Compounds for honing

I'm pretty sure a barber's straight razor, highly polished and honed, will cut hair and flesh with very little difficulty. I could be wrong but I always figured surgical scalpels to have pretty refined edges as well.

I too have always understood a highly polished edge to be more durable. Not sure if the difference between the black compound and the green would be noticeable to many people though. I know I don't notice that much difference.
 
TAGannon said:
Knifenut, I was simply trying to use examples that you would get. Guess not.

Yes, there is a balance of polish to micro-serrations. Love to see you polish that edge in the field. Flint knapped knives are ancient. Nice balance of serration with polished on those.

You will never see a polished edge at a rope cutting competition.

Theory vs practical application is what is happening here.

I'm through. Take care.
Click to expand...


Nope, I understand.


I'll put my polished edge up against any coarse edge in cutting rope and can assure you the polished edge will win. The sharper the edge the more efficient the cut.
 
TAGannon said:
Knifenut, I was simply trying to use examples that you would get. Guess not.

Yes, there is a balance of polish to micro-serrations. Love to see you polish that edge in the field. Flint knapped knives are ancient. Nice balance of serration with polished on those.

You will never see a polished edge at a rope cutting competition.

Theory vs practical application is what is happening here.

I'm through. Take care.
Click to expand...

You're still missing the point, which is this: What is occurring on the edge and what is occurring near the edge are not the same. Honing by definition means straightening the edge, not removing microserrations on the side near the edge.

I agree that you generally want some abrasiveness near the edge to remove material. How much depends on the interaction of material and the steel, but that's off topic.

At the edge, however, what you want is to have the steel as thin as possible because a knife is foremost a wedge. If the material is weak and thin (like paper), then all you need is to wedge it apart. If the material is thick (like wood), you want to get the edge in and let the abrasiveness of the sides do the work. There is exponentially more surface area in just a fraction of an inch of the bottom of the blade than there is on the edge. Serrations are not a counterexample to this line of reasoning. Serrations do not misalign the edge so as to provide those gaps. The edge along each serration is still aligned, only it changes the side of the blade in two ways, both of which cause more material to be removed: it provides varying friction against the material (more abrasiveness), and it adds surface area.

You may say, "Well having those gaps in the edge doesn't hurt. It doesn't make the edge work less like a wedge," and that's true. What isn't true is that it cut for longer. There are two problems with that. First, an aligned blade becomes misaligned as it works, so you're starting from a farther position from dull. That's like saying a 2005 Ford F150 with 50,000 miles on it will last longer than a 2005 Ford F150 with 10,000 miles. Second, to generalize, there are two directions of force put on a knife when cutting, horizontal (along the edge) and vertical. Vertical force presses inward towards the blade, which has more mass than the edge itself and thus provides more support. That vertical force will cause it to bend to one side (to become misaligned) or chip from edge upward, as I'm sure you've seen on knives. Horizontal force is the transfer along the edge as you're moving the knife across material. Using your assumption that it cuts more material, it does that because more material is hitting the start of those gaps, which puts additional horizontal force right at those gaps on the edge, where its only support is the rest of the edge until the next gap.
 
Hey Tom you asked me why I would want to hone my knives. I do some carving while in the campsite and like the polished cut that is left on the wood. I guess everyone has their own opinion.
 
knifenut1013 said:
Nope, I understand.


I'll put my polished edge up against any coarse edge in cutting rope and can assure you the polished edge will win. The sharper the edge the more efficient the cut.
Click to expand...

+1...I have had lots of fun messing around with the polished vs coarse edge for cutting rope. Polished wins hands down...practical application, no theory.
 
Wait a minute. Flint cuts well because the molecular structure of flint (and obsidian and chert) is such that when chipped, it leaves a very straight, un-serrated edge only a few molecules wide and thus is sharper than we can get steel. Stropping moves steel more toward a freshly knapped flint, not from it.

I think the real value in this thread is that folks are learning from what turns out to being two opposing viewpoints. Nobody posting here strongly pro or con is going to convince the other.

I still vote for stropping. It has really changed how well I can sharpen.
 
anyways, back to the thread at hand. i use a JRE strop bat with his compounds. works for me.
 
I use the green compound that comes in a big heavy bar on a leather bench strop. I work it into the leather with WD-40 and a heat gun.
 
Let's all chill out & just agree that the favorite edge on a knife is the owner's personal choice & respect everyone's individual decision. :thumbup:
 
Wow guys take it easy. Both micro-serrations and polished edges each have their own pro and cons. There has been plenty of discussion about edges before. Take it elsewhere.

I have several knives that I keep in both polished or micro-serrated, just depending on its use and steel. I have a belt grinder than I took my hatchet to and put a nice convex polished grind on, all the way up to 9micron and then a leather belt with green polish.

I really need to get a hand strop but I'm currently broke :(
 
I use the Bark River green compound purchased from knivesshipfree.com for my stropping.

A polished edge is great for woodworking.
 
I just use mothers chrome polish from the autoparts store on a $7 Harbor freight belt. I'm low tech.
 
Dang, im just trying to learn the basics of how to sharpen my knives period. This is above my head!
 
I use chromium oxide powder I bought from Hand American. I mix it with some neatsfoot oil and rub it on to my leather.
 
I use a double sided strop, one charged with black coarser and green finer. I use the green when I just need a light touch up and the black than green after heavier use. I favor a polished edge now after many years of back and forth between the two. The polished edge is better for fine work and touches up easier for me. I find myself shaving bark, shaving wood, push cutting notches for lashing sticks together and batoning which is essentially push cutting and the finished edge lasts longer, performs better, especially when it is convexed. A toothier edge slices synthetic materials a little easier, not much, and not as clean.
 
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