Scary Sharp

For those who can reach scary sharp; what’s your sharpening and stropping grit progression, and at what grit can you hit scary sharp?

Vassili – I just saw your goldfish vids…pretty cool. I have a koi pond, but got poached by a blue heron this year.
 
looker said:
For those who can reach scary sharp; what’s your sharpening and stropping grit progression, and at what grit can you hit scary sharp?

Vassili – I just saw your goldfish vids…pretty cool. I have a koi pond, but got poached by a blue heron this year.
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Well if my knife is dull or damaged I use Arkansas stones (Smith Tri-Hone) and once it's kinda sharp I use the Black Compound on a strop and to finish off the Green Compound. I strop my knives as soon as I feel they are getting slightly dull so I dont have to go to the stones. IMO that gets my knives hair popping sharp.
 
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looker said:
Vassili – I just saw your goldfish vids…pretty cool. I have a koi pond, but got poached by a blue heron this year.
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Watching goldfish is good relaxation - almost as good as sharpening...

Thanks, Vassili.
 
looker said:
For those who can reach scary sharp; what’s your sharpening and stropping grit progression, and at what grit can you hit scary sharp?

Vassili – I just saw your goldfish vids…pretty cool. I have a koi pond, but got poached by a blue heron this year.
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This is how I sharpen my knives, if I need to reprofile the edge then I start at a 120grit belt, then move onto a 220grit belt and so on.

[youtube]wMSzx6B_iCY[/youtube]
 
I think we should be careful here. Whittling hair is not the measure of a good consistent edge. A good consistent edge can whittle hair, but so can a rushed inconsistent edge. I have an example below.

Here is a picture of some of my fine asian hair, whittled. The blade in the picture is that of my Byrd Crow, which I rushed the job of sharpening and is not actually a good edge, it was sharp(obviously), but the edge itself was inconsistent and uneven in some places:



A hair whittling edge is not the same as a good sharp consistent edge. It is far more important to put a consistent edge on your knife than one that whittles hair.
 
WongKonPow said:
I think we should be careful here. Whittling hair is not the measure of a good consistent edge. A good consistent edge can whittle hair, but so can a rushed inconsistent edge. I have an example below.

Here is a picture of some of my fine asian hair, whittled. The blade in the picture is that of my Byrd Crow, which I rushed the job of sharpening and is not actually a good edge, it was sharp(obviously), but the edge itself was inconsistent and uneven in some places:



A hair whittling edge is not the same as a good sharp consistent edge. It is far more important to put a consistent edge on your knife than one that whittles hair.
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Well, of course edge should whittle hair at any point not only at some. If some of the part get dulled and some not - I do not see problem here.

Of course edge which whittle hair should be consistent, this is kind of obvious.

Thanks, Vassili.
 
WongKonPow said:
I think we should be careful here. Whittling hair is not the measure of a good consistent edge. A good consistent edge can whittle hair, but so can a rushed inconsistent edge. I have an example below.

Here is a picture of some of my fine asian hair, whittled. The blade in the picture is that of my Byrd Crow, which I rushed the job of sharpening and is not actually a good edge, it was sharp(obviously), but the edge itself was inconsistent and uneven in some places:



A hair whittling edge is not the same as a good sharp consistent edge. It is far more important to put a consistent edge on your knife than one that whittles hair.
Click to expand...


But when the edge is consistent and even you can whittle hair many times. Its not hard to make one split, its when you aim for 8-12 splits is when perfection is required. If you rush the sharpening and get a uneven edge that only whittles in spots then IMO your knife does not whittle hair the burr does. When I sharpen a knife its to make it sharp from front to back, that's the point right?

A knife at this level of sharpness would need to be viewed by a SEM to find the sharpest points so whittling hair is the next best option.
Picture377.jpg
 
the point I'm trying to make is exactly that. Consistency is important. It's not good enough to get lucky and manage to get a curl off the hair for the knife to be considered hair whittling sharp.
 
I am chimming in late here as I am a new member but thisis a great topic.
I have tow scary's and they are elcheapo survival knives
1 a tiwaneese rambo II shaves hair and skin OCH!
2 a wartech rambo II esque knive this thing is quite heavy 5/16 thik and can split hairs
Damn why can't I get my martin that sharp
 
Soft TP , standard edge , fine spyderco ceramic and unloaded leather strop,
hair whittling is a bit harder to achieve .

I started at the edge of the paper , holding it , with the slightest of tension .

nadihaacb.jpg



1234,,,,,,,,,:)
 
theonew said:
I'm gonna disagree here. The angle of the edge bevel is largely independent of the sharpness/polish of the actual edge. I just split a hair with a knife that has 20 degree per side edge bevels.
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That's because you are obviously skilled at sharpening a knife while I on the other hand need lots of practice. ;) I'm an Apex Edge Pro cheater so I need to work on the finer points here. And don't get me wrong, I can push cut through a phone book with my Busse FFBM and have posted vids in the past. So it's not dull. But I have never gotten it to split a hair. Now I'd love to get my skills to that level and I am sure it's not all the hard with some good old fashioned elbow grease.
 
I use everything from a belt sander to spyderco sharpmaker and sharpening stones. I can get hair whitteling sharp using all those methods though the Belt sander and strops seem to produce the quickest scary edges. Sharpmaker works great if your edge is in good shape.
 
knifenut1013 said:
But when the edge is consistent and even you can whittle hair many times. Its not hard to make one split, its when you aim for 8-12 splits is when perfection is required. If you rush the sharpening and get a uneven edge that only whittles in spots then IMO your knife does not whittle hair the burr does. When I sharpen a knife its to make it sharp from front to back, that's the point right?

A knife at this level of sharpness would need to be viewed by a SEM to find the sharpest points so whittling hair is the next best option.
Picture377.jpg
Click to expand...

I've never seen anything like this before . . . amazing. . . now I have a goal!
 
The sharpest knife out of the three I use most often (Tenacious, BM Vex, BM Presidio) is the Spyderco. Even though the 8Cr13Mov steel is a bit softer than the Presidio's 154CM, I was able to hone the Spydie to a finer edge.

The way I can tell is the paper cut test. Both will cut paper edge-on in one quick stroke. But I can feel that the Spydie has much less resistance, it glides through the paper as if it weren't there.

I attribute this to the flat grind, and an edge cut at a steeper angle than the BM.

For this type of steel, I've gotten all the sharp I'm going to get out of it. (by free-hand sharpening) Sharp enough to cut arm or leg hairs with light pressure, but not really sharp enough to actually shave with. Good enough for anything but actually splitting hairs.
 
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