"Scope The Edge" Ideas and Participants List

[sal]

Hi Matt,

Your email came in through Outlook, with which I am not familiar or comfortable. Lost your email while trying to respond. Sometimes automatic digital helpers don't help. Please resend to salglesser@aol.com.

thanx.

sal

[ZrowsN1s]

Hi Matt,

Your email came in through Outlook, with which I am not familiar or comfortable. Lost your email while trying to respond. Sometimes automatic digital helpers don't help. Please resend to salglesser@aol.com.

thanx.

sal

Hi sal, I actually got your reply. Thank you for responding and for the advice. I'll see if I can get the group together on the swedge test and come up with a solid plan.

If I need to email you again I'll use my gmail account.

-Matt

[ZrowsN1s]

Hello Spyder friends! Apologies for the delay in posting this. Had a home repair project that did not go smoothly at all taking most of my attention.

So, about the Swedge Test.

First...
Let's get 5-10 people who want to do the actual testing.

Then we need to make a concrete list of the following:
What are we testing, what materials do we need to perform the test, test procedure, variables to be controlled. What data and measurements are to be gathered and recorded.

Then we can start figuring out the logistics of gathering the materials.

Then we can run the tests and compare our findings.

...........................
Let's put our heads together and see what we can come up with. We probably won't all have access to BESS Testers or Laser Goniometers, but I'm willing to bet we have sharpmakers with a 15° fixed angle and fine stones. So we can sharpen relatively the same. "Sharp enough to shave arm hair off the fine stones at 15dps".

One of the big hurtles for this test was getting blades to test, after we hash out all the other details and are ready to move forward with testing sal should be able to get us at least one pair of identical blades from the seconds bin. One with a swedge one with out. Then I imagine who ever receives the blades first will mail them to the next person, last person sends them back to Golden. We can work out those details later. But we will be able to get test blades.

-Matt

................
So who wants to be a tester for the effectiveness of swedges?

[Evil D]

I'm still in, trying to think up a way to test this that everyone can do themselves. So far all I've come up with involves cutting on a bath scale to try to measure the difference in resistance. I'm not sure how we could measure curved cut resistance since that also involves some amount of lateral force too. I have a feeling the difference in how blades cut in turns will be more of an agreed upon opinion but I'll keep thinking on it.

[Ramonade]

I'm certainly totally off on this but isn't a pull scale something we could use in that situation?


Being far away, I'd still like to offer as much assistance as I can along the project. I think the preambule to the swedge test kinda puts me out of the loop, but I'll follow with interest.

[ZrowsN1s]

...Being far away, I'd still like to offer as much assistance as I can along the project....

Absolutely.

Everyone should remember that even if you can't do the test yourself you can still add ideas. Help source materials. Help with planning. Analysis. There's lots of ways to help.

[ZrowsN1s]

....aaanyone else besides me and Evil D want to do some swedge testing?

[Evil D]

It occurred to me that the Fish Hunter and Aqua Salt are maybe similar enough to compare a swedge vs no swedge. Unfortunately the grind height isn't exactly the same but they're otherwise pretty similar around the heel of the blade.

:) There ya go.

Quoted for pics.

[Soanso McMasters]

The only reasonable goal for a community project without perfect controls (same knives, same angles, same grit finishes, etc) will be to achieve something less than “scientific” but more than anecdotal. There will be necessary compromises and so long as everyone is aware of those compromises the resultant data will still be useful. Inasmuch, what Evil D proposes would seem to be valid data, if not perfect.

[ZrowsN1s]

That comparison would certainly work. As I said in my earlier post though, we can get two identical blades for testing.

What we really need is to establish the test parameters. How are we going to test it, what materials will we use, how will we control the variables we can control.

We are likely to have the same pair of knives mailed from person to person.
I suggest we all sharpen on the sharpmaker at 15dps using only the medium stones. Edge leading heel to tip only. That's probably the best we can hope for, for sharpening consistency.

Evil D has suggested cutting the cardboard on a digital scale. He had a few ideas for recording the data as well by filming with a camera and watching the playback.

I have some ideas for measuring the ability to turn in the cut as well.

[Chuck James]

....aaanyone else besides me and Evil D want to do some swedge testing?

I'm in and you'll have to tell me what a swedge test is.

Just so I'll know what it is I'm suppose to be doing.

[ZrowsN1s]

....aaanyone else besides me and Evil D want to do some swedge testing?

I'm in and you'll have to tell me what a swedge test is.

Just so I'll know what it is I'm suppose to be doing.

Well that's what we are figuring out. How to best measure the difference between a knife with a swedge and one without.

So far our rough idea is to put cardboard on top of a scale and measure the difference in down force required to make a push cut.

[Chuck James]

Sounds good just let me know.

Also, I was not very clear. What is a swedge?

Thanks

[Evil D]

Sounds good just let me know.

Also, I was not very clear. What is a swedge?

Thanks

The top "false edge" looking grind on the top of the blade, like this Native has:





But sometimes the swedge is much less prominent, like we see on a Dragonfly:



Or at least most of us have called that a swedge, though I'm not sure if it really qualifies.

[Chuck James]

Sounds good just let me know.

Also, I was not very clear. What is a swedge?

Thanks

The top "false edge" looking grind on the top of the blade, like this Native has:





But sometimes the swedge is much less prominent, like we see on a Dragonfly:



Or at least most of us have called that a swedge, though I'm not sure if it really qualifies.

Thanks!!

[Giygas]

I'd love to be added to the list, if it's still possible.

I've always said my knife collection is a result of my sharpening hobby more than anything, so this is a project I'd really like to contribute to.

[ZrowsN1s]

I'd love to be added to the list, if it's still possible.

I've always said my knife collection is a result of my sharpening hobby more than anything, so this is a project I'd really like to contribute to.

Sure I'll add you to the list.

I seem to be having a little trouble getting this bird to fly. The swedge question comes up a lot on the forum, but I can't seem to get much participation on the issue here outside of a handfull of us. Maybe it's too complicated for our first problem. Maybe we should work on another one of the questions, something that more people are willing to get involved with.
I intend to keep working on the swedge issue as well though.

But what else should we work on besides swedges? Topics list is on the first page. Or suggest a new topic.

[Giygas]

I'd love to be added to the list, if it's still possible.

I've always said my knife collection is a result of my sharpening hobby more than anything, so this is a project I'd really like to contribute to.

Sure I'll add you to the list.

I seem to be having a little trouble getting this bird to fly. The swedge question comes up a lot on the forum, but I can't seem to get much participation on the issue here outside of a handfull of us. Maybe it's too complicated for our first problem. Maybe we should work on another one of the questions, something that more people are willing to get involved with.
I intend to keep working on the swedge issue as well though.

But what else should we work on besides swedges? Topics list is on the first page. Or suggest a new topic.

Ive been thinking about the swedge question a lot, and I can't come up with a test that would produce any truly reliable data short of having two of the exact same knives, one with swedge and one without. Anything other than that introduces too many variables. Since that basically requires someone making the knives, at the very least it seems like a pretty lofty goal to set right out of the gate.

I've always been really curious about microbevels.

I've never had much luck with them, but I've seen quite a few sharpeners whose work/opinion I definitely respect use them, so there must be a reason. Couple that with the fact that quite a few Spydercos seem to leave the factory with them, they must provide some sort of advantage.

I'm really interested to find out if they do add anything to the cutting performance, how long lasting that performance increase is, and if it applies more to the fine edge or the working edge. Also if it's an initial sharpness advantage, or a durability advantage.

We all know that a finer edge is a sharper edge and a longer lasting edge, so the idea of adding a tiny more obtuse angle to that freshly sharpened edge is just something my brain has trouble understanding.

I totally understand that I may be the only one that cares about the concept at all, so I'm open to anything that we come up with to hopefully get this project going!

[ZrowsN1s]

I mentioned it a few posts back, but I guess I'll post it again here. If we can establish the guidelines for an experiment that maybe 5-10 of us can do, Spyderco can provide us at least 1 pair of knives (one with swedge, one without) that we can pass around.

[Ramonade]

Since I'm in EU, there's no point.
However, if a certain number of people from EU are interested in participating, I don't see much problem in putting us at the end of the queue, even if some personal cost might be required.