Hair whittling doesn't mean much without knowing edge thickness, angle, and how flat and true the sides of that final angle are... And insuring the consistent absence of a wire edge... A wire edge can whittle hairs all day... In my experience, true sharpness in a variety of materials is determined by how true and flat the final bevel is, and edge holding is often determined by the consistent lack of wire edge (or not creating one by rolling the blade while chopping wood)...
I do see what you mean in that the edge you describe is not mirror-polished, but finished-up with coarser grit as a final step, to give it "bite": That is indeed the way to go for aggression, but hair-whittling is not really a test or a goal to aim for... It could be misleading as to actual performance...
Aiming to whittle hair means the edge is still fairly highly polished, and while polished edges can perform some things better than anything else (they sure cut paper well), generally I find them inferior, because the action of putting a fine polish on them inevitably rounds off the very end of the bevel... This rounded bevel may push-cut extremely well, like Japanese swords do, but that is still not an edge I would want...
If it whittles hair and is 10 degrees per side on a 0.020" thick edge, perfectly flat sided, then it will cut anyway, and the hair-whittling ability will contribute nearly nothing... The true edge side flatness is what does... That is why I never found any use for convexed edges...
Some of the most aggressive edges I've experienced, edges that would cut you involuntarily with a scary depth of cut, often turned out to be wire edges... In other words, crap unsteady edges... And removing them to a high polish again means rounding off the final bevel... Better to just barely remove the wire edge and immediately stop...
Polished edges I own, done by professionals on WickedEdge to 15 degrees per side, you can easily run your finger across them, because they are initially so biteless and unaggressive, and then they cut you by surprise, very deeply, and it is surprising: The reason it is surprising is not that these edges are so effective, but because they seem so unaggressive at first, they lure you to run your finger too hard on them, and that extra pressure, as the skin finally gives, makes the cut way more violent...: And then you think: Wow!
I have hair whittling edges on those I own that are done by professionals, emphatically not sharpened by me, and while they do OK in performance owing the guided sharpener and the resulting true flat surfaces, that are also polished, they can't compare in performance to the rougher edges I do freehand, going no lower than worn DMT coarse... This is in part because I close the angle way below 15 per side, which many guided sharpeners have great trouble doing... 15 per side is still a pretty clumsy 30 degree wedge...
Gaston
