A quick note for you guys - I've also started an actual knife WIKI on this site, much like the actual Wikipedia and would like to begin populating it. I'm hoping to get some help with writing articles on everything from steels, knife history and construction, edge geometry, blade designs, abrasives, heat treating, sharpening theories etc... essentially everything knife related. The address is here: wickededgeusa.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page. (Embedded link won't work so you'll have to copy and paste.)

razoredgeknives wrote:


well OK, it is perfectly OK to bring me back on track to thread discussions Now that we have this new topic area I feel a license to "drift off" a bit, but of course, that is not always appropriate.

So to address your specifics above I would venture to say that

1.) polish of the side of the edge positively may or may not make the apex become finer! It depends if the polish is applied in a particular way that continues to narrow the systems apex. It would seems that it is possible to just polish, abrade and polish, *only* the sides and never touch the apex. Then I would say you get no harm / no foul to edge longevity. In that case you potentially lessen frictional coeffiecients with the material being cut but there may be a trade off there as "stiction" is a real factor in material science. That effect when discussing knives I call the "cheese paradox".. it is the reason that a dull single wire cuts cheese better than a finely polished and very sharp razor blade.

2.) the degradation during use (slice cutting) of ever finer apex is really in the realm of, and up to, the steel in question. Can it handle it? some do some don't. That is why (see my previous post with the image link) that applications of things like Boron Nitride are very effective on keen edges on lesser steels. Of course super fine edges are subject (in the real world) to "rolling" and other deformations, so geometry also becomes an important factor. It is an interplay of factors, there are no easy "one size fits all" answers.

wickededge wrote:


yeah, what's going on with that.. I cannot get the 'tool-bar' thing to work anymore ???

The web guy got back to me and it appears to be fixed. I have no clue what happened to spontaneously change it. Haven't got an answer about if the site got moved but it does seem a little quicker.

wickededge wrote:


is it in yet?! I keep checking... lol. Really looking forward to the experimentation you will do!

on a side note, I tried some 3m alum ox laping film mounted on some aluminum blanks this week... worked great! I honed my straight razor edge from 10k chosera>1um lapping film>.3um lapping film>finished on .125 CBN. It was the closest shave I have ever had w/ a straight! BBS... unfortunately i still had some weepers, and i put a half inch cut near my ear on accident (first time that's happened, lol). I gotta shave w/ this thing again to test it... I think I need to refine the angle which which I'm using it and the pressure and that hopefully will get rid of the weepers. Loving my WEPS!

BassLakeDan wrote:


Dan, you really should start a thread on your "sharpness" tester... that way you could condense it all into one thread and get suggestions and let everyone in on it =) just a thought! Great work BTW! I am very excited that you got Cliff Stamp on board... between you and him my head swims

razoredgeknives wrote:


I'm a little late in joining here, so I'll jump back to the beginning

Here's my take:

Commercial razor blades, they get away with being less refined because they are very thin - around 0.3~0.5mm thick, which allows them to slice better. The usually have a more obtuse edge angle than you'd think - something around 23-25 degrees per side.

When using diamond plates (WEPS or otherwise) the diamonds literally score through the edge of the edge, actually leaving what can be considered a "negative" of sharp - the scored scratches are acting like scalloped serrations, while leaving a thinned down, but still relatively thick edge of the edge width rather than the edge of the edge being thin enough to sever cleanly. This is what I call a "false positive", and why you can shave arm hairs off of a coarse diamond plate such as the DMT 325.

Once you switch to the ceramics, Choseras or Shaptons, the depth of the scratches begins to bring down "the rest" of the higher points - IOW, it begins to thin out the thickness left by the diamonds, which is whey there is a perceived loss of sharpness and the edge no longer necessarily cuts hairs. You will also initially see more micro chipping as you work out the deepest scratches.

Only when you cancel out the scratches from the previous grit (or bottom them out) do you begin to thin the width between the two planes of the bevel. Once you achieve a thin enough wide at the edge of the edge, you can sever or "pop" hairs with ease instead of sawing through them. Whittling implies a greater width of the cutting edge, either from lack of refinement and/or more obtuse geometry.

If you jump to the diamond pastes and other compounds, as we've seen in the past, they tend to "polish the grooves" more, leaving a very well defined, yet still rather serrated and thick profile. This leaves a more toothy edge that has its serrations thinned out, making it more aggressive, but with less finesse than a more consistently formed edge.

So the long answer is, if you sharpen like I do - to remove the previous scratches, the edge becomes thinner at each grit and therefore more fragile. You can reinforce that thinness with increased geometry, such as adding a microbevel. But if you sharpen to polish the grooves, then your edge doesn't necessarily thin out as much, but you will lose that refinement quickly because it is really just a smaller scratch within a larger scratch, and that larger scratch is the "real" scratch, or tooth, if you will.

Tom,

Glad to see you back finally! I know several of you guys were out since the blade show....

Thanks for your valuable input... I would like to see some microscopic evidence for this "thinning edge as the grits get finer and finer." I do recall having seen the images (in the knife shaving video you did) comparing the diamond finished edge vs. the waterstone finished edge.... it did appear as you were saying, that the diamonds actually scored through the edge of the edge creating deeper scratches that needed to be gotten out later.

But does this really thin the edge of the edge out? Or are we just simply reducing the deep grooves or "micro serrations" as we go to finer grits? Or both? This is why I am so curious about clay's new microscope

So, theoretically, there should be a *perfect* combination of a toothy, rough edge when finished on a strop w/ a certain grit size because in effect you would be polishing the peaks and valleys of the edge of the edge thereby creating a toothy yet thin edge... correct? I would love to find this sweet spot