smooth and/or toothy

[Ken S]

I have been following the discussion about smooth or toothy edges. I don't recall anything on Moses' stone tablets which prohibited have both smooth and toothy.

I have half a dozen old pocket knives. Most are older than I am, and I do not know the history of most of them. I suspect most were originally purchased at aa exclusive purveyor of fine cutlery like
WT Grant or the local hardware store. 

One knife stands out. Part of the outside covering has broken. One of the three blades snapped off in the middle before I remember. in spite of this rough treatment, a past owner kept the knife clean and sharp. It has a "Mastercraft" name plate. This three blade design makes me wonder why I could not sharpen one blade toothy with the ceramic "steel" Steve gave me. Another blade could be sharpened smooth with my heavenly hone from Mark Reich. 

Why not?

Ken

[grepper]

Sure!  As you say, “why not?”

Of course there is no real answer to that question, and it's more a matter of personal preference.  IMHO, I think the more important question is if you have a specific use in mind for a polished blade.  Shaving your beard around the camp fire possibly?  Whittling?  Slicing sashimi?

For me at least, I’ve found a blade with a bit of bite to be generally more useful.  It can be very frustrating to have a seemingly sharp blade just ride back and forth, unable to make a cut.  

Maybe, as an experiment, do a polished and a toothy and then use them equally.  If you have some cutting to do, try each at the same task and see what works best.  See which one keeps working well over a period of time.  Just sharpen them both to about the same sharpness numbers so you are not comparing kohlrabi with kumquats or maybe Bolwarra fruit with breadfruit.  

What happens with the way I use knives is that a freshly sharpened, super sharp, smooth, polished edge works great for just about everything, but not for long.  Soon it rolls just enough to be pretty useless for many tasks, but a blade with a bit of tooth works better, longer and much better for any task where a bit of surface or fiber tearing is efficacious.

I suppose that would vary with how hard the steel is and exactly what you are cutting, if there is any impact on the blade, or if you straighten the edge at frequent intervals to keep it cutting well.

Give it a shot and let us know your results.  I’m sure whatever you find out will be interesting.