Hair whittling edge freehand!!

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SteadyD

SteadyD

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I finally produced a hair whittling edge, and I did it freehand! Off the coarse stone the edge was shaving sharp, off the fine stone it was hair-popping sharp, and off the ultra fine it was popping and making smooth wavy cuts through paper with ease. I stropped it down to .5 micron and it was making the hair bounce on the edge but not quite catching it so I gave it two more passes on the .5 micron and then BOOM! Hair whittling!

Spyderco Lil Native S30V

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SteadyD said:
Thanks all. I was unreasonably giddy after seeing how sharp this came out. I called my wife from the other room to take pictures. On the one hand that’s pretty ridiculous, and on the other hand that’s still pretty ridiculous.
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I get it. My wife's getting a little tired of watching me torture the junk mail to satisfy my 'how sharp is this' curiosity.
 
When I was a kid, I LOVED sharpening pocket knives! Mine and Dad's were NEVER dull!

I'd sharpen the blades until they could shave the hair on my arms...that was my standard.

I still have the stone, ever since Dad died. For carbon steel blades, it's frickin' awesome. Most stainless blades, however, I absolutely cannot get a razor edge with a stone. In fact, I can feel the edge curl with my finger nail, no matter what I do. I have to strop a stainless blade to get rid of that.
 
RetiredUSNChief said:
When I was a kid, I LOVED sharpening pocket knives! Mine and Dad's were NEVER dull!

I'd sharpen the blades until they could shave the hair on my arms...that was my standard.

I still have the stone, ever since Dad died. For carbon steel blades, it's frickin' awesome. Most stainless blades, however, I absolutely cannot get a razor edge with a stone. In fact, I can feel the edge curl with my finger nail, no matter what I do. I have to strop a stainless blade to get rid of that.
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I remove the burr on the stone, and I do it with very light, edge leading strokes, alternating side to side with each pass. I am using diamond which may aid the process.
 
sparkyv said:
Impressive! Freehanding to that degree of sharpness requires much skill and even more patience...way much more skill than I have. I bet that sharp edge is polished and shiny!
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It is polished and shining, but nothing like the high mirror polish I do with the Wicked Edge, or even some of my previous attempts on bench stones. I didn’t spend nearly as long on each grit to completely replace the larger/deeper scratches with new smaller ones. I tested for a burr with fingers and then light, and not seeing one, tested the sharpness, and moved to the next grit and repeated.

I also didn’t spend an inordinate amount of time on the strops either. I just had a feeling based on the bevel under magnification, and what I was seeing on testing that this was apexed very well. It still has a good polish, just a little more cloudy than my setup is capable of.

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1KPerDay said:
Ah, ok. Thanks. Can you tell I'm not a "knife guy"? I basically EDC a kershaw scallion and touch up the edge with a kitchen steel :uhoh:
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The problem with sharpening that scallion is the recurve blade. You need something to get on the inside of that curve. A kitchen steel will do that. If you decided you wanted to learn to sharpen better, something without a recurve blade would be easier to learn on, I think. (As always, I'm prepared to be corrected by those who know more about this topic than I.)
 
Spats McGee said:
My Native is S30V and this makes me want to put it on a stone, but I'm still a little nervous about doing so.
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I am the same. I sharpened an S30V Lil Native (with compression lock) that I don’t carry before I used my back lock Lil Native I do carry. I wasn’t willing to try it until I felt I was ready.
 
Spats McGee said:
My Native is S30V and this makes me want to put it on a stone, but I'm still a little nervous about doing so.
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SteadyD said:
I am the same. I sharpened an S30V Lil Native (with compression lock) that I don’t carry before I used my back lock Lil Native I do carry. I wasn’t willing to try it until I felt I was ready.
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You know, I said that about being nervous, then promptly went in and made a liar out of myself. After I said it, I decided I needed to practice more. So I went and sharpened the paring knife I bought for teaching the nephews. That went slowly. Then I decided to re-sharpen the Kershaw, which takes an edge reasonably well. I got it shaving sharp, but I'll admit it wouldn't be the most comfortable shave you've ever had. Still, the edge looked good, and I was in shaving territory! So I went and got my Native. I put it on the corundum stone and got it moderately sharp. I wasn't happy with how that was going, though, so I switched to diamond plate. (For reasons unknown, I tend to want to use the stones in sets, as though they or the knives care.) Diamond plate was a definite improvement. From diamond plate (300 grit), I moved to water stone (400 grit) and from there to medium Arkansas stone. For whatever reason, it worked! My Native 5 is shaving sharp! Not hair-whittling, but I'm good with that. For now. At that point, I thought about moving to the fine Arkansas stone, but I know that I've had problems re-dulling a blade there. So on the theory of "the perfect is the enemy of the good," that's where I stopped.
 
Spats McGee said:
You know, I said that about being nervous, then promptly went in and made a liar out of myself. After I said it, I decided I needed to practice more. So I went and sharpened the paring knife I bought for teaching the nephews. That went slowly. Then I decided to re-sharpen the Kershaw, which takes an edge reasonably well. I got it shaving sharp, but I'll admit it wouldn't be the most comfortable shave you've ever had. Still, the edge looked good, and I was in shaving territory! So I went and got my Native. I put it on the corundum stone and got it moderately sharp. I wasn't happy with how that was going, though, so I switched to diamond plate. (For reasons unknown, I tend to want to use the stones in sets, as though they or the knives care.) Diamond plate was a definite improvement. From diamond plate (300 grit), I moved to water stone (400 grit) and from there to medium Arkansas stone. For whatever reason, it worked! My Native 5 is shaving sharp! Not hair-whittling, but I'm good with that. For now. At that point, I thought about moving to the fine Arkansas stone, but I know that I've had problems re-dulling a blade there. So on the theory of "the perfect is the enemy of the good," that's where I stopped.
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Nice! That’s really all you need, or actually, more than you need. Have you gotten strops yet? I think you’ll be amazed at what finishing on a strop will do.

I tried a long discontinued Spyderco Chicago in S30V and achieved hair whittling a second time, but after 6 passes through some cardboard the hair whittling was gone and stropping didn’t bring it back. It’s still silly sharp, but I’ve seen some people get a knife sharp enough to whittle hair even after considerable use. I definitely wasn’t happy with the uneven bevel I produced though. I was trying to drop the angle considerably and I’m not skilled enough to do that and make it look pretty yet.
 
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I kick my own butt over not buying a large ceramic stone in 2001 when I was in Vancouver during a port call while in the Navy. I found it in a knife shop and said "that's a bit more than I want to spend".

Even so, it was FAR cheaper than anything I've ever found since. A stone around 6,000 grit is awesome for putting the "finish" touch on a blade, and when you've already got it sharp enough to shave hair on your arm, it's unbelievable what it'll do after that.

I don't remember the dimensions of the stone, but it was about 6" x 3" x 1". Large enough for me to actually work with. I have smaller ones, but I don't like them so small you can't hold the stone well or get a decent stroke with a blade. I have two other stones that are 6" x 1" x 1", which is the size I grew up using.
 
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