Scary Sharp? Shaving Sharp?

Pendentive:

There is a story about a guy who made a knife for his Journeyman Smith test, told/written by Wayne Goddard. I'll try to fish out the details, but this guy did his swingign rope test, and passed no problem. Then they discovered that the knife was mild steel! OOPS!!! Somehow he got his steels mixed up.

The point they learned that day was that properly done, any steel can get sharp. It is whether or not it keeps its edge that is another matter!

P.S., more vids! The world needs more knife porn.
 
Crayola - oh...the shame...I bet that put a bee in Fisk's bonnet...great story though. Almost as good as the one where the J.S. does his hanging rope test and his knife is so sharp (and he's so excited) he goes right through the rope and into his shin. This was just a while ago. There were guys talkin about it in October how he's just now recovered...yikes!
 
more vids? sure, why not. This one's from a ways back but goes to show that the knife doesn't have to be a skinny lil' SAK to make paper scream...

Cleaver Test

:D
 
PHONE BOOK!! I am not kidding...KILL a phone book. Nail it with one of your khuks and see what happens. I love the cleaver too.

Robb
 
Thanks for the vid Pendentive! I bet in a past life you used to be a Japanese sword polisher or something, making swords sharp enough to circumsize gnats with :)

Hmm... I wonder fi part of the J.S. test will now include forging your own chain mail shin guards! OUCH. I'll try to dig up more details on that mild steel swing cut, it is in Goddard's "The Wonder of Knifemaking" book.
 
OK, more the Robeson and the SOG....

yesterday I posted:
-- Bottom Line # 1: Go Figure !! Makes no sense to me.
-- Plan Of Action: get busy..... on my SOG Tech I.

Well, I got busy on the SOG. I first spent 5 minutes running it back and forth on my sharpening steel. I could actually see and feel what I guess is the "wire edge." (translation: novice).
-- Then I cleaned the mousestrop, reapplied the green micro-stuff, and commenced to stropping. Heeding Pendentive's advice I raised the spine a bit higher to increase the blade angle.
-- It took about 15 minutes to wear away the "wire" and.... holy smokes, that thing is sharp !! I don't know if it qualifies as "scary" to you folks who actually know what you're doing, but it sure 'nuff scared me. I'm still smiling in satisfaction and utter amazement at the ease with which the hair was separated from the forearm.

Therefore, with nothing to lose, I grabbed the Robeson and wailed away on the sharpening steel for 5 minutes or so, then took it to task on the re-cleaned and re-green'ed mousestrop.
-- Within 5 minutes it too was scary sharp in this newly-defined way of looking at things.

When I walked in the house the wife spied the clear-cut patches on my arms and said, "You've been playin' with your knives again...." Weren't nothing for me to do but smile even larger.

What did I learn ?? Not sure, but I'm having fun trying to figure it all out. At least I've got a system that works better than the one I had before.

Cheers and Many Thanks to Dan !!

Carl
 
Originally posted by New Pig Hunter
...It took about 15 minutes to wear away the "wire" and.... holy smokes, that thing is sharp !!
Click to expand...
Now we're talkin'...!!!:eek: :D :D

Now go and open up a can of whoop-*** on some cardboard, paper, rope, whatever and let us know about it.

:cool:
 
With no compound and no leather belts for my sander (and no looking at the sander to see what size belt would be needed), I turned to lapping film and an already convexed Benchmade 730 Ares (with its high swedge on the top and its overall profile, the Ares is ideal for mouse-stropping into a complex-grind [flat sides, convex edge, kind of convexed and rounded top]).

Went from 5 micron, to .5 micron, to .3 micron lapping film. Wanted to try tree-topping, but my arms are bare for some reason. The edge does tree-top chest hair with some pulling, but doesn't tree-top leg hair. The blade glides like glass over my edge-tester (Razor Edge Systems stick of plastic) with slight lack of aggression when trying to let weight of blade catch edge tester held at 30 degree angle. I think I've made the edge sharper, but probably thicker as well (lots of force plus quick-cutting SiC, CrO, and AO can do that).

Worked really well on the 806D2 as well, but with one odd difference. The 806D2 will not get sharper on the .3 micron AO film, but gets very sharp on the .5 Cr) film. Is CrO harder or is .3 just too small? Aw, the mysteries of the unknown in sharpening and in D2....

Question for skilled sharpeners and my fellow sharpening geeks:

What do you do to let your arm hair grow back?
 
Thom: move to legs for about 3-4 weeks... or cut your own hair to test the edge. Lots of hair on your head, and you won't take as much off to start.

I have found a new level of sharpness... 1084, flat gound(custom warncliff, will leavitt, edc line)... if I'm not being VERY careful, it just bits in and doesn't get just hair.

I got it after 8-9 others did thier damage to it(and me for my week)... I've spent 2 days refining the edge on it... :D
runs around 20-25ish inclusive, high bevels off the edge pro(2nd or 3rd person did it). Now highly polished bevels. The edge is off the spydie whites(have a doublestuff stone in my bag, with stropping compound on the sides of the case) and 0.5 micron(veritas green).

had it hair poppin off the stone... stropped it... got it tree top cutting off the stone... stropped it... got it "holy f*ck" off the stone, hit the 2.0 and then the 0.5 side, then the stone again(lightly)... I peeled a strip of wood VERY thin off the doorway at work... it takes slices out of the 303mf case that are thin enough you can barely feel em... it cuts if ANY presure is put on it(slice or push)...

my arms have patches that may take a month to grow back(usually 2 weeks), they're done so close.

mini lightsaber anyone? earplugs melt under it already, and it soars through seatbelt mat'l like it's not even there.
 
When I used to use natural stones, I maintained even my Swiss Army Knives (Victorinox) with a hard, black Arkansas stone. When I did that, I had no trouble shaving my face with them dry (for fun!) without pain or injury. The problem was that they did not slice very well.

Since I switched to diamond abrasives, they don't shave as well, but they slice, especially fibrous materials, much better. For general use, I prefer the grabbier edge. Most of my knives will still "pop" hair from my arm too, so it's not like I can't impress my friends and neighbors and still have a good working edge too.

I suppose someone has addressed this earlier, but I'm too lazy to read the whole thread. :D
 
When you can get the edge "Sharp enough to scare the hair off a gnat's ass", you will have learned, Grasshopper.

It will be time for you to leave the temple.

:D
 
Danbo,

How do we learn how to do that?

VampyreWolf,

Thanks for the advice and the info on the Leavitt wharncliffe.
 
OK, guys...got more vids...;)

I don't have any spare phonebooks laying around...:rolleyes: but I do have some extra magazines...:D

Saltwater Fisherman meets its match

The knife I am using has a full-body-shiver edge. How can you tell? The magazine makes more noise hitting the floor than it did when I cut it. ;)


Sorry, Jennifer Connely fans...

Next was a large and substantial magazine - Interview. No sweat. ;)



For the record, this knife is made of file steel, hardened to 60 RC, and has a full convex grind - touted by some to be too fat or thick to do any serious slicing...:rolleyes:

:p
 
I wonder if it would be possible to go through a phone book. Especially if you live in a heavily populated area with a big ass phone book. :) I might have to try this and shoot a video. If I fail, I might not post the result, although I guess it could be funny. :)
 
touted by some to be too fat or thick to do any serious slicing...
Click to expand...

Hey Dan - You talkin' to me man! hunh! You wanna piece o' me?

Wooooo back off dude, put the Khukuri down before somebody gets hurt. Like ... I was just jokin', man. Everybody knows thick is cool.

-----------------------------------------------------
Seriously tho that is awsome. Love the way you can do that with only a spring clamp holding that thing!

So now I have to understand this process very well. You said:

has a full convex grind
Click to expand...

Does that mean the grind is convex all the way across the blade to the edge? No secondary angle?

That's just unreal.

Steve

BTW I'm entering a cutting contest wanna do my blades?
 
Sando - :eek: :D :eek:

Yes, the blade has a full convex grind, spine to edge. It is so pretty. I purposely left on ultralight grinding marks to show it off (hard to explain, makes perfect sense when you see it). I suppose if you got out a microscope, you'd probably see a very fine final bevel, but 99.9% of the blade is one smooth arc.

I've only ever had one other knife cut as well as this one, and it too was fully convex ground, 60RC high carbon steel.


I'm reminded of the ABS cutting competition in October where Charlie Snell's nearly-full-convex-ground blade easily out-chopped the competition.

To illustrate:

Jerry Fisk handed me Charlie's knife and said "Cut the hanging rope". I did. The knife made a "ting" noise and 9 inches of 1-inch thick sisal rope bit the dust. Even Jerry's own Camillus Fisk Bowie (and nearly every other knife I saw that day) made a "rrrrip" noise when going through the rope. Charlie's cut it like it was tissue paper. Words do not do it justice.

Jerry then handed me a 2 ft. strand of rope and said "toss it in the air and cut it". ...so I did. ;)

what a knife...!
 
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