Sharpening Record Page

nozh2002

nozh2002

BANNED
Joined
Jun 9, 2003
Messages
5,736
I set up page with list of people who are able to sharpen knife to the hair whittling sharpness:

http://playground.sun.com/~vasya/SharpeningRecords.html

Everybody wellcome to join this effort!

You may perticipate yourself as well as present company which NIB knife able to whittle hair (like Kershaw). I know Friction Forged knives able to do this, but do not have pictures - can someone help and send me one?

Thanks, Vassili.

P.S. So far American Bladeforums leading 5:1 to Russian guns.ru...
 
I'll try and post pics of my knives whittling hairs. Problem is, I shave my head and have no hair to work with! lol.
 
psycho78 said:
I'll try and post pics of my knives whittling hairs. Problem is, I shave my head and have no hair to work with! lol.
Click to expand...

Well, with this sharpness test I will lost all my hairs too eventually. But because of this I try to keep them longer...

You may check your girlfriend hairbrush...

You may send picture to me as an e-mail attachment and I'll post it.

Thanks, Vassili.
 
Let’s see if we can find the right forum …
attachment.php
 
OK Vassili, this is not the best picture but I whittled these hairs a little with my Boker Leo II damascus knife. It has never been stropped so I guess I got lucky touching it up recently with the Sharpmaker. It came pretty sharp. There is no telling how sharp you could get it.
Thanks,
Keencutter
Hairsplitting.jpg
 
Last edited:
Thanks, I add your record and two more - I will upload it on my website Monday, may be. It is very excited - may be I'll visit office over weekend.

Thanks, Vassili.
 
Vassili,
Is there a correlation between your thread cutting test and the hair splitting test? For instance, does the edge that splits hairs do better on the thread cutting test?
 
My straight razor is very sharp, but it almost never split hairs like your knife does. It just pops the hair in two. I wonder if the hair splitting indicates an even sharper edge?
 
matt321 said:
My straight razor is very sharp, but it almost never split hairs like your knife does. It just pops the hair in two. I wonder if the hair splitting indicates an even sharper edge?
Click to expand...

Yes, I usually have this with CPM S30V-S60V-S90V - high vanadium steels. After Green Rouge they steel not sharp enough I think because of high vanadium content and so I need to proceed with 100000 MESH diamon powder loaded leather - this makes them sharper and they start whittling hair.

All knives I tested were whittling hair sharp - I started tests with 20g sharpness which is whittling hair sharp otherwise it is not fair. They all do very good and if you check others tests you may see that nobody really was able to reach 800 cuts on Manila rope, while I stop just because not because I can not cut, but because continuation is meaningless.

I already posted that after cutting 77 feet of watercolor paper my Yuna was able to shave my face, so as I stated many times - highly polished edge stays longer/ But because not to many can make it right (only prove - whittled hair IMHO) and instead rounding edge - so being not able to polishe edge properly they came up with the idea of "working edge" as an excuse.

Thanks, Vassili.
 
I think sharpening a knife coarser rather than super polished is not always an excuse, but is prefered for alot of cutting tasks. Sometimes sharper means cutts better for alot of people.
 
db said:
I think sharpening a knife coarser rather than super polished is not always an excuse, but is prefered for alot of cutting tasks. Sometimes sharper means cutts better for alot of people.
Click to expand...

It very well may be. However to make sure that you actually have polished but not rounded edge you need to whittle hair first, otherwise I am not considering it as a polished edge.

This is a it problem - how to see if it is polished. Before I learn to whittle hair I use my thread sharpness test and result should be 20g-30g.

Before I learned how to polish properly I did sharpen edges using sharpmaker and get 70g-80g results, after this I polish on leather with Green Rouge and check. Result was worse - 90g-100g, which indicates rounded edge. However I was able to shave with it, so I rounded edge, actually dulled knife but not to extent it stop shaving.

This is what happening to most I guess, because I was able to detect it with my thread sharpness test, but nobody else can - that rounded edge continue to shave same as before. Now of course if you compare 70g edge after sharpmaker and 90g edge after that kind of polishing - it will be of course less capable to cut.

But if you compare 70g edge after Sharpmaker with 20g edge after proper polishing - this will be different story! So we need to make sure that we are talking about same polished edge which can be tested by whittling hair (or by thread sharpness test which is more precise but more complicated).

So before jump to this conclusion make sure that you are whittling hair.

I made three knives with polished 0.15 Micron edge, 9 micron edge and 40 micron edge - second two is what everybody considers as a "working" edge and use them in day to day cutting. After few month I can say that I uses polished edge. I always start with 40 micron then when it is not really working switch to 9 microns, but best always work 0.15 Micron edge in all kind of tasks and for sure stays sharp longer.

Please, post you whittled hair picture!

Thanks, Vassili.
 
I do agree and have said almost the same thing before in some of my posts that many who polish edges are rounding them off instead of polishing the very edge. Therefor, they aren't getting the true performance of a thin polished edge. I like you realized that by my own sharpening results. I also realized by my own use that for most cutting tasks of an edc pocket knife and how I used it a properly polished edge wasn't what I wanted. I also don't believe what ever test results of what lasts longer in a test of cutting a single material like rope is a fair comparison for an everyday use of a pocket knife. I personally cut a wide range of things in a wide range of ways and even abuse my knives without much thought since I am comfortable in my sharpening and I don't worry about keeping my edges damage free anymore. I enjoy both useing the heck out of a knife and then sharpening it back up to the edge I prefer. If basing the type of edge I prefer on my use instead of yours is jumping to conclusions or an excuse I am comfortable with that.I do think it is fair to say that the best edge for one person isn't going to be the best edge for all people. However, everyone should try a properly thin super polished edge at least a time or two as they are an eye opener.
 
Last edited:
db said:
I also realized by my own use that for most cutting tasks of an edc pocket knife and how I used it a properly polished edge wasn't what I wanted. I also don't believe what ever test results of what lasts longer in a test of cutting a single material like rope is a fair comparison for an everyday use of a pocket knife. I personally cut a wide range of things in a wide range of ways and even abuse my knives without much thought since I am comfortable in my sharpening and I don't worry about keeping my edges damage free anymore.
Click to expand...

As well as I did - I use three differently sharpened knives as an EDC for a while and clear winner was one with polished edge. I also pretty comfortable with my sharpening and do use my knive close to abuse without worry about keeping my edge damage free. I know that polished edge under same angle will take same as not polished and even more because solid straight does not loose tooth.

db said:
I enjoy both useing the heck out of a knife and then sharpening it back up to the edge I prefer. If basing the type of edge I prefer on my use instead of yours is jumping to conclusions or an excuse I am comfortable with that.I do think it is fair to say that the best edge for one person isn't going to be the best edge for all people. However, everyone should try a properly thin super polished edge at least a time or two as they are an eye opener.
Click to expand...

Well, I absolutely agree that one person best edge is not everybody else best edge...

BTW I am not talking about thin edge, but only about properly polished one. What angle it is 30-40-50 does not matter, all will whittle hair.

However, to talk about polished properly edge can you please demonstrate one first?

Thanks, Vassili.
 
If you want a picture as proof that I can put a polished edge on and not take my word that I have polished and edge properly I think you may be disapointed. I really don't know how to use the camera very well and I have to try and get my wife to even take a pic of a knife for me and put it on the computer. Frankly I am just to lazy to learn how to do it myself, and really don't care if you or anyone else believes me by my word on the net or any place else. Proof :) Do you really think you are the first one to discover alot of people round the edge when polishing?
 
db said:
If you want a picture as proof that I can put a polished edge on and not take my word that I have polished and edge properly I think you may be disapointed. I really don't know how to use the camera very well and I have to try and get my wife to even take a pic of a knife for me and put it on the computer. Frankly I am just to lazy to learn how to do it myself, and really don't care if you or anyone else believes me by my word on the net or any place else. Proof :) Do you really think you are the first one to discover alot of people round the edge when polishing?
Click to expand...

Word or picture - does not matter to me. If you don't have picture say it - so far I did not hear it from you. Just state it plain and straight - "I can whittle hair".

And I do not see why it is too hard to make picture - just chose macro (flower sign) and shot - all that pictures in that page does not so great.

Thanks, Vassili.
 
Yes, I have and am able to sharpen an edge so it can split a hair. In fact the first time I did it was about 10 years ago and truthfully I am a much better sharpener now than I was back then. Btw I think there are other tests of the edge that are just as good or even better than the hair splitting test to check for a proper polished edge. The Carter 3 fingur test is 1 example.

:) You are going to have to back up a little on the camera lesson. How do I turn the darn thing on is going to have to be the first lesson.
 
What is you camera? I can check Internet to see and may be give you exact instructions. It will be nice to see all that other tests in pictures!

Thanks, Vassili.
 
Unfortunately, I don't have the ability to take and post pictures:o.

I've been able to split hair with:

Spyderco Endura Wave (VG-10)
Benchmade 710 (D2)
Spyderco Caly 3 (ZDP-189)
Emerson CQC-14 (154cm)
Spyderco Paramilitary (S30V)
Spyderco Pacific Salt (H1)

I sharpen freehand with Spyderco Sharpmaker triangle sticks. All of the above knives were able to split hair at the level of the Fine rod, though I finished the ZDP with the Ultrafine rod. I currently strop on newspaper on glass, I haven't made the time to get a leather strop and try the green stuff.
 
No pics here, I can't find my camera and I am a terrible photographer anyway. I have whittled hair before and it is almost scary. For day to day sharpening though, the Ultra Fine stones on my sharpmaker are good enough for me. I don't like stropping, it isn't as easy as it looks, or should I say it is just too easy to round the edge.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top