Perfect vs. Practical

[KennyB]

So I got done reprofiling one of my knives, and then I dropped the edge on a corner of my stone. Made a little dent that I can't even see with magnification, but I can feel with my fingernail. It doesn't effect the cutting ability, and the knife's edge excels past what I expected.

Yet I still have the urge to sharpen the dent out. Why is it that I lean toward "perfect" over "practical"? Beacuse technically, if I sharpen the edge to get the dent out, it will actually make the edge a little thicker, so it's not like I'd even be making it sharper, I'd just be taking out a dent that's so small I have to use my fingernail to find it.

Anyway, I haven't lost my mind and gone to sharpen it... yet.

 

[defuse kit]

It's like a pimple. You SHOULD leave it alone, but you pop that sucker anyway. How were you as a teenager?

 

[thejamppa]

Oh, boy, I hate when that happends. If not on knives something else. I might spend hours and hours on some minor detail that doesn't affect performance of anything but I still noot to get it way I like.

That is very common to me. I infact took apart fully functioning omputer because the one of 12 screws attaching motherboard wasn't attached. That ment 2 hours of work putting computer into parts, removing that perfect cablegami I made using several dozens of zip ties (that took nearly hour itself) removing so I could place one more screw, that could not affect performance anyway but it just nagged behind my head when I knew it was missing... and then making another cablegami...

There's one term for people like us: Perfectionists...

 

[jackknife]

I abandoned the perfectionist path and now just be practical.

I don't obsess over the shapening. Just hone it on a diamond pocket hone I keep in my wallet when it starts getting a wee bit dull, and strop it on the back of my belt. If it's almost shaving sharp, then I know it will open my mail, bags of dog food, any UPS box that gets dropped off, or 50 pound plastic bags of pine bark mulch for landscaping projects that keep the better half happy.

I've even, just for yuks, touched it up on my old Boy Scout pocket carborundum stone. One of those old grey medium grit jobs that came in a nice leather pocket sheath with the scout emblam on it. It did just fine.

All I want out of my knife is that it cuts.

I'm an old fart and I have too little time to obsess over how sharp my knife is. Too many fish I haven't caught yet.