What are your sharpening "milestones"?

res1cue

res1cue

Joined
Feb 2, 2010
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So I started with being able to push cut paper. Then came hair popping. Then came push cutting paper towels.

As of yesterday I am part of the hair whittling club :cool:

photoljh.jpg

(Sorry for bad picture)

Next I want to be able to push cut toilet paper like ankerson

Any of you guys have any other methods to "prove sharpness"?
 
I am hair whittling here too,just came from the garage and my paper wheels.My VG10 Endura is now extremely sharp but Russell skinning knife is now just downright scary!And best of all it only cost me $10.00 at a junk store.:D
 
I can whittle my beard hairs, not head hairs. I can also do a free hanging hair chop, holding about an inch and a half of hair between my finger and thumb....beard hair again, I haven't progressed to head hair.
 
I would like to say im in the hair-whittling club but my hands just don't want to be steady enough for it, so super hair popping for me lol :P
 
This :p [video=youtube;3fbMz1JaG1w]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_profilepage&v=3fbMz1JaG1w[/video] [video=youtube;99WbahGJpXU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_profilepage&v=99WbahGJpXU[/video]

The kiridashi is M2 carbon steel made by me, and the kershaw is the old 13c27 one. VERY VERY fine steels
 
I started out being able to shave leg hair, then pushcutting newspaper, then slicing free-hanging denim and t-shirt material and pushcutting catalog paper. At this point I was past arm hair shaving. Next was facial stubble, then hair whittling. FWIW I've gotten to pushcutting TP well before an edge will whittle hair, though a hair-whittling edge should be able to pushcut TP (Scottisue).
 
For fun, I got to hair-whittling, and then that plus mirror-polished edge. I haven't gotten to puscutting TP or shaving sharp (ie: sharp enough for a smooth and clean shave).
 
HeavyHanded said:
I started out being able to shave leg hair, then pushcutting newspaper, then slicing free-hanging denim and t-shirt material and pushcutting catalog paper. At this point I was past arm hair shaving. Next was facial stubble, then hair whittling. FWIW I've gotten to pushcutting TP well before an edge will whittle hair, though a hair-whittling edge should be able to pushcut TP (Scottisue).
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If you can push cut TP you should be able to whittle hair.

Make sure you are holding the hair by the tip, not the follicle side. Also, you can wet the hair just a bit with your mouth or wetting your finger and thumb and dragging it through them. By holding the tip end of the hair you have better chances of hitting one of the edges of the "plates" that make up the outside of the hair.
 
GrizzlyBear said:
If you can push cut TP you should be able to whittle hair.

Make sure you are holding the hair by the tip, not the follicle side. Also, you can wet the hair just a bit with your mouth or wetting your finger and thumb and dragging it through them. By holding the tip end of the hair you have better chances of hitting one of the edges of the "plates" that make up the outside of the hair.
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A really good edge will whittle hair in any direction. No need to wet it too. ;)
 
My biggest satisfaction was getting the hang of free hand sharpening. I'm still a newbie at sharpening, but I can get a dull knife to shaving sharp. So I'm happy :D
 
GrizzlyBear said:
If you can push cut TP you should be able to whittle hair.

Make sure you are holding the hair by the tip, not the follicle side. Also, you can wet the hair just a bit with your mouth or wetting your finger and thumb and dragging it through them. By holding the tip end of the hair you have better chances of hitting one of the edges of the "plates" that make up the outside of the hair.
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Hard to explain, but there's a curve for what type of edge will pushcut TP in my experience. I can reliably, using several different steels to date, push cut TP off of a 1200 grit waterstone (approx 800 grit ANSI) lightly stropped. The same edge is nowhere near whittling hair, though it will shave arm hair and scrape off some facial stubble. I recently posted a pic of some TP and the machete I used to pushcut it - done up on 800 grit SiC and lightly stropped with Sears white compound. Again, this edge will certainly shave arm hair, but its a long way from whittling hair - my own anyway. For that I have to go up to a Spyderco EF stone, translucent Arkansas, or barber's hone - the scratch pattern has to be pretty much gone to whittle hair in my experience and this type of edge will pushcut the TP as well. A bit less refined edge but still well above 800 grit might not cut TP as well as the lower grit edge. Ankerson managed to pushcut TP with a fine SIC stone, and there's still plenty of grind pattern at that level, even with some stropping.

TP is only a bit more demanding than pushcutting paper towel.
 
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Yeh, I'd say cutting TP is achievable, cutting it cleanly like it's been cut by sharp scissors is harder.
 
res1cue said:
So I started with being able to push cut paper. Then came hair popping. Then came push cutting paper towels.

As of yesterday I am part of the hair whittling club :cool:

photoljh.jpg

(Sorry for bad picture)

Next I want to be able to push cut toilet paper like ankerson

Any of you guys have any other methods to "prove sharpness"?
Click to expand...

Diagonal cut on a free standing cigarette paper.
 
I mostly freehand my blades, so when I was a between 6-15 years old (boyscouts) I was happy if the blade scratched off nail particles, but the stone I used I guess was like 400 grit. After joining this forum I started using leather strops and so far I can sometimes manage to whittle hair; but it depends on the hair. My hair is super-fine (and too short atm lol), but my girlfriend has thicker hair, so I sometimes whittle hairs which I find on her brushes.
 
I could get armhair scraping since college. Since I've joined this forum, it was hair popping, hair splitting, then getting mirror bevels.
 
I've been improving my sharpening skills bit by bit, but I haven't whittled hair or push-cut TP yet. My latest milestone is push-cutting my company newsletters (got a stack of them, and I never read them, so...). That came after a good sharpening and stropping with White Diamond, Green Chromium Oxide, and bare leather. If I had spent a long time doing it nice and slow, I'm sure I could have gotten sharper. But right now, my standard is opening amazon boxes quickly and effortlessly. That's as sharp as I need for the moment, although I would like to get hair-whittling sharp some day. Any tips/advice/lessons-learned from the OP very welcome. :)
 
Magnaminous_G said:
I've been improving my sharpening skills bit by bit, but I haven't whittled hair or push-cut TP yet. My latest milestone is push-cutting my company newsletters (got a stack of them, and I never read them, so...). That came after a good sharpening and stropping with White Diamond, Green Chromium Oxide, and bare leather. If I had spent a long time doing it nice and slow, I'm sure I could have gotten sharper. But right now, my standard is opening amazon boxes quickly and effortlessly. That's as sharp as I need for the moment, although I would like to get hair-whittling sharp some day. Any tips/advice/lessons-learned from the OP very welcome. :)
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Now this is really weird, but what did it for me is after finishing on 1000 grit, and after stropping with yellow compound, I finish with a piece of denim from an old pair of jeans. I just strop with that and I get good results, I can't even remember why I started..
 
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