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rutcrazed

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Ok I have another question. I am statring (starting)to get the hang of this hobby (obsession). I have not yet been able to whittle a hair. How high of a grit does one need, to get to hair whittling edge? I am currently practicing on a Spyderco Native 5. It is sharp, just not sharp enough. He-he. (rabbit hole) :D
 
What are you using to sharpen your native? I got my native hair whittling sharp with the sharpmaker. It helps to strop the edge afterwards to refine the edge just a little more. And a sharpie is your best friend. It will help you to know for sure if your are getting all the way to the apex of the edge
 
The grit really has no impact on sharpness, all your doing is refining [polishing] the edge the further up you go. If you've got your angles consistent and properly apex BOTH sides of the bevel and fully remove the burr you can shave coming off a 400 grit stone.

Work hard on consistent angles and make sure your getting a burr along the entire edge (on both sides) then practice removing your burr and you'll get there. It's not like each step up in grit gives you a little more sharpness or progresses it a little further along, the higher grits are for refining, the lower grit coarse stones are what you want to be doing the work on.
 
I flat ground a Kershaw Chill to a zero bevel, it whittled hair off the 120 grit DMT stone :eek: That is kind of a preposterous (and relatively useless) edge geometry though. As mentioned by Cereal_killer, the clean apex matters just as much as the grit finish (possibly more). I find a strop to be really beneficial for this. I really like a 400 grit edge with 5 strokes on my strop with 0.5 micron paste. Just a few strokes doesn't polish the bevel, but it cleans up the apex and this edge will consistently whittle hair.
 
I see people claiming to whittle hair at EXTREMELY low grits. I find it hard to believe. I can get keen edges on lower grits meaning for me, 400-600 where they will bite and cut a free hanging hair if you drag it across the edge. If you pull the hair down, it will cut but only produce 1-2 curls at most. Usually the hair just gets split. With my highest grit stone, a shapton glass 4k in conjunction with 1 micron stropping paste/spray I did achieve hair whittling sharpness, but not consistently. In the higher grits where I cannot feel for a burr its much more challenging for me to get super keen edges. Something I need to practice and work on as I have yet to master sharpener.

Really you don't need hair whittling. You just need a keen edge with finished on a certain grit range that caters to the materials you will be cutting with the knife.
 
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For an example, I just got a few pictures holding my loupe over my cell phone camera (so please, excuse the quality :p) You wouldn't believe how hard it is to get visible pictures of those darn hair curls! After taking a few dozen pictures, this is about as good as I can get right now.

Here is a gentle curl:

400_Grit_Hair_Curl.jpg


And here is the edge that cut it:

400_Grit_Mini_Matrix.jpg


This is a 400 grit Chosera edge, with 8 strokes on the strop. Image quality isn't the best, but you should be able to barely make out the consistent 400 grit scratch pattern on the bevel.

One word of caution though, with high levels of refinement you may bypass hair whittling before you realize it. When you're playing around at those levels, I find the edges can quickly jump around between HHT-2, 3, and 4 (hair whittle/hair splitting is HHT-2). I'd recommend reading a little bit here: http://coticule.be/hanging-hair-test.html
 
Ive never really experimented to see how low I could whittle hair , im always chasing levels of refinement well beyond hair whittling. Probably in the 5k-8 range on the shaptons if I had to guess. I suspect that many people are using the low grit burr to whittle hair. Drawing through some wood would quickly reveal this to be true or not though.
 
Some hair is better for whittling than others, also. Just don't sneak up on your Gypsie girlfriend while she's asleep.... But really what the others said; a consistant bevel will grab and 'bite' into the hair, and with a steady (and patient) hand the hair can be cut and split like a very fine bamboo stalk.
 
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rutcrazed said:
Ok I have another question. I am statring (starting)to get the hang of this hobby (obsession). I have not yet been able to whittle a hair. How high of a grit does one need, to get to hair whittling edge? I am currently practicing on a Spyderco Native 5. It is sharp, just not sharp enough. He-he. (rabbit hole) :D
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Quite a bit will depend on the hair in question. Have successfully whittled a hair coming off a Norton Crystalon followed by some steeling. My best effort at low grit is working with a silicon carbide stone and stropping with the reclaimed stone grit - will not whittle a hair, but will treetop a bit. Have gotten many edges to whittle hair coming off my Washboard compound (approx 4k) followed with a bunch of stropping on plain paper, including my Fiskars hatchet. The usual is treetoping sharp on some leg hair. I also do not bother much with this amount of extra effort but is possible. If the edge will quietly crosscut newspaper with a push, you're getting close just need to eke out a bit more refinement at the cutting edge.

IMHO the edge will need a high level of uniformity when viewed in profile, however its whipped up, or that hair will dance across the edge. Having a very acute inclusive angle helps as well - low 20s or even a touch lower. Again, a lot will depend on the edge. Even for razors, the only test that matters is the shave test, whatever else the edge can do.

Martin
 
Thanks all you blade Guru's. I know that I hitting the apex at the lower grit stones because I can feel the burr. As I progress up into the higher grits I have more trouble feeling the burr. My edges seem sharp. They shave hair. I just want more.(sound familiar) I think maybe it may be just more practice, practice and practice. I also need to learn stropping. I will try doing some stropping on HH washboard. Thanks for the help.
 
rutcrazed said:
Thanks all you blade Guru's. I know that I hitting the apex at the lower grit stones because I can feel the burr. As I progress up into the higher grits I have more trouble feeling the burr. My edges seem sharp. They shave hair. I just want more.(sound familiar) I think maybe it may be just more practice, practice and practice. I also need to learn stropping. I will try doing some stropping on HH washboard. Thanks for the help.
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In general, the edges that can catch free hair more reliably tend to start in the 1200 ANSI or approx 2k JWS and more so in the 4k to 6k JWS and up. This is a final finish. I know plenty claim (and have pics to prove it) to whittle or chop hairs at relatively coarse grit values, but generally not without some post grind stropping etc that leaves the true finish at the edge being a question mark without high power magnification. I was able to dry shave my face off an 800 grit King waterstone with only some stropping on plain paper, pre-Washboard days. Surprisingly clean shave at first, but after 10 minutes or so began to itch like crazy!

Learn to make clean edges at low and mid range, and get used to tracking down and eliminating those burrs without broadening the apex. As the edge gets more refined, the bur will be harder to feel and need to be ID'd visually with strong overhead light.

Off the WB with compound on paper, arm hair should simply pile up against the blade, and no longer pop. That's at or near tree-topping leg hair which is also very close to whittling some specimens of hair. A bit of extra finesse with the same tools can get it there once you can reliably get to that point, just takes a bit of tinkering. I gave up using hair from my head as test media for the most part as its just too inconsistent from one sample to the next. Would be pretty neat if someone came up with a synthetic stand-in that had consistent characteristics.
 
Ok. I read all the posts and decided to try H.H washboard with some paper and white compound. I did about twenty passes on each side of the blade. Much sharper now. Not sure but think I am having issues with what you guys call a wire edge. Thanks HH your washboard worked fantastic. Now back to the practice part....
 
Hey bpeezer, I read your link about HHT. Quite interesting. Maybe some day I will get good enough to sharpen razors. I know for sukre I don't lack the drive, not sure yet about the skill. LOL
 
HeavyHanded said:
I know plenty claim (and have pics to prove it) to whittle or chop hairs at relatively coarse grit values, but generally not without some post grind stropping etc that leaves the true finish at the edge being a question mark without high power magnification.
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I guess my posts were a little misleading, I should clarify my point a little more. I was trying to show that the edge characteristics can be brought to that level of sharpness without going through the "proper" grit progression to get the whole bevel to that level. The edge will cut differently than a mirror polished one, but it will still whittle hair. I hope that clears things up a little :)
 
bpeezer said:
I guess my posts were a little misleading, I should clarify my point a little more. I was trying to show that the edge characteristics can be brought to that level of sharpness without going through the "proper" grit progression to get the whole bevel to that level. The edge will cut differently than a mirror polished one, but it will still whittle hair. I hope that clears things up a little :)
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All good, just putting it out there that coming off a relatively coarse stone some sort of additional work is going to be needed, and folks shouldn't feel under pressure because they can't whittle a hair off a cinderblock. Not that it can't be done, but I'll be seeing the video first :).

Personally I go out of my way most of the time to avoid a "proper" grit progression, or working up a mirror polish, so appreciate just what you're saying. In general I'd like to recommend people not bother with whittling or hair chopping etc, but is a good way to weed out slop in your technique and methods. Not a very practical user's edge finish by itself, but winds up improving your results at whatever finish you decide to work with.

Martin
 
HeavyHanded said:
In general I'd like to recommend people not bother with whittling or hair chopping etc, but is a good way to weed out slop in your technique and methods. Not a very practical user's edge finish by itself, but winds up improving your results at whatever finish you decide to work with.
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One of the best concepts for sharpening progress :thumbup: After slaving over the high grit stones aiming for a highly refined edge, it's much easier to create a fantastic coarse working edge.
 
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