I did "XYZ" and my knife still shaves!

D

DocGP

Joined
Feb 22, 2009
Messages
586
I see this type thing posted often around here, and I am wondering if I am the only one who doesn't have this luck? I have some pretty nice knives, and see this posted about knives I own;

Dozier, BRKT, Cold Steel, Busse, Falkniven, RAT/ESEE, etc.... Personally I think I have a pretty nice collection, but I see "I batoned a cord of wood and my knife still shaves", or "I built a wilderness shelter and my knife still shaves" and wonder A) our wood in Texas must be tougher than the rest of the country, or B) I must have gotten the lemon in every brand.

It seems that when I use my knives, they get dull. Now where I do notice the edge is how long it stays useful. Good steel much longer than cheap steel, but I can't seem to ACTUALLY USE the blades and still have them shave. I can get them back to shaving sharp pretty reasonably, but for some reason, my knives dull when I use them ;)


Doc
 
Last night I carved a 5.5 foot pole of well seasoned pine into a 'spear' with my Kershaw RAM , the RAM was razor sharp before. I carved for maybe five minutes , hard almost chopping carves to a little more delicate but long slivers of wood until I got to what I was going after , a spear to heave into the lawn. :D
The RAM's edge was unaffected aside from some pine 'smears' , I was prety impressed , I do not use that knife and rarely carry it so I had no idea of it's potential slicing capabilites. 14C28N is some damn decent steel :)

Tostig
 
Keep in mind that it isn't just the high quality steel that matters. You also need the right edge geometry, as well as a leavel of pollished high finish that you don't get from any "factory" edge I've ever seen.

What I mean is that the kind of edge you start with will greatly effect how well it retains that shaving sharpness. If that makes sense.? :)
 
BryFry said:
Keep in mind that it isn't just the high quality steel that matters. You also need the right edge geometry, as well as a leavel of pollished high finish that you don't get from any "factory" edge I've ever seen.

What I mean is that the kind of edge you start with will greatly effect how well it retains that shaving sharpness. If that makes sense.? :)
Click to expand...

Here is a guy who knows what he is talking about!

I recently posted up some demonstrations with VG-10 showing how a good edge will last through some tough cutting. A lot of people were surprised at what a good edge on VG-10 is capable of (VG-10 is great but often overlooked as inferior to many of the modern super steels).
 
unit & bryfry are not to be taken lightly. i did 30 --15 in. cuts in double thick cardboard & my vg10 endura in ffg would still shave leg hair. did'nt have to fight any gorillas that day so no report on that encounter. dennis
 
What!? You mean some people are cutting XY&Z and their knife still shaves?
I get A-Z before mine dulls!:eek:
 
I hammered the spine of my knife through a 3' tall brick wall, and the spine didn't dull at all :D.
 
very few of my knifes ever been shaving sharp. But I can shop a tank with some of them...not sure why or how successful I'll be at chopping a tank.

I was never able to put a shaving sharp edge on my knifes, and rarely did I need to. My sharpest knife doesn't get hammered, chop and only slices.
 
Cleaned the bark off of and smoothed this hiking stick with my BK-2 and it still shaves. Good enough?

IMG00618-20100730-1238.jpg
 
Yesterday I chopped an entire cord of firewood with my Benchmade 705 and then shaved the print off the news paper without slicing all the way through.
:rolleyes:
 
Volk said:
very few of my knifes ever been shaving sharp. But I can shop a tank with some of them...
Click to expand...

How do you shop a tank with a knive? Is there some way to use a knive like a credit card? I like knifes...
 
I cut two rooms worth of drywall with my neighbor's knife, and my knife still shaves hair.
 
I'm with the OP. I don't care if the knife shaves. I have a razor for that. But I do care about edge retention. I expected a good bit better performance out of my 1095 Izula in comparison with my Gerbers, but it seems about the same to me. They both need frequent sharpening. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I get them both shaving sharp on a medium Arkansas stone and then strop (no compound). Does the edge have to be significantly sharper than this to retain its sharpness after heavy use? If so, what can I add to my routine to achieve this? I don't want to sharpen on 10 different stones either, just for another days work worth of sharpness...might as well just sharpen every day.

Thanks
 
worked on an old endura vg10 with solid stainless handles for about 1.5 hrs. today. got it so sharp that when i stepped outside the sun hid.dennis
 
I don't shave, because I haven't hit puberty and I have very little body hair to speak of, thank you very much! But I'm pretty sure my knife could shave some of you hairy beasts out there! Ok that was weird, it's time to move on...
 
DocGP said:
I see this type thing posted often around here, and I am wondering if I am the only one who doesn't have this luck? I have some pretty nice knives, and see this posted about knives I own;

Dozier, BRKT, Cold Steel, Busse, Falkniven, RAT/ESEE, etc.... Personally I think I have a pretty nice collection, but I see "I batoned a cord of wood and my knife still shaves", or "I built a wilderness shelter and my knife still shaves" and wonder A) our wood in Texas must be tougher than the rest of the country, or B) I must have gotten the lemon in every brand.

It seems that when I use my knives, they get dull. Now where I do notice the edge is how long it stays useful. Good steel much longer than cheap steel, but I can't seem to ACTUALLY USE the blades and still have them shave. I can get them back to shaving sharp pretty reasonably, but for some reason, my knives dull when I use them ;)

Doc
Click to expand...

GRIN.

yes, mine too. We must be doing it wrong.:D
 
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