Any Interest in a BESS Sharpness Competition?

DeadboxHero

DeadboxHero

Joined
Mar 22, 2014
Messages
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I'm pretty bored of the same old stuff over and over again on the forum, I think it would be fun to spice it up.

I've been thinking about how cool it would be to have an online event where sharpeners can test there skills in some friendly competition where we can all see edges being tested and we all can learn something new.

I'm just thinking out loud about it here,
I would not be competing but rather running the event and test the blades on the BESS Tester.

Perhaps we can run a batch of blades in the same HT, steel and geometry.
(If I have time)

Send out the blades to the contestants and than get them all back for a live test video.

Any thoughts? Does this sound fun to anyone?

-Shawn
 
DeadboxHero said:
Perhaps we can run a batch of blades in the same HT, steel and geometry.
(If I have time)
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now that would take a while! Maybe some donations to help that along if this gets off the ground-
I think class levels need to be established: hobby, advanced, pro, with freehand against manual guided against powered (just read wootsblades loving Paper wheels with Tormek guides as a next step after Tormek w seriously sharp BESS numbers and ranges based on technique). Maybe a sponsor can pony up a prize like the tester?
 
scottc3 said:
now that would take a while! Maybe some donations to help that along if this gets off the ground-
I think class levels need to be established: hobby, advanced, pro, with freehand against manual guided against powered (just read wootsblades loving Paper wheels with Tormek guides as a next step after Tormek w seriously sharp BESS numbers and ranges based on technique). Maybe a sponsor can pony up a prize like the tester?
Click to expand...

I like your ideas

I am a knife maker so I can pony up a few blades for good sport. If everyone has the same blade than we can see difference in the sharpening rather than the blades.

Probably about five contestants to get started.
Don't have enough data for organize different class ranges so it will be a free for all in the beginning.

Again, just thinking out loud, putting feelers out.
 
I would love to but no tester here. How would we deal with that considering not everyone has one? Regional events?

Oh, and I would expect the steel to have a lot to do with how refined an edge you can get. The finer grained steel the better. This is an important feature in mold steels for polishing.
 
Diemaker said:
I would love to but no tester here. How would we deal with that considering not everyone has one? Regional events?

Oh, and I would expect the steel to have a lot to do with how refined an edge you can get. The finer grained steel the better. This is an important feature in mold steels for polishing.
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David, I was thinking it would be best if I host the event online and I do a live test video on YouTube with my tester with all the test blades sent back to me from the contestants to test. I'm pretty dialed in with mine So we wouldn't have to worry about user error or shenanigans mucking up the results
 
What about steel and geometry? I assume, without any real knowledge, that the lower the angle the better the score?
 
Diemaker said:
What about steel and geometry? I assume, without any real knowledge, that the lower the angle the better the score?
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I'll take care of the steel and geometry.

The contestant blades will be well heat treated and very thin so that there's no issues with the sport of putting a nice edge on to test ones skills and techniques.

I have experience with heat treating, grinding and making lots of cut test blades for CATRA testing, So I'm the man for the job to run the show so we can focus on good sport.

I think competition will bring out some very interesting things to discuss. I think I speak for a lot of us when I say that we are all getting kind of bored of endless debates. It will be fun to see some skills and techniques put into action by the contestants. I feel it will enrich more advanced discussion in the future.
 
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I have three blades heat treated that I need to grind. So we can start with three contestants to get a feel for the event.
 
I'm in. How many spots on the blade will you test? Using a guided sharpener I can do separate sharpenings in 1" swaths. Really, I'm serious. I want to test some ideas, and this is a test run anyway.

Let me know what it takes and thanks for doing this.
 
Diemaker said:
I'm in. How many spots on the blade will you test? Using a guided sharpener I can do separate sharpenings in 1" swaths. Really, I'm serious. I want to test some ideas, and this is a test run anyway.

Let me know what it takes and thanks for doing this.
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Very nice, position one locked in

1.David D Diemaker
2.
3.

I'm thinking something like tip, middle, heel.
Since it's always a little tricky to get the tip and heel as sharp as the middle and should make for good sport.
Perhaps we'll do ~0.25" from the very tip and the very heel. Than two tests in the middle, one for the belly of the blade which can be tricky to for some and one on the straight section which should be the easiest.

Lowest overall BESS average from those 4 areas wins.

Use any stone, method, angles, edge geometries etc.
 
This does sound interesting. With my digital calipers I measure the BESS test media at 0.0095". So wouldn't the blade with the lowest dps profiled angle have the advantage on the test?
 
Is it a new stainless steel??? And which tester do you have? The A, B, or C model? I might have to get one so I can be sure my offering is worthy.
 
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