Beyond Hair Whittling Sharp?

And how does one go about harvesting spider silk? Do you sneak up behind a spider, blow up a paper bag, and .... :D
 
spider silk is stronger than steel by weight, and 5 times as elastic as kevlar. I wonder what that would do to an edge if we could get it in diameters comparable to sewing threads.
 
hardheart said:
spider silk is stronger than steel by weight, and 5 times as elastic as kevlar. I wonder what that would do to an edge if we could get it in diameters comparable to sewing threads.
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That could be compleate murder for a edge. When the military has been researching spider silk for body armor, you know the stuff is tough
 
hardheart said:
spider silk is stronger than steel by weight, and 5 times as elastic as kevlar. I wonder what that would do to an edge if we could get it in diameters comparable to sewing threads.
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I guess human hair is also stronger then steel by weight and 5 times as elastic as kevlar... I am pretty sure that if we get this protein as a bar 1cm in diameter most likely it will be like piece of wood or something.

Thanks, Vassili.
 
I don't mean big bunches, just like a broken web, slice it in half, it's super fine so it's not gonna do any damage whatsoever to the edge.:D
 
How about hair carving? Carving folk art, maybe wood spirit faces into the hair. Have hair carving contest like they do with ice sculptures, film it with macro lenses and project it onto a giant screen for the spectators.
:)
KC
 
the possum said:
I always found cutting hairs the next step above whittling. A knife that could easily whittle curls off the length of a free hanging hair may not be able to cut it clean off, away from the point of hold. The distance away from the point of hold is another part of the gauge.
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I agree. While there's no question that hair whittling requires a pretty high degree of sharpness, because individual hairs are made up of multiple strands, fairly coarse edges can whittle hair; what's actually going on isn't whittling per se, like with wood, but peeling away of a few individual fibers of the hair once the edge has "snagged" them.

A really fine, polished edge can reach levels of sharpness where it actually becomes more challenging to whittle hair, which I suspect is because it cuts so easily and consistently that it becomes harder to snag a few fibers of the hair without cutting through the rest.
 
Dog of War said:
I agree. While there's no question that hair whittling requires a pretty high degree of sharpness, because individual hairs are made up of multiple strands, fairly coarse edges can whittle hair; what's actually going on isn't whittling per se, like with wood, but peeling away of a few individual fibers of the hair once the edge has "snagged" them.

A really fine, polished edge can reach levels of sharpness where it actually becomes more challenging to whittle hair, which I suspect is because it cuts so easily and consistently that it becomes harder to snag a few fibers of the hair without cutting through the rest.
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On my experience this is opposite, coarse edge will never whittle hair and first it start just cutting it on touch and after some sharpening effort is start whitteling it.

Thanks, Vassili.
 
"hair whittling" is ghey, very ghey, IMHO, so ghey I would not even want to participate in such an endeavor. it is not difficult to do, even with fine hair... (vassili's vidar has the absolute coarsest hair I've ever seen, most likely hog/boar hair that they used to stuff old VW bug seats with.. lol)
 
Are you troll or something?

1. It is easy to do with only extremely sharp edge (20-30g sharpness), but it is very hard to sharpen this way and there are not to much people who can do this.
2. It can not be done with burr absolutely.
3. Yes it is a standard and turns out it was standard in medicine for knifes which do analysis slices.

Thanks, Vassili.
 
Broos said:
IMO whittling hairs is a bit uninspiring compared to more dynamic tests for sharpness.

Here you go on a few more - these are even Oleyfermo approved.

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3020763&postcount=1
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I will listen to your juggment after you will be able to do hair whittling yourself, once you did not done this how can you tell that whatever you suggesting is sharper? Prove it! So far you are never indicated that you done this yourself even I directly asked you several times.

Everybody can talk, but put something real behind this!

Thanks, Vassili.
 
Broos said:
IMO whittling hairs is a bit uninspiring compared to more dynamic tests for sharpness.

Here you go on a few more - these are even Oleyfermo approved.

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3020763&postcount=1
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Those sound like tests that would definitely require a sharp blade, but I have to wonder how much of that is sharpness and how much is geometry. Particularly the bit about cutting a hanging piece of 6 inch wide leather, the edge wouldn't be the only thing encountering resistance on the way through and I speculate that it would require some mighty thin blades to do it. I could be wrong, just my thoughts on it. Similar concept with the cigarette, but not quite as extreme. I'd say hair whittling is a pretty good test of the edge itself, since you're only going through a handful of microns the blade thickness doesn't matter as much.


Gautier
 
blue_umbrella said:
1. it can easily be done
2. it is not a test of a properly sharpened edge, since its possible to "whittle" hair with a burr.
3. the way that you act as if it is setting some sort of "new" standard.
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1. If I thought it was difficult to do I would not of created a thread looking for more difficult things to do.

2. What would be a better test, that is isolated in testing sharpness rather than geometry, sharpness, technique or a combination of? Cutting paper tubes in half and other such "cutting tests" rely as much on technique as they do a sharp edge. Those tests are not what I'm looking for in a sharpness test. I do not see how that is superior to testing just sharpness by whittling hair or similar.

3. I've never claimed to be setting a new standard, I adopted the phrase because it accurately describes my edges, shaving sharp would be an understatement. Using shaving sharp or hair whittling sharp as a standard would be ignorant in my eyes because of the variation in human hair.
 
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I have a few that can whittle a hair, Noz.

Gautier, if you try some of those tests, you will see that sharpness determines whether you can make the cut or not. Try to cut a rolled piece of phone book paper with a thin knife that is not sharp - it won't work every time. And Jimmy Fikes knives are not razor blades - they will survive hard use if you are lucky enough to have one of his. Here's a knife with 20 degree bevels and 1/4" thick.



Modded Busse SH-E
 
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