Terry Primos passes his JS cutting test

F

fisk

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Today I tested Terry Primos for his cutting portion for his JS stamp.
The ABS requirements are that he chop 2 wood 2x4s then cut one inch rope in a single swing and then cleanly shave. At that time it is put in a vise and bent 90 degrees and it is not allowed to break more than approx 1/3 of the way toward the spine.

Since I know Terry well I was a bit harder on him than required. He had to chop 3- 2x4s which I picked out as good yellow pine that was tough instead of a soft board then cut two ropes instead of one but the kicker was that instead of shaving I had him, under penalty of failing, take a single hair and split it down the middle without cutting it in half. He had to split the hair where the blade portion was used to chop the board and not strop it on his hand before. The knife held up very well in the bend portion as well, bending in a long arc without any cracks or deformaties.

Thought some of you guys would like to know as many of you keep up with him.
jf
 
I KNEW that boy was good. ;) :)

Congrats, Terry! No surprise, but congrats anyway.
 
Gee Jerry, with friends like that... yikes! :p

Way to go Terry - congratulations on passing this important leg of the test. I'm sure that Jerry made it tough becasue he knew you were up to it.

Man, this sure is shaping up to be a stellar field of JS applicants this year.

Cheers,

Roger
 
And CONGRATS to Terry! I'm impressed, but not surprised. No one works harder at betterment than Terry. :D

Coop
 
Great news! Congratulations Terry!
 
Congradulations Terry, I'm sure that the MS Stamp will not be far in the future, judging by the quality of the knives that you have been producing lately. Jim Treacy
 
Thanks for the congratulations guys. I really appreciate it.

I went into this knowing that Jerry would push me a little harder than just what is required. Friends do not get any preferential treatment. Everyone who knows Jerry knows that he is a fun loving guy who likes to joke around, and he is the most giving person I have ever known.

But let me tell you that when it comes to business, such as testing a JS or MS applicant, Jerry is dead serious. If he has to fail a friend he will do it, no matter how much it hurts him to have to do so. Fortunately everything went very well for me. Jerry's known for making friends go the extra mile, and even though he had me push the envelope a bit, it was no more than he felt confident my knife was capable of doing.

Not to sound too corny, but there's no one on Earth that I'd have rather tested under than Jerry Fisk, and I'm very proud to have him as my friend.

####

Keith Montgomery said:
For some reason I thought that Terry was alreasy a JS. Shows how much attention I am paying.
Click to expand...
No problem Keith. There are a ton of people who are confused or uncertain as to what my "level" is. Here's the deal. I've been eligible to test for a JS rating since 1998, which would have made me eligible to test for an MS rating in 2000. I had a lot of people after me to do it for years. There were quite few folks who asked me why I wouldn't do it. For years I would just say that I had my own reasons. It caused some confusion because in a way it looked like it might be some personal thing regarding the ABS, yet at the same time I was strong proponent for the organization.

Well, now it's time to tell what those "personal reasons" were. It's not earth shattering. It was quite simply that I did not personally feel like I was ready. This year I decided to go for it.
 
Congratulations Terry, I can think of no one that is more deserving than you and as far as splitting a hair in half, I can't even imagine any knife sharp enough to do that! WOW!
 
splitting a hair in half???

Terry, could you share some of your edge geometry / sharpening "secrets"? what steel / edge bevel angle / grit finish / polished / stropped / etc etc?

Thanks....I've never experience an edge that can do all that chopping of 2x4s then split a hair in half lengthwise....

very wicked!
 
If I were to tell you that it was the steel, the finish, some top secret edge geometry, or sharpening trick then it would just be hype and I don't play that game. The steel was plain old 5160. This was a knife to be destroyed so it just had a 220 grit finish. There's no point in wasting time making a "pretty" knife for the test. The edge was the just same convex edge I put on all my knives. There's no magic or secret.

What you need is a really sharp knife and a steady hand. Also, the splitting is not like in the old cartoons where the big bad wolf holds up a hair vertically between two fingers and splits it top to bottom right down the middle. A hair is too flimsy for that.

You carefully cut into the side of the hair and run the edge down the hair without cutting the hair into. Don't get me wrong. It's not easy, but can be done and it's not magic. You know the business card filet that we have occasionally in the ABS Cutting Competitions? Well, you can sort of liken it to that I guess, except on a much smaller scale.

Here's a filet of business card:
filet_business_card.jpg

This is one of the tests I use after heat treating and tempering, and before doing the hand-rubbed finish on a knife. The idea is to cut a strip along the face of the business card without cutting through the card. ( Of course the knife in this picture is not my test for the JS. My test knife was a 10" camp knife. )

Here's a hair split:
split_hair.jpg

You can do basically the same thing with a human hair if everything is right. On a big knife like the chopper I used in my test, you have to find a happy medium where the edge is tough enough to handle brutal cuts, but thin enough to do finesse cuts. Obviously the heat treat has to be right for the knife to handle both brutal and finesse cuts. That's more important than the angle, the stone used, etc.
 
thanks Terry! pics tell a thousand words....ok, I'm gonna try and see if I can fillet a business card with my knife.....






yeah, ok - my burt foster passes the biz card filleting test, no prob. now I gotta go try the hair splitting test...but asian hair is generally finer, no? :p :D
 
Congratulations Terry, Good luck on the stamp this coming summer. Looking forward to sharing the hall way with you. :)
 
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