Deadboxhero wrote: ↑Sun Mar 04, 2018 7:40 pm
David,
I'm a polished guy like you, I like the finesse but it's not the best edge for everything.
If we could spend a day cutting fish with Lance the polished edges would loss their bite faster.
Polished is push cutting, toothy is draw cutting.
If you're forcing the edge straight down in the rope then the polish works better. If you draw cutting then the teeth on the toothy help.
Polish is cutting quality
Toothy is cutting quantity
We want the blend of the two
Polished toothy is the goal not a 200 grit toothy edge or a 20,000 polished grit one but a 600-1000 grit with finished with strops to refine the teeth without removing them "polished toothy"
Look up Dave Martell, coined the phrase.
Some need a little more tooth in the polish, some more polish in the toothy.
It's job specific but a blend of the two is best. Except for straight razors, thats all polish.
In the real world, the objective is to find the best blend between the two for the given application and we select the the abrasives that gives us the right combos. That's why I have so many **** stones.
Here's an example,
That polished edge won't last long if you were cleaning fish with Lance. But you would get cleaner cuts on portioning boneless fillets (with the right geometry of course too.)
So it's task specific, Now add different steels, abrasives, heat treatments and geometries and find the endless combinations that synergize performance. That's why knives are great. It's never ending.
That's the obsession of it. The "Idèe Fixe"
I have heard all of that before - not finding it to be true in my real world testing.
Someone cited an example where a polished edge was inferior to a toothy edge and I tested according to what was described. In that test, the polished edge performed exceptionally well. If you look carefully at that video, you will see that the first cut in each type of rope was an attempt at a draw cut and the second attempt was a pure push cut. Not going to deny that the push cut was cleaner on both rope types, nor will I deny that the draw cut in this test was at best a modified push cut. What is amusing is that there was no comment when the initial example was cited and now that there is a video showing a polished edge doesn't slide out of the cut like a dull knife folks are jumping up to say that wasn't the right test.
I asked, this was what was described to me to try, I tried it - the polished edge worked very well. Lance cited another possible test, I'll try that as well.
The toothy edge may perform better initially, but I don't believe the toothy edges will last as long. My previous comparisons showed the toothy edges to work better in some media, but they never lasted longer than a polished edge. Personally, I think that folks are not achieving as finally refined an edge as they thought they were, then blaming the polished edge for the lack of performance. That was the case for me in my initial testing. Side note: according to Edge Pro, their 3,000 grit polish tapes are equivalent to 25,000 grit Japanese water stones, 3 microns. They don't list an equivalent for their 6,000 grit polish tapes but they are obviously more refined. I cannot verify these the equivalency statement of the 3,000 grit tapes, merely conveying information as given.
I will happily try Lance's 5/8" poly rope for a couple dozen cuts on a cutting board with each edge type, if for no other reason than curiosity. In the real world, I'm not trying to find a balance - I'm trying to find what works best for my needs. So far, that looks like a highly polished edge and a high carbide steel with excellent edge holding capability. I will conduct the testing and post a video, regardless of the results and try to learn something in the process.
David