Sharpening contest?

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foldinghunter

Joined
Jan 17, 2010
Messages
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I know there's formal chopping contests, but are there any formal "sharpening" contests? Like being able to drop a silk scarf on the blade and splitting it, ala "The Bodyguard". Or making the air bleed.
 
I think one should first seek the definition of sharp before they hold a contest. Very few people can really agree on what it really means (beyond what works best for their own personal needs).
 
The had a sharpening olympics on knifedogs awhile back ago. Murray Carter was the winner.
 
well edge retention and sharpness is two different things so dont forget that when testing your sharpness. They have to have the same metal from the same stock as well to tell the difference and its unlikely your gonna find that. personnaly I think the HHT is the current gold standard for physical means but even that will vary due to enviorment, type of hair, whos hair, and even where you get that hair off the person (even from the different parts of the head). Of course you could ask someone with access to a very powerful microscope to see whos got the smoothes edge but will that be considered the sharpest to everyone???
 
Unit here did some clever bevel angle comparisons a while back where he rigged a stretched thread on a digital scale and recorded the force required to push cut the thread. Maybe something like this combined with a restriction on the minimum bevel angle could make a fair test of sharpness. Slicing cuts would need a different protocol.
 
Bill1170 said:
Unit here did some clever bevel angle comparisons a while back where he rigged a stretched thread on a digital scale and recorded the force required to push cut the thread. Maybe something like this combined with a restriction on the minimum bevel angle could make a fair test of sharpness. Slicing cuts would need a different protocol.
Click to expand...

Hey, thanks for the mention.

There are some problems with that method (and since you are talking about my videos, I think perhaps I am the best one to refute this method as any sort of standard or judge of sharpness). The method is not total bunk, but it requires some care in setup in order to get reproducible results. Altering the string tension (for example) is critical...so unless you had one person carefully conducting all the comparisons, the results would be suspicious at best.

Further, this method looks at push cutting only, and opponents of a polished edge will point out that results may differ if a slicing action is used. This points to some inherent differences associated with users (and how "sharp" will be defined differently among different users).

CATRA uses slicing cuts of card stock, I used push cuts of various strings and reinforced ropes. In the end there are many uses for knives and many types of cuts such as pushes, slices, and chops...and depending on the material you cut, the edges/geometries (and even back blade geometry/configuration) may need to be altered accordingly.

I still experiment with edges, geometry, configurations, and back blade geometry, but I no longer share any of my findings like this. I feel as though the findings are so individualized to the user and use, and it is somewhat of a dis-service to those who do not conduct their own trials and arrive at their own best solution;)

For anyone who wants the entertainment of the videos I am discussing, here is the first of the series. If you watch it on YouTube, there are embedded links in this video to the others in the series. Please use this as entertainment only:)

[video=youtube_share;u4rDIFFyXVk]http://youtu.be/u4rDIFFyXVk[/video]
 
To me, sharp is when I"m holding a knife that I'm a little bit afraid of. Perhaps the way I should put it, is a knife that I respect very much. Sorta like the way you look at a straight razor.
 
I think a sharpening contest is a good idea, but with one modification:

With enough time, anybody can put a hair-whittling edge on a knife. But will that edge be durable? I think that would be the total package of knife and edge. You have to make a hair-whittling edge on the knife of your choice, and the contest would be to see how good that edge is *after* hard cutting tasks (cutting free-hanging rope, cutting 2X4s, etc.).
 
A polished edge excels at chopping wood and a coarse edge excels at cutting rope.

A durable edge? It does not matter if the edge is coarse or fine to have edge durability. You need hardness and toughness for edge stability so the edge stays intact. You cannot change physical properties of the steel through sharpening.
 
It would be interesting to start with a supply of identical knives, carefully dulled in an identical fashion. Give all the contestants the same stones and hit a timer for 5 minutes. Knives are inspected by a blind panel for burr removal and basic cutting abilities. Repeat several times, giving more time each go around until you have 40 minutes or an hour. Then, repeat the whole thing with a variety of stones, sandpaper, maybe some improvised materials. That's about the only sort of sharpening skill test that I think would be worth conducting - the variables involved in a zero guideline contest would be staggering.

I guess you could also throw in a grass sickle, axe, straight razor, and a crosscut saw. Anyone that can come out ahead over that sort of variety would get my vote.
 
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