Just Another Dam Project - Pass HHT on your kitchen knife

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I'm in for round two. Different stone progressions, different knives.

I'm just now headed out the door going to my daughters for games and drinks. I will get my son in law liquored up and steal some of his hair to use. My wife's hair is just brutal it's so fine, a blonde that is now probably half grey and dyes her hair.
Oh yeah.

Start a new thread. If you can think of something to make another version.
 
I'm in for round two. Different stone progressions, different knives.

I'm just now headed out the door going to my daughters for games and drinks. I will get my son in law liquored up and steal some of his hair to use. My wife's hair is just brutal it's so fine, a blonde that is now probably half grey and dyes her hair.

Badger or horse hair is a good intermediate step if you have an old shaving or paint brush laying around. Tougher than copy paper or paper towel but nothing compared to blonde wispy frazzled hair.
 
I’ll give it a crack.
A pretty intimidating goal, but even if I can get close, I’ll be pretty stoked.
Not sure how much support I’ll get from the Mrs, and only fine blonde hairs around here, but I’ll try nonetheless.
 
Also. If you are a regular member here, and you aren't willing to try this. Just know I'm very disappointed in you. And i think you should think long and hard about how your actions have effected me.
 
Maybe have different categories. Multiple submissions. Naturals. Synthetic stones. Diamonds. Machine finish. Bonus points for no stropping.
I like this.

I seriously do think we should do a new thread for this one. So we can have it a little more clear how we can do it. But the categories thing i like.
 
The difference in hair is a huge factor, freshly washed hair that is well hydrated will make it easier though.

There was an article on the old coticule be site about the proper way to do a HHT test that went into detail but I can't find it.
Yeah. But even then if you test even the hardest to hht hairs (thin, old hairs with hair product in them). With something like a festher razor. Maybe they dont pop if it touches wrong. But normally it even cuts those hanging hairs with little effort.

Just a good way to get ya feeling not as good about your sharpening. But also a good way to motivate on what you are looking to achieve.

Definitely worth having a feather razor blade around for comparison.
 
I think the mechanism of cut is different for low vs high refinement. I believe we’re snagging a hair between teeth with low grit, and sliding between the hairs flaky layers with high grit.

Is this general understanding? This is mostly my intuition.

There’s also this duldrums from 3/4k to 8k where it seems you can’t get better than a violin effect no matter how clean the edge.
 
I think the mechanism of cut is different for low vs high refinement. I believe we’re snagging a hair between teeth with low grit, and sliding between the hairs flaky layers with high grit.

Is this general understanding? This is mostly my intuition.

There’s also this duldrums from 3/4k to 8k where it seems you can’t get better than a violin effect no matter how clean the edge.
It seems i recall the edges on these razor blades don't look super polished even under high magnification. But i can very well be wrong about that part. Ill see if i can find some images again.
 
Huh. Not what i expected someones conclusion to be.

Dont know how valid that is. But interesting if it is.
Screenshot_20230605-130217.png
 
https://sharpologist.com/mantic59-blade-search-feather/
For anyone that wants to read it.

Looking at the images i think the density conclusion is based on him seeing the finer grain structure in the feather blades in the break, and misinterpreting that as density. After going back and looking at the images again.

But i think that could make sense also. Better heat treated, and processed steel should be much easier to sharpen.

Also having very thin blade thickness to start with before sharpening.
 
So. I was thinking about how i want to do it this year.

Im thinking ill use one w2 gyuto i have. And something in a high wear resistance steel.

I think ill start with it. All the way polished up, get hht passing with that. Then maybe keep working my way down in grits until i fail to get jt to work.

Idk.
 
I've managed this on stones down to the 'fine' side of a Crystolon combi (so about 300 JIS), as well as a piece of fairly coarse granite-type rock I found on the beach, and also without stropping.

But always on Japanese paper steels. What I don't think I'd be able to do in a hurry is get a decent HHT off lower quality stainless, so perhaps I'll try that...
 
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I got plenty of cheap stainless... 😂 Maybe I'll try it on that Roy's Santoku that I was working on then got bored and tired... Also a cutco set, or some peices of it anyways.

But I have been trying to up my knife game and recently purchased some actual forged knives.
 
Just read through this entire thread, thanks for reviving it. Was a great read.
If round 2 happens I'll probably give it a shot, seems like a good progress test, and I've been meaning to tidy up my sharpening skills...
 

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