Polished vs Non Polished Edges Cutting Results

Thanks, I just wanted to make sure there wasn't a gold mine of information somewhere that I had overlooked.

I do my own testing, but am always interested to see how others results compare.

Thanks.
 
Here is a little experiment to try. It falls under the polished edge category. Sharpen like you normally do, polished, or not, cut something till the blade looses the bite, cardboard or rope. make a strop out of a piece of flat wood and strip of leather (an old belt from the thrift store works good). Glue the leather to the stick with Barge Cement or equal. Rub some abrasive into the leather. I use the dross off the fine SC Norton Stone. Just work the leather into the stone to pick some abrasive up. Back stroke the blade a few times with light to medium pressure, check the sharpness during the process. I have found I can almost restore the edge 100% this way. You can get away this at least once with out going back to a stone. It is quick and the wood and leather strop is a lot lighter than a stone. Makes it very nice to carry in a pocket or pack in the field. This works with all the steels I have used so far. Very effective on S30V, ELMAX, M390, S90V. This may not be new information to some but may be a hint some others would find useful. Phil
 
Phil Wilson said:
Here is a little experiment to try. It falls under the polished edge category. Sharpen like you normally do, polished, or not, cut something till the blade looses the bite, cardboard or rope. make a strop out of a piece of flat wood and strip of leather (an old belt from the thrift store works good). Glue the leather to the stick with Barge Cement or equal. Rub some abrasive into the leather. I use the dross off the fine SC Norton Stone. Just work the leather into the stone to pick some abrasive up. Back stroke the blade a few times with light to medium pressure, check the sharpness during the process. I have found I can almost restore the edge 100% this way. You can get away this at least once with out going back to a stone. It is quick and the wood and leather strop is a lot lighter than a stone. Makes it very nice to carry in a pocket or pack in the field. This works with all the steels I have used so far. Very effective on S30V, ELMAX, M390, S90V. This may not be new information to some but may be a hint some others would find useful. Phil
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Yes that does work well, I have made a few of those over the years for use in the field. :thumbup:
 
phil thats great field advice since the combination is almost unbreakable & certainly is light weight.most times i find i can strop several times before hitting the stone .
dennis
 
Hey Jim,

When we first began making knives in the early 80's, we'd already been making sharpening stones for a while. Steel was developing back then but had not come as far as todays steels so better edge retention was always sought.

We learned that a coarse edge would cut more aggressively but a polished edge would stay sharper longer. At the time, the solution was a highly polished thin serratied edge. You might polish up a thin serrated edge (the sharpmker will work for this) and do your rope test with a good steel that has a polished serration.

sal
 
Sal Glesser said:
Hey Jim,

When we first began making knives in the early 80's, we'd already been making sharpening stones for a while. Steel was developing back then but had not come as far as todays steels so better edge retention was always sought.

We learned that a coarse edge would cut more aggressively but a polished edge would stay sharper longer. At the time, the solution was a highly polished thin serratied edge. You might polish up a thin serrated edge (the sharpmker will work for this) and do your rope test with a good steel that has a polished serration.

sal
Click to expand...

Hi Sal,

That might be an interesting test to do, see how a blade in good steel performs with a serrated edge then polish it.

That would be way past the old file trick cutting rope like we used to do back in the 70's. :D
 
FWIW, I found the same stabilizing trend when testing a Cara Cara on cardboard. I was push cutting thread on a scale and kept up with the force through about 1200 inches of cardboard, on 3 different knives. Yes, it was a slow week at work. The Cara Cara and another knife leveled off about the same load on the thread, and seemed to just hover around that value. I eventually ran out of cardboard, so just called it a draw. The edges would hover around 120 grams to cut the thread, after starting at less than 10.
 
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