03-23-2017, 12:36 PM
I'll leave it up to you guys to decide how this machine should be designed but it seems to me that we should talk about what we are testing for before deciding how the machine should be designed. I can see that Edge is building in a fair amount of flexibility into the current design and that may work out just fine but Mr. Grepper raises a fair point. It may turn out that Edge's design proposal is just what we need but let's get some conversation going here with regard to what we want to find out. So I'll start the ball rolling here because this is all very interesting to me on several levels.
First of all, what group of knife users is going to have priority here? Is it going to be the bunch who carry high hardness steel folding knives around in their pocket or the ones who use stainless steel cutlery in their kitchen every day? I can pretty much assure you as to which is the larger group. Perhaps it is neither, maybe something in between. Second, what aspect of dulling are we testing for (degradation as Edge puts it.)? Metal wearing away, edges rolling, edges chipping, edges flattening out? I have an opinion on that but I'll finish my list here first. How about factoring in how difficult or easy it is to put a new edge on a knife after it has been dulled. I think that a ceramic knife would fair pretty well in edge retention tests, maybe even King, but once it becomes dull or damaged how difficult is it to put a new edge on? So I'll stop asking questions and, like I said, start the ball rolling with my opinion on at least one of these questions.
I don't see the sense in conducting tests that we know the answers to. Harder steel is going to be tougher to grind down than softer steel. Steel manufacturers provide huge amounts of documentation already on these steels. I suspect that harder steel edges are more difficult to roll but don't know that for certain. I do know that every knife I own is subject to rolling though and I would go so far as to say that is the prime reason my knives edges get dull. I've run test after test with a leather strop block or a sharp pad and one of my edge testers. Same story nearly every time. Rolled edge and not missing metal. You can only straighten an edge so many times though and then it needs to be sharpened. So there is my two-cents on that.
If we are talking about rolled edges I would be very interested in seeing what factors contribute most to the rolling of edges. Sharpening angle, grind, blade geometry, initial edge sharpness. Here's a question for you. Would an edge that rolls fairly easily but can be straightened easily be better or worse than a knife edge that resists rolling but can't be straightened? I've got a friend who used to own 5 meat processing facilities in California who wouldn't spend three seconds thinking about that question. I'll give you a hint, he's a grand master with his sixty year old butchers steel.
Thanks to Edge for putting this forum together. I watched it for a week before signing up. I've seen mostly respectful conversation here and an appreciation for everyone's viewpoint. If it stays that way, and here's the bad news for you guys, I plan on being here a long time.
First of all, what group of knife users is going to have priority here? Is it going to be the bunch who carry high hardness steel folding knives around in their pocket or the ones who use stainless steel cutlery in their kitchen every day? I can pretty much assure you as to which is the larger group. Perhaps it is neither, maybe something in between. Second, what aspect of dulling are we testing for (degradation as Edge puts it.)? Metal wearing away, edges rolling, edges chipping, edges flattening out? I have an opinion on that but I'll finish my list here first. How about factoring in how difficult or easy it is to put a new edge on a knife after it has been dulled. I think that a ceramic knife would fair pretty well in edge retention tests, maybe even King, but once it becomes dull or damaged how difficult is it to put a new edge on? So I'll stop asking questions and, like I said, start the ball rolling with my opinion on at least one of these questions.
I don't see the sense in conducting tests that we know the answers to. Harder steel is going to be tougher to grind down than softer steel. Steel manufacturers provide huge amounts of documentation already on these steels. I suspect that harder steel edges are more difficult to roll but don't know that for certain. I do know that every knife I own is subject to rolling though and I would go so far as to say that is the prime reason my knives edges get dull. I've run test after test with a leather strop block or a sharp pad and one of my edge testers. Same story nearly every time. Rolled edge and not missing metal. You can only straighten an edge so many times though and then it needs to be sharpened. So there is my two-cents on that.
If we are talking about rolled edges I would be very interested in seeing what factors contribute most to the rolling of edges. Sharpening angle, grind, blade geometry, initial edge sharpness. Here's a question for you. Would an edge that rolls fairly easily but can be straightened easily be better or worse than a knife edge that resists rolling but can't be straightened? I've got a friend who used to own 5 meat processing facilities in California who wouldn't spend three seconds thinking about that question. I'll give you a hint, he's a grand master with his sixty year old butchers steel.
Thanks to Edge for putting this forum together. I watched it for a week before signing up. I've seen mostly respectful conversation here and an appreciation for everyone's viewpoint. If it stays that way, and here's the bad news for you guys, I plan on being here a long time.