When I think of making an edge retention tester many questions come to mind, and when I think about each one it leads to more questions. At first it seems like a simple idea, but after even a little consideration I think there is a lot more to it.
For instance, consider an edge retention test for kitchen knives. In that case, the material being cut, broccoli or whatever, is not going to dull the blade much by itself. What dulls the blade is contact with a cutting board. That contact with the cutting board is mostly in two forms, straight or slightly angled impact from chopping, and slicing across the board surface.
Just touching on the many implications of this, one obvious question is, would the test cylinder be made of wood?
Consider this sentence from Mike's description of the idea, “The new test stand will be capable of gradually indexing a sharpened edge across the length of a long cylinder as the cylinder is rotated.”
Now, I’ve never layered spinach over the edge of a blade and then run a rolling pin over the blade to slice the spinach. Would it be better if the test cylinder did not rotate and was just dragged over the blade? Would that yield different results than if the test cylinder was rolled over the blade?
I'm not trying to resolve this particular question here, but rather pose these questions as an example of the complexity of the issues.
I’m glad that Mike is considering this a collective effort of the Exchange members. To me it seems much more complicated than first meets the eye. Many minds providing feedback and ideas on this will no doubt yield a better result in the end. I suspect it will be an evolving project.
For instance, consider an edge retention test for kitchen knives. In that case, the material being cut, broccoli or whatever, is not going to dull the blade much by itself. What dulls the blade is contact with a cutting board. That contact with the cutting board is mostly in two forms, straight or slightly angled impact from chopping, and slicing across the board surface.
Just touching on the many implications of this, one obvious question is, would the test cylinder be made of wood?
Consider this sentence from Mike's description of the idea, “The new test stand will be capable of gradually indexing a sharpened edge across the length of a long cylinder as the cylinder is rotated.”
Now, I’ve never layered spinach over the edge of a blade and then run a rolling pin over the blade to slice the spinach. Would it be better if the test cylinder did not rotate and was just dragged over the blade? Would that yield different results than if the test cylinder was rolled over the blade?
I'm not trying to resolve this particular question here, but rather pose these questions as an example of the complexity of the issues.
I’m glad that Mike is considering this a collective effort of the Exchange members. To me it seems much more complicated than first meets the eye. Many minds providing feedback and ideas on this will no doubt yield a better result in the end. I suspect it will be an evolving project.