David Martin
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I never used that word . I was just quoting your choice of words and thought it was funny . Still, I'm not OCD . DM
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Do we obsess too much?
- Thread starter jackknife
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People have silly hobbies like golf, knife collecting and movies for one reason: To distract our minds for a little while from whatever shite job, screaming kids, screaming wife, fat kids or fat wife they have to deal with every day.
So, as long as it doesn't get out of hand financially, there is no problem with being somewhat obsessive about hobbies.
Of course no one NEEDS to get a knife so sharp they could shave with it. But it's sure fun trying
So, as long as it doesn't get out of hand financially, there is no problem with being somewhat obsessive about hobbies.
Of course no one NEEDS to get a knife so sharp they could shave with it. But it's sure fun trying
Obsess too much? Oh yeah!!! The only reason I love useing and dulling my knives is so I can sharpen them up again. Btw I had the chance to see a few of those upper 80 to 90 year old life time farmers and how they sharpen their knives. Deer hunting in WI. They all had coarse very sloppy edges. Yeah they worked and also needed to be resharpened more often than my edges. Truthfully I am very glad to have and use my obsessive edges. 
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As one old timer to another I can tell you hobbyists obssess in every hobby. I haven't seen any exceptions. Dealing with the minutest details surrounding the hobby is always part of the hobby itself.
I'll tell you true story. You talk about people not flinching when a knife was brought out. When I was in college, I used to compete in quick draw contests. One day I went to class wearing my quick draw rig because I was heading for the practice range right after class. The professor asked if I was going shooting after class. I smiled and said yes. He asked if he could come along. I smiled again and said of course.
I wonder what would happen today if a student went to class openly carrying a handgun. In those days you bought guns mail order. There was no such thing as registration. There also wasn't as much fear as there is today. Freedom and quality of life have been going down steadily ever since those days.
I'll tell you true story. You talk about people not flinching when a knife was brought out. When I was in college, I used to compete in quick draw contests. One day I went to class wearing my quick draw rig because I was heading for the practice range right after class. The professor asked if I was going shooting after class. I smiled and said yes. He asked if he could come along. I smiled again and said of course.
I wonder what would happen today if a student went to class openly carrying a handgun. In those days you bought guns mail order. There was no such thing as registration. There also wasn't as much fear as there is today. Freedom and quality of life have been going down steadily ever since those days.
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They would haul you to jail just having a gun on a University of California campus, let alone wearing it open. I tried to get a Ruger Mark 2 my dad bought me brought on campus as I was on the pistol team and we shot tuned up Mark 2's (courtesy of the ROTC). It would have been such a pain to get the gun registered with campus security let alone back and forth from campus security to practice that I said forget it. It sucks because I would have got a free Volquartson target grip out of it and we would have carefully stoned the sear down to 2.5 lbs, the lower limit for trigger pull weight in the competitions I was shooting in.
Back on topic, I can easily get a real nice shaving edge on an old carborundrum stone, even the very coarse DMT XX Coarse leaves a shaving edge when done withcare. But I have knife and sharpening OCD. No knife is ever thin enough so I sent large chunks of money to Tom Krein to correct that. For a while now hair whittling sharp hasn't been impressive, it's getting to the far stages on hair whittling like it being hard to whittle a hair due to the knife just severing it when you touch the blade to it. Yes, I'm obsessive and go way too far, but if your gonna be a bear, be a grizzly!
Back on topic, I can easily get a real nice shaving edge on an old carborundrum stone, even the very coarse DMT XX Coarse leaves a shaving edge when done withcare. But I have knife and sharpening OCD. No knife is ever thin enough so I sent large chunks of money to Tom Krein to correct that. For a while now hair whittling sharp hasn't been impressive, it's getting to the far stages on hair whittling like it being hard to whittle a hair due to the knife just severing it when you touch the blade to it. Yes, I'm obsessive and go way too far, but if your gonna be a bear, be a grizzly!
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When I was young my dad taught me to strop my knife on the inside of my belt after a day of use.
Once I got older, found the internet, learned from sites like this, and decided I was a smart guy, I tried every sharpening method under the sun. That cost lots of money and it worked pretty good but was lots of trouble.
Now that I am older and I have a son, I strop my knife on the inside of my belt after a day of use.
Should have listened to dad
Once I got older, found the internet, learned from sites like this, and decided I was a smart guy, I tried every sharpening method under the sun. That cost lots of money and it worked pretty good but was lots of trouble.
Now that I am older and I have a son, I strop my knife on the inside of my belt after a day of use.
Should have listened to dad
I guess what got me going in this direction to type out the post I did, was an incident the other day.
The weather here in Maryland has been grey, wet and windy. So when a nice bright sunny day came by, my youngest son Matt, and I made plans on spur of the moment to go fishing. Catfishing. Chicken liver bait catfishing. We set out early in the morning, and Matt invited a friend along. Jason.
We set up in a nice spot on the banks of the Potomac River, and broke out the gear and got ready to go catfish hunting, as my dad used to call it. Matt had his knife, and he sliced off a bit of chicken liver to go on his hook. I sliced off a bit to go on my hook and used a little thread to tie it on so the cat couldn't suck it off. I lern't that trick from my old man.
Jason goes to cut a piece of chicken liver and is sawing away, the liver sliding out from under his knife edge. It ain't doing it. He's sawing away and it's a little embarassing. I'm looking over at Matt, Matt's looking over at me, like 'what are we gonna do?'
I tell Jason to hand over his knife. He hesitates, Matt tells him to do it. I take his knife and I can see it's a little dull, but not bad. Just needs a touch up. Now chicken liver is slippery stuff, and you need a sharp toothy edge to cut it clean. I reach into my daypack and take out an old boy scout pocket size carborundum stone in a worn leather case.
"Hey, what are ya gonna do?" Jason asked me in a nervous tone of voice.
I tell him I'm going to touch up his knife free of charge so he can fish instead of sawing away at chicken livers all morning. I take a swipe across the stone with that nice 'ssshhh' sound of steel on stone. The kid lets out a shocked yell.
"HEY MAN, YOU'RE GONNA RUIN MY KNIFE!"
I look at him seriously, and I see he's for real. He thinks I'm going to ruin his knife. I ask him what makes him think so. He tells me that the guy at the knife store told him it's very critical to get the right angles and it you don't use the (insert name of super gizmo here,) it will mess up the factory angles and ruin the blade. Of course Jason bought the super gizmo to sharpen his dull knife with when he bought the super ninja black knife. Jason is a very nice young man, and of course had no reason to believe the guy at the knife store would tell him something less than the truth to sell him more stuff to build up the sale.
I'm watching him close as he tells me this, and I realize what I have here. This young man never had a father or grandfather sit down with him and show him how things work. His father is one of those city yuppy guys in an office, who does not even carry a knife. From what I gather, his father never spent a great deal of time with him growing up. For whatever reason, this kid Jason felt on his own, that he should have a knife around, but had nobody to show him the what for's of the matter. At the knife store, the clerck sold him a very expencive knife and sharpening gizmo. So he was sold on, and convinced that without the 'right' super gizmo, his knife could not be sharpened. He was literally crippled on how to sharpen his knife when the super gizmo was not around. I showed him in just a few minutes how to sharpen up a knife right on the bank of a river with a hand held stone. Then I stropped it on the back of my belt, handed it back to him and told him to cut some liver.
The knife went right through the chicken liver like a surgons scalple. Jason couldn't beleive it. He looked at me and asked where I'd been when he was growing up, and that made me very sad for the young men today who don't have a grandfather to show them how it's done. Or a father who isn't interested how their kid ends up.
But most of all, I was struck by the young man who didn't know how to go about sharpening a knife without the lastest high tech tools. Like how did Abraham slit that lambs throat to sacrafice it to God all those thousands of years ago?
So I guess I started to wonder if the obsession abut technology is becoming too much. I mean when you get young men thinking that the expensive knife they bought can only be sharpened by expensive gizmos, are things going too far?
I worry about the rising generation being crippled by the apathy of their fathers.
The weather here in Maryland has been grey, wet and windy. So when a nice bright sunny day came by, my youngest son Matt, and I made plans on spur of the moment to go fishing. Catfishing. Chicken liver bait catfishing. We set out early in the morning, and Matt invited a friend along. Jason.
We set up in a nice spot on the banks of the Potomac River, and broke out the gear and got ready to go catfish hunting, as my dad used to call it. Matt had his knife, and he sliced off a bit of chicken liver to go on his hook. I sliced off a bit to go on my hook and used a little thread to tie it on so the cat couldn't suck it off. I lern't that trick from my old man.
Jason goes to cut a piece of chicken liver and is sawing away, the liver sliding out from under his knife edge. It ain't doing it. He's sawing away and it's a little embarassing. I'm looking over at Matt, Matt's looking over at me, like 'what are we gonna do?'
I tell Jason to hand over his knife. He hesitates, Matt tells him to do it. I take his knife and I can see it's a little dull, but not bad. Just needs a touch up. Now chicken liver is slippery stuff, and you need a sharp toothy edge to cut it clean. I reach into my daypack and take out an old boy scout pocket size carborundum stone in a worn leather case.
"Hey, what are ya gonna do?" Jason asked me in a nervous tone of voice.
I tell him I'm going to touch up his knife free of charge so he can fish instead of sawing away at chicken livers all morning. I take a swipe across the stone with that nice 'ssshhh' sound of steel on stone. The kid lets out a shocked yell.
"HEY MAN, YOU'RE GONNA RUIN MY KNIFE!"
I look at him seriously, and I see he's for real. He thinks I'm going to ruin his knife. I ask him what makes him think so. He tells me that the guy at the knife store told him it's very critical to get the right angles and it you don't use the (insert name of super gizmo here,) it will mess up the factory angles and ruin the blade. Of course Jason bought the super gizmo to sharpen his dull knife with when he bought the super ninja black knife. Jason is a very nice young man, and of course had no reason to believe the guy at the knife store would tell him something less than the truth to sell him more stuff to build up the sale.
I'm watching him close as he tells me this, and I realize what I have here. This young man never had a father or grandfather sit down with him and show him how things work. His father is one of those city yuppy guys in an office, who does not even carry a knife. From what I gather, his father never spent a great deal of time with him growing up. For whatever reason, this kid Jason felt on his own, that he should have a knife around, but had nobody to show him the what for's of the matter. At the knife store, the clerck sold him a very expencive knife and sharpening gizmo. So he was sold on, and convinced that without the 'right' super gizmo, his knife could not be sharpened. He was literally crippled on how to sharpen his knife when the super gizmo was not around. I showed him in just a few minutes how to sharpen up a knife right on the bank of a river with a hand held stone. Then I stropped it on the back of my belt, handed it back to him and told him to cut some liver.
The knife went right through the chicken liver like a surgons scalple. Jason couldn't beleive it. He looked at me and asked where I'd been when he was growing up, and that made me very sad for the young men today who don't have a grandfather to show them how it's done. Or a father who isn't interested how their kid ends up.
But most of all, I was struck by the young man who didn't know how to go about sharpening a knife without the lastest high tech tools. Like how did Abraham slit that lambs throat to sacrafice it to God all those thousands of years ago?
So I guess I started to wonder if the obsession abut technology is becoming too much. I mean when you get young men thinking that the expensive knife they bought can only be sharpened by expensive gizmos, are things going too far?
I worry about the rising generation being crippled by the apathy of their fathers.
Oh yeah, we are quickly becoming too dependent on gizmos. I think this has alot to do with people beleiving that there is only one way to do something. Heck even in this sharpening forum sometimes we get wrapped up in a single method of sharpening and dismiss and ignore all others. This xxx will give you the sharpest edge, you need to get a burr, you shouldn't get a burr, you need to Free hand sharpen, you need xx system, you need this xxx level of polish, a coarse edge cuts better, a polished edge is sharper, convex, flat, hollow, you get the idea. I've found once I learned how to get a sharp edge and really understood what I was doing to get that edge I could use almost anything to sharpen. Just think what would have gone through Jaysons mind if you picked up a smooth river stone to sharpen his knife.
Last edited:
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It's a general obsession, and I don't believe it has anything to do with advances in technology. Rocks chipped right out of the ground can cost $50,000 and people will pay $100 an inch to have steel polished by hand. Our modern excesses aren't so excessive in comparison to some of those who yearn for the old ways. People express their appreciation for knives, steel, or sharp edges in different ways.
David Martin
Moderator
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Jack, Thanks . I've seen that played time and time again .
db, I know what your saying . We teach alot here and it doesn't take long reading the posts to realize so many were not taught the basics . We should be trying to make it a good place to learn . Keep it simple and teach the basics . Then they start reading other posts and they think, I need a strop to get a really shaving edge and off they go on another tangent . Poor guys, we foster their frustration . We keep them buying stones and gimmicks they don't really need . I'll admit its easy to teach a young man knife sharpening on a river bank . One teacher, one knife, one stone . Its much more difficult here . Six guys writing in using 6 different methods, countless knives and stones .
I don't know what we can do about it other that just tell them the simple truth and hopefully they'll learn some basics that stick with them along the way . DM
db, I know what your saying . We teach alot here and it doesn't take long reading the posts to realize so many were not taught the basics . We should be trying to make it a good place to learn . Keep it simple and teach the basics . Then they start reading other posts and they think, I need a strop to get a really shaving edge and off they go on another tangent . Poor guys, we foster their frustration . We keep them buying stones and gimmicks they don't really need . I'll admit its easy to teach a young man knife sharpening on a river bank . One teacher, one knife, one stone . Its much more difficult here . Six guys writing in using 6 different methods, countless knives and stones .
I don't know what we can do about it other that just tell them the simple truth and hopefully they'll learn some basics that stick with them along the way . DM
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2005
- Messages
- 5,533
My comments,
Always enjoy Jackknifes stories and perspective.
You want to wonder about knife obcession, go to a Blade Show. Then you will understand excess....
Bull___t lies in front of every door, only experience teaches you how to avoid stepping in it.............hope for everyones sake your experiences don't hurt.
I am here because I want to be, when I don't I will turn the computer off.
300Bucks
Always enjoy Jackknifes stories and perspective.
You want to wonder about knife obcession, go to a Blade Show. Then you will understand excess....
Bull___t lies in front of every door, only experience teaches you how to avoid stepping in it.............hope for everyones sake your experiences don't hurt.
I am here because I want to be, when I don't I will turn the computer off.
300Bucks
- Joined
- Jun 13, 2006
- Messages
- 3,724
Yep, it's tough to get oneself trapped into the "one way" mindset. Sometimes it takes a particular sharpening task that a given gizmo can't handle to get someone looking at alternatives... and that opens their minds and they can see a number of valid possibilities before them. Folk that want to use one specific method to get stuff atom-splitting sharp can enjoy the fruits of their labour... other like myself are content with getting stuff merely shaving sharp using a mix of methods, some of which can involve very economical means. Sure, I'll use more specialized stuff like steel grinding belts and ceramic stones, but I'll also incorporate more generic options like wet/dry sandpaper and stropping on denim... got no shortage of the latter at any given moment! As long as the user is happy with the edge they can get on a regular basis, they can decide for themselves how much they want to spend, and how much they want to stress over it. Some are purists with deeper pockets to feed their obsession, and some are relatively frugal, easy-goin' types. :thumbup:
Oh yeah, we are quickly becoming too dependent on gizmos. I think this has alot to do with people beleiving that there is only one way to do something. Heck even in this sharpening forum sometimes we get wrapped up in a single method of sharpening and dismiss and ignore all others. This xxx will give you the sharpest edge, you need to get a burr, you shouldn't get a burr, you need to Free hand sharpen, you need xx system, you need this xxx level of polish, a coarse edge cuts better, a polished edge is sharper, convex, flat, hollow, you get the idea. I've found once I learned how to get a sharp edge and really understood what I was doing to get that edge I could use almost anything to sharpen. Just think what would have gone through Jaysons mind if you picked up a smooth river stone to sharpen his knife.
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- Mar 18, 2008
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JK, I agree, somewhat. I think that if we obsessively focus on one method, to the exclusion of all else, that can actually hinder us in a survival situation. On the other hand, if we are obsessive to the point that we study how to get steel as sharp as possible, learn the geometry and characteristics of a truly sharp blade, it makes us more equipped to sharpen a blade under any circumstances. Before I found the forums, I could get a blade almost sharp on a stone, but had no real understanding of how to get a blade truly sharp. Through reading here, and on other sites, as well as my own experimentation and studying, thanks to my obsession with the so-called "ultimate-sharp", I have gained much understanding, and now can sharpen a knife to shaving sharp with nearly any abrasive surface. Now, instead of obsessively chasing a single process in the vain hope of perfection, I am experimenting with "found" items that I can get a good edge with. However, I would not have the skills necessary to do this if I had not had this obsession before.
David Martin
Moderator
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KBras, Much of this rings true for me . DM
What the hell do Aspartame and Vegetarians have to do with one another.
But I do agree on the original point. That If you can cut, then its sharp, and that should be good enough.
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- Jun 20, 2009
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Stones are the best, I can get an amazingly sharp edge with a little bit of work on a stone and a strop, they're way better than sharpening gadgets, fun too. Although I do like my gadgets for recurves it makes life easier.
What's a microbevel?
What's a microbevel?