Bico Doce
aka Big Dice / Bocce Ballz / Big Douche
No compound necessary. To be honest I don’t use them much. Maybe it helps but I think felt or jeans do fine on their own
Paper Towel Challenge
- Thread starter stringer
- Start date
Help Support Kitchen Knife Forums:
No compound necessary. To be honest I don’t use them much. Maybe it helps but I think felt or jeans do fine on their own
That'sa relief. I didn't really want to buy and test out all different kinds of compound. Next sharpening I'll try stropping on some jeans. See how that does
Not hating here but doesn’t the speed of the pull affect how well it cuts the towel? I’m sure there’s a physics formula involving friction, kinetic energy and burst pressure of paper
A slow consistent pull would test the sharpness and apex better
Similar to a straight push cut vs a draw cut on paper
A slow consistent pull would test the sharpness and apex better
Similar to a straight push cut vs a draw cut on paper
- Joined
- May 3, 2011
- Messages
- 9,866
- Reaction score
- 4,578
We will discuss asymmetry only in the next lesson.
Here seen gesturing a complex grind geometry
No. But it could help. But be strategic.
This is some worthwhile reading. I wouldn't take it all as gospel but this was a thought provoking post for me. In general stropping on an un-treated medium really only does so much unless you bring an already clean stone edge to the strop. If you can't slowly draw cut paper towel free hanging, a strop will do precious little.
A CrOx treated strop can help with somewhat larger burrs, but even then the foundation work needs to be pretty good. Your smooth leather is doing even less.
https://scienceofsharp.com/2024/02/03/seven-misconceptions-about-knife-burrs/
When you say strop, the details matter too. Fixed to a board or hanging? Leather (smooth or rough?), cotton, linen, cardboard? Treated or untreated? If treated, with what? CrOx, diamond, red rouge? Any could have an impact on how much abrasive power and how much rounding you're doing at the edge. The sheer number of strokes has an impact on the amount of plastic deformation.
I realize that's a lot of detail but it matters for a trick like this. I'm sure your knife cuts food well. Its primary task.
A smooth leather strop I've found most useful for razors. An edge coming with almost no burr due to how razors are sharpened. I really never use one for a kitchen knife. Because my freehand angles are shakier than a razor, and I'm using coarser stones, I want a strop to have more abrasive power. This means linen, single layer cardboard or a CrOx/diamond treated denim strop.
For a trick like this, I tend to go rigid-back to avoid too much rounding (as opposed to a hanging strop). Rounding increases the effective sharpening angle, making this trick a little trickier. I would try stropping ONE time on each side, cut a paper towel. Strop ONE more time. Cut another towel. Depending on compound and abrasive power, one swipe can do more than you might think. Especially diamond. Going one at a time will help you build an intuition of what's not enough and what's too much.
And the whole time, feel and listen. Correlate those feedback queues with performance. Then re-sharpen and do it all over. Then put it down and come back tomorrow. Take notes if it helps. I rarely if ever look back at mine but writing forces me to think and decide "what did I see, hear and feel" so it imprints on me.
You're clearly eager and dedicated, keep at it!
Last edited:
Thank you. All I can do is try and try again while learning along the way
P.S. This is a great technique for evenly applying spray compound to a strop
Sorry to bug you again. Will it work to just pull jeans taut or do I need to glue a piece to some wood?
I see neeves knives flip the burr each time he flips the knife before grinding on that side. At the end, he does trailing passes alternating sides to flip the burr back and forth before finally finishing with a couple leading passes. Does that way work out do you think there's a better way?
Sorry, remind me again what's wrong with the light 45dps pass to grind it off and then back at the sharpening angle, cross hatching the grit pattern?
Bico Doce
aka Big Dice / Bocce Ballz / Big Douche
A scrap of denim or square of cardboard laid on your stone works just fine. No need for anything fancy in case it's not your speed.
See the response above
I'll try that. My bad, I completely spaced you already said rigid back
Totally spaced that. Thank youSee the response above
No sweat at all. I rambled on a bit!
Not at all. I greatly appreciate the help
This is an interesting q., or at least I find it interesting, though I realise I may be in a minority
. Unfortunately it's difficult to answer definitively, because there are a couple of factors that work in slightly different or opposite ways here.As far as I understand; speed or KE will have almost no bearing on the frictional force in the majority of situations, including this. Which suggests that faster or slower movement will make no noticeable difference to the ease of cut.
However (1): Slicing a piece of paper towel gets easier as you through the cut. Which is because the already cut section of it falls away, and the weight makes the area you're cutting toward the bottom more taught, which in turn increases the normal force against the knife, and hence the overall friction. Which means that slower cutting of paper towel can sometimes actually be easier. Though obviously the cut itself is more likely to be curved than straight (see @iMLG4Fun's vid above), because the towel is falling away.
However (2): In practice, to say that slow cutting paper towel is easier than fast wouldn't be entirely true either. It only applies if the the section of the edge used is; good, and consistent, and very cleanly deburred. If it's not, then slow cutting will highlight these imperfections, and be more likely to snag. Whereas faster cutting may obfuscate them.
---
Whilst I don't think you can really say that one might be more 'difficult' than the other, I'd absolutely be inclined to think that what you say about usefulness is correct... If one is doing (any kind of) paper test to check the state of an edge, or the sharpening job you've just done - then slower cutting is gonna tell you more.
Last edited:
I do it on my leg standing up…
aporigine
The slow blade penetrates the winter squash
a good way to teach edge-trailing discipline.
Awesome. How well does that work?
I *promise* this will be my last wanky video on this thread, but I was bored just now, and intrigued by this q...
So I went out to the shed to find an old SiC/Crystolon (one of the by-products of too many ebay mystery stone gambles) and flattened it on some paving stones in my garden. Which gave me the added benefit of a special, performance-enhancing, green algae/moss slurry to work off:
It's 6x2 and though I don't know exactly what it is, I'd say it's pretty decent quality. My guess would be probably a Norton 'Fine' Crystolon, ie around the range of 320 JIS.
Used with oil, finished leading, and stropped firmly on suede side leather. This is actually going to be a pretty mega kitchen knife edge by the feel of it, so much tooth and bite for something so keen:
---
Anyway, good luck @hibbs00, as you can see - there is no specialized technique or equipment involved in this kind of thing. Just practice, and it will come!
Last edited:
Wasn’t there an Atoma 140 or 400 paper towel / sharpening challenge a while back too?
I think Julien posted that
azn_knives_4l
Active Member
Which one of y'all brought this to Reddit, lmao. r/sharpening has never been so angry about cutting paper.
Edit: I'm new here and will post my contribution when I think it can pass the automod
Nice to meet you all!!!
Edit: I'm new here and will post my contribution when I think it can pass the automod
Nice to meet you all!!!azn_knives_4l
Active Member
Y'all are waaaaay better than I am at this but here's me taking a Kiwi from dull to paper towel s-cuts in <90s on worn sandpaper... Okay... Here goes nothing... https://www.reddit.com/r/sharpening/s/qMGeqEJo4N
Edit: So I wobble quite a lot and also rock on my heels. Not sure when I started the rocking but it's p weird, huh. I guess it's good to step back and evaluate once in a while.
Edit: So I wobble quite a lot and also rock on my heels. Not sure when I started the rocking but it's p weird, huh. I guess it's good to step back and evaluate once in a while.
Last edited:
