spyderco persistence whittling hair

zyhano · Sep 9, 2010

Hey guys, I made my persistence shaving sharp and whittling hair yesterday. I took it out of it's spot among my collection and hadn't touched it since I did a trip to Scotland in april (check out persistence pics here..)

8Cr13MoV steel is relatively easy and fast to sharpen. It started with a trip to the dmt benchstone XtraCoarse to reset the bevel and to get rid of the uneven 5 mm near the base of the edge. There was a slight depression there, I noticed this before on other knives, I think it's the place where they set the edge to the grinder to create the edge.

then I progressed up the grits on the dmt stones to C, F, EF and then to the strops with diapaste of 6 micron, to 3 micron to 1 micron..
I use the 10" duosharp stones and skipped the 8" continuous EEF dmt stone this time. I found I had some trouble getting rid of the burr, even with very light pressure, on the stones. I got rid of it by either dragging it lightly through wood or by using the strops. Any comments on that?

Took me about half an hour total. (edit: and some tv stropping while watching a nine-11 documentary, so a little more time than that)

The edge is not so nicely polished as it could be polished, but I didn't invest an insane amount of time on it.

Since I've been able to whittle hair I found that while it's a great accomplishment imo, it's relatively easy once you know how (and that's the downside of it of course..) and how you reach is is fairly straightforward. So I hope some of you will see this as a little push to start doing it yourselves.

Just progress nicely through the grits on your stones (waterstones, diamond, whatever) until you hit the strop. I have realized all my whittling sharpness on dmt diapasted strops only so far (see the link on strops above).

here is the result, enjoy

that's not a tree, it's a hair

with the steel type stamp in view

on top of an interesting read

ricklee4570 · Sep 9, 2010

Does that blade steel seem to hold the edge pretty good?

unit · Sep 9, 2010

Now I guess you get representation LOL.

Nice work. I put an edge on a Byrd with similar steel for a guy at work here...I whittled a hair for him and handed the knife back...by the end of the day he had it back to not-even-shaving sharp. Lesson learned (2 lessons actually).

1. That steel does not support an edge that fine very well.
2. That particular user had no appreciation for an edge that fine.

I now keep that knife with a coarse DMT finish...the edge seems to last for his needs equally well.

Congratulations!

zyhano · Sep 9, 2010

I cut up some cardboard with it today, about 10 meters total. That's not much but it still has an extremely sharp edge. It still shaves hair..
Not very accurate about the sharpness, but that's what it does

that's about all the use it has seen today.

I guess unit is probably right and this steel type in this hardness does not support an edge like this very well, I believe it's hardness is about 58-60 according to spyderco

singularity35 · Sep 9, 2010

I sharpen my tenacious and persistence with the sharpmaker at the 40 degree setting. By the time I finish with the fine stones, they can usually catch and split a hair being run along it's edge. By the time I finish with the ultrafine, they are quite hair whittling. I did sharpen my persistence on my DMT aligner once, when I got it really dull.

nozh2002 · Sep 9, 2010

zyhano said:
Hey guys, I made my persistence shaving sharp and whittling hair yesterday. I took it out of it's spot among my collection and hadn't touched it since I did a trip to Scotland in april (check out persistence pics here..)

8Cr13MoV steel is relatively easy and fast to sharpen. It started with a trip to the dmt benchstone XtraCoarse to reset the bevel and to get rid of the uneven 5 mm near the base of the edge. There was a slight depression there, I noticed this before on other knives, I think it's the place where they set the edge to the grinder to create the edge.

then I progressed up the grits on the dmt stones to C, F, EF and then to the strops with diapaste of 6 micron, to 3 micron to 1 micron..
I use the 10" duosharp stones and skipped the 8" continuous EEF dmt stone this time. I found I had some trouble getting rid of the burr, even with very light pressure, on the stones. I got rid of it by either dragging it lightly through wood or by using the strops. Any comments on that?

Took me about half an hour total. (edit: and some tv stropping while watching a nine-11 documentary, so a little more time than that)

The edge is not so nicely polished as it could be polished, but I didn't invest an insane amount of time on it.

Since I've been able to whittle hair I found that while it's a great accomplishment imo, it's relatively easy once you know how (and that's the downside of it of course..) and how you reach is is fairly straightforward. So I hope some of you will see this as a little push to start doing it yourselves.

Just progress nicely through the grits on your stones (waterstones, diamond, whatever) until you hit the strop. I have realized all my whittling sharpness on dmt diapasted strops only so far (see the link on strops above).

here is the result, enjoy

that's not a tree, it's a hair

with the steel type stamp in view

on top of an interesting read

I think you may try to skip F and 6 and 3 microns pastes. Difference is insignificant to my understanding. I use XX (to reprofile), C and EF and green Rouge - usually 2-3 last steps.

Thanks, Vassili.

zyhano · Sep 9, 2010

nozh2002 said:
I think you may try to skip F and 6 and 3 microns pastes. Difference is insignificant to my understanding. I use XX (to reprofile), C and EF and green Rouge - usually 2-3 last steps.

Thanks, Vassili.

Thanks Vassili.
I will try to do that next time. Skipping a step in grits should make you have to work longer on the next grit in theory so I'll just see what happens.

Any Cal. · Sep 9, 2010

Looks good. I have been planning on buying one of those just to see how they sharpen up. I guess you saved me the trouble.

unit · Sep 9, 2010

zyhano said:
I cut up some cardboard with it today, about 10 meters total. That's not much but it still has an extremely sharp edge. It still shaves hair..
Not very accurate about the sharpness, but that's what it does
that's about all the use it has seen today.

I guess unit is probably right and this steel type in this hardness does not support an edge like this very well, I believe it's hardness is about 58-60 according to spyderco

I just feel like some of the more premium steels will reward your efforts a little more by retaining that level of sharpness longer. Again Congratulations, you have reached a milestone!

You have proved to yourself that you can do it, now you should be able to do the same with other steels, but the cues may be different and the time spent at each grit may vary...but the process is basically the same.

Regarding skipping steps in the progression. I think you are right that if you want to really polish the entire bevel, it may be advisable to not skip steps, otherwise you will spend a lot more time at each step to accomplish the same level of polish.

OTOH if you simply want to reduce time spent to make a hair whittler, reprofile the bevel with the coarsest thing you have, then immediately move to a slightly wider angle micro bevel and take only a few strokes on each grit. You will leave a bevel that looks really similar to Spyderco's factory edge, but produce a hair whittling "micro" bevel. There are lots of ways to skin this cat, it just depends on what you want to accomplish

zyhano · Sep 10, 2010

Thanks unit, every knife that needs sharpening by me gets a whittling edge at the moment. Today i succeeded on the fallkniven a1! The persistence wasn't the first though

for the moment I'm putting my achievements in vasilli's sharpening record thread