Knife Sharpness Question

[BerettaNut92]

I read that a knife is sharp enough when you can pop hair off your arms.

I can't seem to do this...either my knives aren't sharp enough, my skin is too soft or my coat of fur is too thick for even my Emerson Mini-Commander.

Am I just shaving wrong? This is with a chisel ground Emerson...

 

[mtnbkr]

It's kind of tough to do unless you polish the edge with a strop or the blade is on the thin side. The only knives I've had that could get that sharp without polishing were carbon steel slipjoints (not exactly tactical ya know) or my BG42 Buck 110.

Chris

 

[enfield]

I can do it reliably with crock sticks. Once the edge is properly shaped and rough honed, the crock sticks can take it to a shaving edge.

However, an edge that sharp doesn't stay for long, and isn't really necessary.

 

[hillbilly]

I could never get a knife that sharp until I got a Spyderco Sharpmaker.

With those vertical, angled sticks, I can make our steak knives that sharp.

I've even gotten a tomahawk edge that sharp with the Sharpmaker. Took about 30 minutes, but I got there.

Of course, such a sharp edge doesn't last more than a chop or two with a tomahawk.

But my Kershaw Leek gets resharpened to that level all the time, as I usually dull it by shaving the hair off my left arm or slicing up sheets of paper and going, "Ooooh, wow........."

hillbily

 

[Navy joe]

Knife not sharp enough. The only knife I cannot bring to this level is the front edge of my Buck/Strider folder, but that's more of a sharp folding prybar than a knife so it's cool.

Blade does not have to be thin. One of my favorite knives is a Phrobis M-9 bayo, I worked on the edge for two weeks when I bought it used to undo what some GI did to it, will now shave, split wood and continue to shave.