Hair Popping Sharp

K

kidwholaughs

Joined
Jan 17, 2004
Messages
1,189
Hey guys,

I was wondering if anyone keeps their blades hair popping sharp. I loved the feeling of having a hair popping knife right out of the box. However, after a week or so, I could never get the edge sharp like the factory edges. I personally believe, no matter price of the knife, a knife is only good as how sharp it is. What a tragedy it is to have a grand of fine steel, but only to get 440 performance out of it due to a poor sharpening job. Do anyone keep their knives with a hair popping edge? If so, how do you pull it off. Please speak from experience only.

Thanks for the enlightenment,
 
I keep my Custom L6 hair popping sharp. I hone it on an Arkansas Washita stone & then run it on a crock stick. Not a hard task with this steel. I do not like my pocket knives this sharp because, honing them with the Washita gets them sharp enough for most cutting tasks. :cool:
 
Everyone that knows me knows my personal carry knives are lethal. For that matter so is my kitchen arsenal. I can't stand a dull knife. People are scared of my Fallkniven U2 and simply want nothing to do with any of my Spydercos which is just fine with me because when someone asks to borrow my knife I give them my Swiss Tool and tell them where the blades are and how to close it.

I gave up loaning my good knife years ago. I have a specific blade I give out to those that are prone to not having their own and it isn't one I care much if they abuse.
 
I get every knife I own as sharp as I can make it with a diamond rod. I have one that is fairly new, one that is worn, and one that is almost smooth. I use them in that order until hairs will "pop" from my arm (my left arm is almost always bare!). I don't strop or use anything else that polishes because I like the way the grabby, toothy edge left by the diamond abrasives slice through stuff really well.
 
rhino said:
I get every knife I own as sharp as I can make it with a diamond rod. I have one that is fairly new, one that is worn, and one that is almost smooth. I use them in that order until hairs will "pop" from my arm (my left arm is almost always bare!). I don't strop or use anything else that polishes because I like the way the grabby, toothy edge left by the diamond abrasives slice through stuff really well.
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That's funny, I was beginning to wonder if I had the only bald left arm around...I have switched to leg for summer :D I am a very new knifemaker, but all the knives I have made so far are from O-1 and heat treated by me and I put the edge on with the slack belt on my 2"X72" belt grinder with a used 120 grit belt, then to a trizact 220 equivalent then a 320 equivalent trizact, this seemes to work better for me than trying to use the sharpening stones I got at Lowes. I have ordered an edgepro system and will be happy to report on it's results upon using it, but for now can get hair popping with belt grinder. You could get these results with a small 1" X 30" grinder for about 50 bucks as well. It just seems easier to get the angle right that way.
 
The trick to sharpening is just practice. It's not something you can just jump into and swim with everyone else. Just get a feel for keeping the right angle, find the right tool for the knife, and keep at it. I maintain all of my blades on a regular basis. If I used the knife that day, I will most likely sharpen it that night. Everyone has different preferences for sharpening tools. Personally, all I ever use is a very fine 3 inch ceramic triangular stick. I keep a cheap stone and a diamond handy if I find a knife has significant damage, but I use the ceramic stick for everything, even my hanwei practical katana. I keep all of my knives shaving sharp except for my recon tanto, which is really nothing but an axe now. Keep at it and soon you'll be teaching others how to get a knife "hair popping" sharp.
 
my left arm is almost always bare!).
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Hell, both of mine are bare and I've moved on to my legs now. My wife gets so mad at me with the prickly stubble coming back out on my arms all the time.

Tell you what for all you young whipper snappers out there. Watch shaving the legs when you get older. I shaved a spot on my left calf right there near the shin when I was still in my late 30s and it never grew back. Still have that bald spot to this day. Don't know why that happened. I had done it before and it always grew back in when I was younger. Maybe I had reached the limits of the hair follicles or something.
 
Hair popping sharp.Do you mean hair popping sharp where you scrape/touch your skin or hair popping sharp where you don't have to touch the skin ? I have several like that but I found the easiest way to do it was just buy any Marble's and keep it N.ew I.n B.ox,that way if it calls for hair popping sharp.There it is.
 
Hair popping? No. I want a more durable edge. So actually i choosed a convexed edge at a large angle. This determines the hait cutting ability. Maybe a can go up to this with my sharpening skills and equipment, but don´t want to. I have heard of someone who sharpens axes up to this point. But i never saw these axes so i don´t know if it is just the kind of polishing or the edge geometry.

The sharper, the finer the edge is, that´s what i think. My edc should have an edge to cut even thin tin cans. A hair popping edge would suffer from this.

I would get nervous to keep it up there.

If sharpening is the problem, try again and learn to sharpen. Don´t just stay with the Sharpmaker and the few rods. Try different styles. Try stones, try mousepad + sandpaper or what ever you like.

Everone can sharpen.
 
I keep all mine shaving sharp, but hair-popping is rare for me. I pretty much agree with blop here - I can't imagine a real above-the-skin edge holding for long enough to carve hardwood.
 
I keep mine shaving sharp, and I do it freehand. I'm not a expert sharpener and I really don't have good equipment. I think my angles are too high for hair popping in most cases anyway. I'm just finishing my sandpaper holder prototype :) which is basically a benchstone "simulator". This will hopefully help me improve my freehand skills. (And I think I have to agree with some people here, a sharpening forum would be great)
 
I never thought of factory edges as particularly good. I normally sharpen a knife out of the box before ever using it.
 
leatherbird said:
Hair popping sharp.Do you mean hair popping sharp where you scrape/touch your skin or hair popping sharp where you don't have to touch the skin ? I have several like that but I found the easiest way to do it was just buy any Marble's and keep it N.ew I.n B.ox,that way if it calls for hair popping sharp.There it is.
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The way I use the term is the way the hair "acts" when it's cut, not whether or not the blade is contact with the skin. When I say "hair popping," I mean that with extremely light pressure, the hair will actually go into the air a bit, as if it were spring loaded or something. If it just falls or you have to scrape or use more pressure, it's not "popping."
 
Even though i am not sure, if hair popping really is the sharpness test.

I prefer to feel how easy hair is cutted. Some edges which spread a paper dust when opening letters cut hair pretty well even let it pop from the arm.

Other edges, which open letters with no paper dust and cut thin paper stripes shave the hair or the rest of a hair, that was left by another edge very easy but the hair will not pop.

So, considering that some edges may be rougher by nature of the steel (alloys) i sometimes feel, that hair may pop because it is wedged between the microtooth of the edge.

Another test for sharpness is to let a sheat of paper fall onto the edge from a distance between paper and edge about 5". If it cuts in nearly 1" deep it really is very sharp.

None of mine can do this, refering to my first post in this topic, but it is possible to carbon steel. Maybe not to steel like D2. That´s what the person said, who brought this test into play.

If someone wants to try...
 
I prefer to keep mine at about shaving sharp or just below (would that classify as working sharp? :) ) For most of my EDC things that's more than adequate. I do, however, keep my Endura hair popping sharp - it doesn't get used all that much and it's occasionally fun to show off how sharp you can get something for the sheeple. I also, have had to resort to my legs for testing sharpness :)

- gord
 
The last four days I spend about 4 hours a day on the stones, sharpening away...I love holiday weekends. Just got the Murray Carter DVD and wanted to give his technique a try.

I would say, if you want easy hairpopping sharpness, get a Sharpmaker and maintain your knives frequently. Doesn't take long.

If you want to get into sharpening some more and don't mind scratched up blades that are REALLY sharp, first buy Murray Carters DVD and watch it. Then go online and find yourself a nice set of stones (minimum two).

The former represents an investment of about $40, the latter anywhere between $70 ($30 DVD, $40 stones) to $230. If you can afford it, buy some good quality stones, not only do you get you knives sharper, its also faster and much more fun. I will risk to give an actual buying recommendation: A "Bester" 1000 grit stone ($40) (hidatool.com) + "Shapton" 5000 or 8000 (8000, potentially finer finish which takes longer to get to) grit stone $80-$100.

I really like the Murray Carter technique!
 
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