Just Another Dam Project - Pass HHT on your kitchen knife

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Here's day 2, stopping at 2k unlike the filthy cheater Ian. Love you. P.s. Your **** is looking good. Hats off, really.

The new Yoshi had a silly edge out of the box. Wrecked it cutting onions, on an end grain board. That's a first for me. Ever.

Better paper towel today.


Boring process vid coming later.

I had best luck minimizing the burr leading into the stone, "kissing" the apex. More like a friend zone peck honestly. Just enough that the “Nick Nick” sound smooths out and goes away when doing the strokes.
I didn’t really improve things with the Ark or the strop today. Tomorrow is another day.
 

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First day of partial success, makes me believe it's a climbable mountain.

2k edge, nothing after

I went over yesterday's edge a bit more, just "friend zone kissing" the apex until it sounded as clean as I could make it.
I'm using hair from my shave brush. My own hair is very fine, do it doesn't really go. Doesn't cut along the whole length yet of the edge yet, but it's a start.

The real hero of this story is Yoshikane's steel. Can't do this with Cutco.

 
I'm really liking this! Great experiment, and looks like you're pretty handy already :)

I've no idea how my edges compare at this kind of mega-high level, but I shouldn't have thought even close. I may have to try later, though I shan't post any videos of my terrible failure I'm afraid.
 
Does the source of hair make a difference?

Yes it does. Some hair is very good for the test, some won’t work at all. This is why for razors the HHT doesn’t work as a universal test for sharpness. It would only work if everyone had the same source for hair.
 
Oh jeez, I made that video 9 years ago. Now I feel old...
I should make a new clip with one of my own knives.



I find this pretty easy to achieve. Should I give some advice? Or would that be against the spirit of the competition... 🤔

Hey I'm all ears. It's not about beating my head against the wall just for the sake of it. That's what the 4:30am workouts in the PNW rain are for...

I'm sure even knowing the trick it'll take some practice.
 
Yes it does. Some hair is very good for the test, some won’t work at all. This is why for razors the HHT doesn’t work as a universal test for sharpness. It would only work if everyone had the same source for hair.
Coarse hair seems to be a lot easier than fine for me. Getting it warm and wet helps, just like shaving. Holding the tip is easier than holding the root. Check out a microscope image of a hair and you'll see why.

I need to source some of this hair that you guys use.
 
Hey I'm all ears. It's not about beating my head against the wall just for the sake of it. That's what the 4:30am workouts in the PNW rain are for...
You know the three finger sharpness test? A knife that passes the HHT test will feel blunt because it's too fine for your skin to feel.

Early on the stones, sharpen the knife too shallow (too acute an edge). I'm guessing like 10 degrees each side or something. Every time you move up to a finer grit or strop, increase the angle slightly so you end up at a reasonable angle along the edge.



To get this edge (52100 steel), I used a 4000 grit Shapton Glass stone and a paper strop with hard backing, loaded with a 0.1 micron grit Cubic Boron Nitride compund.
Generally speaking. steels with less large carbides will be easier to sharpen for a HHT.
 
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You know the three finger sharpness test? A knife that passes the HHT test will feel blunt because it's too fine for your skin to feel.

Early on the stones, sharpen the knife too shallow (too acute an edge). I'm guessing like 10 degrees each side or something. Every time you move up to a finer grit or strop, increase the angle slightly so you end up at a reasonable angle along the edge.



To get this edge (52100 steel), I used a 4000 grit Shapton Glass stone and a paper strop with hard backing, loaded with a 0.1 micron grit Cubic Boron Nitride compund.
Steels with less large carbides will be easier to sharpen for a HHT.
That's a great tip thank you. Also for what feedback to expect from the edge.

So you're essentially thinning on low grits, at a shallow angle. As your grit increases, so does your angle. You're hitting the apex at 4k, then stropping with very fine compound on hard backed paper?

I've shifted a bit back toward finer gained steels for this reason. More edges are possible.
 
So you're essentially thinning on low grits, at a shallow angle. As your grit increases, so does your angle. You're hitting the apex at 4k, then stropping with very fine compound on hard backed paper?
Yep. You gotta hit the apex every time you change grit. If you do that with your normal angle from the start, the final angle at the end will be quite a bit more obtuse than you had planned.
I guess you could keep the same angle the whole time, but it takes way too long by hand. Using my method, I had this knife pass the HHT after like 5 minutes.
 
Well isn't this an interesting test eh!

I tried this afternoon on a knife I had to sharpen and send to an old friend. A relatively inexpensive, but not too bad A2 Tosa. A few mins of my normal technique on a 1k/3k Suehiro Combi, and then stropped on phone book paper as I always do...

I wasn't cutting through a hair, but it was splitting/shaving them. Which I see is at least on the scale, so I must be doing something right :) I reckon with some practice on one of my better knives and finer stones I might get there. (And if I do I shall try to take a victory video, but i doubt my phone is up to it).

p.s. - I do sharpen these knives quite a lot, and know their grinds quite well. It wasn't just a complete bit of junk.
 
I've apologized to the wife in advance.
'whatfor'
'For the neglection the next few weeks. I need to sharpen more. I ain't there yet.'

Yes, this topic is feeding me so much.
 
The real hero of this story is Yoshikane's steel. Can't do this with Cutco.



Actually you can. Like @Chuckles said earlier, there are some things that are a little counter intuitive about this task. In a lot of ways doing this to some soft cheap stainless is easier than on some 75HRC beast that is going to be a lot less forgiving.

I remember one time I was goofing around during a slow period in the banquets department. I brought a bunch of stones to work and decided to sharpen my whole kit with a full progression. I don't remember exactly, but probably something like SP1k SG2k-4k-8k SP12k.

Of course my Watanabe, Gingas, Shi.han etc got very sharp. Soon I had no arm hair left. But I was also sharpening a couple of these:

https://uedata.amazon.com/Montana-Knife-Works-10-Chef/dp/B00LBOETPG/ref=cm_cr_pr_sims_i
They aren't available any more which makes me sad. I probably bought 100 of them over the last five years. An absolutely terrible knife but completely serviceable. The hotel didn't provide knives and my cooks lived on tight budgets so I would buy tons of these things from Amazon and sell them to them for cost ($11) as they needed them. The knife grinder guys tried to sell the exact same knives for $40 and then ground them to dust and sparks every other month. So I just cut out the middle man.

Anyways, I go to do a three finger test on one of these after the 12k and sliced three fingers. Went to do HHT and the hair jumped apart before you could even see it touch the blade. I scratched my head and did another one, same thing. My more expensive blades had similar results but not nearly as just stupidly impressive.

Then I tried to use one on a board. The last 0.5 mm of the edge felt amazing for one slice then crumpled like aluminum foil.

A soft foil edge is terrible for cooking with but it could actually be pretty good for HHT. You will just have to rebevel the knife if you want to use it on food again.
 
I wrote that little throwaway comment and immediately thought "a professional cook is going to correct me - I'm leaving this in because it's going to be fun"

I see what you're talking about with the soft steel and the foil edge. I've done something similar with a relative's knife, but at the time I was scratching my head a bit.

So there's plenty of evidence about a highly polished edge passing the HHT, but I'm still interested in the mid-grit sweet spot that's been alluded to. One where you stop on the 1-3k stone and still split/pop hairs.

Also it is too bad those knives are gone. My old cheap favorite was the Winco white handled thing.
 
I'm pushing my self to sharpen once per day during February, with a goal of passing an HHT on March 1st.

Are you hoping to see people cut a hanging hair by any means - loaded strops... 16K stones? Or....

I've gotten to HHT sharpness on my razor recently, and I know it should be possible even on a mid-grit benchstone, around 1-2k. I've heard @stringer and @Kippington talk about it. Recently, @Deadboxhero got some CATRA coupons to HHT with a 400 grit stone.

I find this more interesting. Like you I hone razors and cutting a hanging hair is par for the course. I don't see why that would not be possible on kitchen knives when applying the same care and grit progression.

So there's plenty of evidence about a highly polished edge passing the HHT, but I'm still interested in the mid-grit sweet spot that's been alluded to. One where you stop on the 1-3k stone and still split/pop hairs.

Definitely. That would impress me! Is unloaded stropping allowed? Or straight off the stone?



What is your target? HHT by any means or HHT straight off a low/mid-grit?
 
Are you hoping to see people cut a hanging hair by any means - loaded strops... 16K stones? Or....



I find this more interesting. Like you I hone razors and cutting a hanging hair is par for the course. I don't see why that would not be possible on kitchen knives when applying the same care and grit progression.



Definitely. That would impress me! Is unloaded stropping allowed? Or straight off the stone?



What is your target? HHT by any means or HHT straight off a low/mid-grit?

I'm going to keep trying on 1k and 3k I think, with stropping on a phone book. It's how I do most of my normal sharpening, so would be fun to see if I can get that really good...
 
Seems like a fun challenge. I'll post a video of my attempt tonight. Carbon steel is the way to go here. Does it matter what grit I finish on?
 
Well I figured out a couple things tonight. One is that the hht is very hard on superfine blonde hair like mine. I was able to shave with the knife, but it was rare for it to catch on the hanging hair. I will try again directly after showering in the morning and shampooing. (You aren't supposed to shampoo every day, it depletes the natural oil from your hair) I have a feeling it may go better after that.
 
Well I figured out a couple things tonight. One is that the hht is very hard on superfine blonde hair like mine. I was able to shave with the knife, but it was rare for it to catch on the hanging hair. I will try again directly after showering in the morning and shampooing. (You aren't supposed to shampoo every day, it depletes the natural oil from your hair) I have a feeling it may go better after that.

Are you holding the hair root end out?
 
Are you holding the hair root end out?
I'm not sure. I have a ton of hair, so I just run my fingers through my hair until I get a loose one. So I'm not positive which end is which.
 
One is that the hht is very hard on superfine blonde hair like mine.

Unfortunately for blondies, I believe lighter coloured hair tends to be finer than dark hair on average.


Does the source of hair make a difference?

Definitely As @Kentos puts it:

Yes it does. Some hair is very good for the test, some won’t work at all. This is why for razors the HHT doesn’t work as a universal test for sharpness. It would only work if everyone had the same source for hair.

The hair on my head is fine to medium. It is maybe half as thick as my partners hair. Her hair is quite luscious in comparison. On the other end of the scale is cat hair which is so fine it literally floats in the air...

But then again, my body has a mix of 'sources'.... beard (very wiry and thick) > pubes 😝 > chest > head ~= arm/legs


I can just about split my beard hair off a 1K stone.... but that is a fair way off splitting my head hair. Maybe I should see if I can get there off a 3K....





Edit: Wikipedia has section on hair variation:

There are ethnic differences in several different hair characteristics. The differences in appearance and texture of hair are due to many factors: the position of the hair bulb relative to the hair follicle, size and shape of the dermal papilla, and the curvature of the hair follicle. The scalp hair follicle in Caucasians is elliptical in shape and, therefore, produces straight or wavy hair, whereas the scalp hair follicle of people of African descent is more curvy, resulting in the growth of tightly curled hair.

Terminal Scalp Hair Characteristics by Ethnicity
ethnicitydiameter
(micrometers)
cross-sectional shapeappearance
Blonde-haired Caucasian40–80ellipticalstraight or wavy
Dark brown/black haired/red haired Caucasian50–90ellipticalstraight or wavy
Black60–100elliptical and ribbon-likecurly
Asian80–100circularstraight
 
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Unfortunately for blondies, I believe lighter coloured hair tends to be finer than dark hair on average.




Definitely As @Kentos puts it:



The hair on my head is fine to medium. It is maybe half as thick as my partners hair. Her hair is quite luscious in comparison. On the other end of the scale is cat hair which is so fine it literally floats in the air...

But then again, my body has a mix of 'sources'.... beard (very wiry and thick) > pubes 😝 > chest > head ~= arm/legs


I can just about split my beard hair off a 1K stone.... but that is a fair way off splitting my head hair. Maybe I should see if I can get there off a 3K....
Yeah. My hair is on the finer end of the spectrum, it almost has a frizzy appearance if left naturally, it's not curly, just wavy, but it's so light that it gives it a bit of volume if that makes sense.

I definitely won't be testing on my pubes, but that would be the easiest for me, as I stay shaved, and am relatively babyfaced in general.
 
I definitely won't be testing on my pubes, but that would be the easiest for me, as I stay shaved, and am relatively babyfaced in general.

Shaved in both departments 😜


I'm not sure. I have a ton of hair, so I just run my fingers through my hair until I get a loose one. So I'm not positive which end is which.

You can't see the follicles on the root side? I suppose it might be difficult on lighter coloured hair?

You could potentially find the root end by pulling the hair through your pinched thumb and index finger. It is more likely to vibrate (feel like it is rubbery) if you pull from tip to root. If you pull from root to tip, it is more likely to glide through your pinch and feel smooth.
 
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