that a fragile sharp edge may have it's place, but it's not for an EDC knife. Not on mine, anyway.

Parker
 
gak said:
I'm surprised as a married guy you immediately thought it was the knife.....
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LOL, that's funny. I guess I'm just lucky my wife is very practical and familar with tools. She's an event photographer and has to deal with mounting equipment and running power cables in very challenging situations. She can be tough with her tools and we have plenty of beater knives around that she will use for abusive tasks but when she asks specifically for one of my knives she knows without a doubt how to handle it. I guess I'm lucky in that respect :)


catspa said:
My father passed away this summer, and I inherited about two dozen knives he had. Although he liked knives and found them interesting, he wasn't very good at sharpening. His way was to lay the blade flat down on the stone (or the grinder, sometimes) and grind away any secondary bevel at all, producing two flat sides. As you would expect, this made the edge very acute, but also very fragile. I would show him my knives, which I buffed or stropped to a sharp convex profile, but he was convinced that only a flat grind was sharp enough for him. More than once I had to take my knife away from him just before he ruined it on the grinder.

Anyway, I guess my point is that a fragile sharp edge may have it's place, but it's not for an EDC knife. Not on mine, anyway.
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I'm sorry for your loss. I think I would have liked your dad as I'm also a fan of very thin edges. But again I think we need to nail down terminology. I equate sharpness with how the two sides of an edge meet, be it 90 degrees or 10 degrees. The edge geometry is everything that occurs behind that edge. I have a 20 degree per side blade that will split free hanging hairs and I don't consider it fragile at all. Splitting a hair has much more to do with how you polish the edge. In my experience the more you polish an edge the less fragile it will be. But overall I do prefer my edge geometry to be around ten degrees per side and have found it to be plenty sturdy for even rough tasks with almost all decent steels. Here's a link to a thread I started about chopping wood with a 10 degree per side knife.

I'm looking forward to you continued contributions here :thumbup:
 
Well, I think this one is over. I can't get it to whittle. With a slow stroke it will cut a hanging hair in half but just can't cleave off a piece. I'll try again tomorrow after a shower to see if my hair is just too oily or something. It did better than I expected for my climate and the steel, held the edge for over 2 months and even now it's by no means what I would call dull :D
 
A while ago I also stropped all my folders to hair whittling sharpness and store them inside my spyderpac, took the pack out half an year later they are all shaving sharp but none can split the hair anymore. My collection includes VG-10, S30V, 154CM, 1095, ZDP, CPMD2, AUS8. None of them get moisture but somehow the hair whittling edge just disappeared after a long period of storage.

I was embarrassed as I was going to show off my sharp knives to my employee :(, but I stropped each knives back to hair whittle sharpness and regain my pride in no time LOL
 
Microcorrosion at the very edge is inevitable unless you oil the blade.

Even stainless steels will be affected, just more slowly.
 
IMO this is a very worthwhile test. I think many of us have experienced this with carbon steel blades. I've never thought to actually test it in any systematic way, but developed the habit years ago of always treating tool steel edges with BreakFree CLP ... glad to have it confirmed that my OCD-ness isn't totally in vain! :)
 
gak said:
I'm surprised as a married guy you immediately thought it was the knife.

My thought process would be, "Here honey, I just re-sharpened it, try the hairballs again..."

Then, I'd shadow her to the garbage disposal where she digs out last night's rib bones.

Then, I'd follow her to the bathroom where she scrapes the soap scum out of the drain, then the grime off of the tile.

Then, I'd peer at her through the window as she digs out a few weeds from her garden.

Then, I'd just have to rush back to the living room in time to catch my breath and look puzzled when she shows up and complains the knife was too dull to cut cat hair.:thumbup:
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This post is so freaking true! My fiancee is exactly that way. I swear i've seen her doing the most horrendous things with knives. She was cutting something and just whacked it against the granite counter tops, sometimes I swear she just goes outside and chops up the ground for fun then says "this knife isn't sharp".
 
I just confirmed the results with clean hair. The hair bounces against the edge but just won't dig in and severs a free hanging hair with a slow stroke. Still feels plenty sharp but has noticeably lost that very keen edge.

Dog of War said:
developed the habit years ago of always treating tool steel edges with BreakFree CLP ... glad to have it confirmed that my OCD-ness isn't totally in vain! :)
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I have never oiled or treated my blades but I think I'm going to start now :D It's either that or touch them all up every couple of months :eek:
 
Now what you do is simply strop the blade on plain smooth leather and see whether you can recover that performance.

There is another possibility and that is seasonal hair differences. They used to use hair in humidity gauges. It's possible that you can whittle hair in the warmer/more humid months and that late fall and winter make your hair shrink and get tougher. I found hair shaving tests much harder when I moved up to dry mountain air (over 7,000 feet) in Colorado. Try the test after your shower and without leaving the humid bathroom.
 
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