Anyone else under the, "it's not sharp unless it shaves" thought process?

hwpaintballer

hwpaintballer

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Jun 12, 2008
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My views on pocket knife, when it comes to sharpness, is if it can't shave it's not sharp enough. Anyone else in the same level of paranoia?
 
Well, I had a few cheap sharpeners and never had to great of luck with them, but I used my spyderco sharpmaker to touch up my izula not long ago an have always been pleased with the results.
 
i wouldnt call it paranoia, i would call it a pet peeve ;)

and yes i feel that way too.
 
I'll regret this later, but just decided to check my izula, an yep it's still shaving sharp, here are some pics.

2 days of hair growth.
DSCN9348.jpg


one izula
DSCN9351.jpg


a approximately 2 inch shaved area
DSCN9352.jpg


some shaving cream an hair
DSCN9354.jpg


a hard to see because i'm a sucky one handed photographer picture.
DSCN9355.jpg



(now i just go to remember to finish shaving in the morning)
 
Shaving is not a good gage. My carving knife was shaving, but not sharp enough to carve well......untill I stroped it. Now the wood just flys off and what's left is a spoon. :D
 
darkwaters said:
Shaving is not a good gage. My carving knife was shaving, but not sharp enough to carve well......untill I stroped it. Now the wood just flys off and what's left is a spoon. :D
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Not sure what you mean by this :confused:

It can shave but won't carve, are you refering to edge geometry??
 
I don't really shave with any of my knives, so if it's sharp enough to do the things I DO do with them, then it's sharp enough.

Did that make sense to anyone? :o
 
I must admit that I don't have any hairs on my right forearm due to using it to test the results of my sharpening - so yes I am one of those. I also agree that there is sharper or as some have put it, 'sharp sharp'.

There is also scary sharp, which basically means that it will cut by virtue of its weight and of course there are those test by holding a single hair and push the free end against the edge to cut to test for sharpness.
 
Yeah I've deffinitly fallen uder the sickness of needing my pocket knives to be hair shaving sharp. I'm always running mine through my Lansky Diamond set up which does a damn good job. After that they go through a few passes, each side, on some 2000 grit sandpaper. Then I run each of them over my double sided strop, grey then green compound. Unless I really do some damage to the edge all I need is some 2000 grit, then the double sided strop and I'm good to go. When I'm done they'll easily shave a patch a hair off my arm for the most part with no effort, just using the weight of the blade and gravity.
 
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A properly formed edge is sharp.

Shaving sharp comes in a 100 different forms and does not give a "true" indication of how correct your edge. It does say something for sharpness but is not the whole story.
 
Falcor said:
I must admit that I don't have any hairs on my right forearm due to using it to test the results of my sharpening - so yes I am one of those.
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Ditto, although my left arm is like that.

I had plenty of knives sharp, but I'm guilty of unless it can pop hairs off my arm, then it's not sharp enough.
 
There was an episode of a program on the Dutch television where they demonstrated how sharp a new knife usually is. They put a knife on a tomato and then, without applying pressure, moving the knife forward. When it is really sharp it should slice through the tomato without any effort:

http://sites.rvu.nl/page/7134/nl

Only one knife was able to pass the test, but I must say they only tested three brands.
The conclusion of the program was: you can get every knife sharp as long as you spend enough time on sharpening it. The best brand, at least when it comes to brandnew knives on a, not really extensive test in terms of number of brands, was http://www.windmuehlenmesser.de/
 
giant1 said:
Not sure what you mean by this :confused:

It can shave but won't carve, are you refering to edge geometry??
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Yes and no....a toothy edge knife will shave and be sharp enough for utility work. While it will leave a nasty gouge when carving. A polished edge will shave and carve a smooth slice.
 
I have a test I do with my working knife.I take a cigarette paper (the kind you use to roll your own with) and do a slow cut through the width , while holding between the thumb and forefinger of my weak hand.It should cut cleanly with no tearing and I find that a good working edge.
I started my working life as a carpenter and learned to sharpen tools and knives with a flat stone and do a quick strop afterword on a piece of fine grained leather glued to a flat piece of wood.
When working I needed to keep my tools with a good working edge. It payed me not to wast to much time when sharpening
 
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