Am I a Knife sharpness snob?

[longball]

The WorkSharp system is interesting for the price, however, with nothing to guide the blade past the starting point it's dependent on you holding that precise angle the entire length of the stroke. Personally, I don't think I could do that.


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[tb-av]

From the video I watched you lay the blade against the rest. If you push too much it springs open.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4ELwpLJIgE Not sure if this is the one. I watched several. Even some that had negative thoughts on it.

[Ironbutt]

You're not a snob for demanding a sharp knife. Often someone will ask to use my knife to cut something. The first thing out of their mouth is always, "Hey, that's sharp!" Like they're not used to seeing knives that actually cut. Why would anybody carry a dull knife?

I've been using Japanese water stones for sharpening knives, woodworking chisels, hand plane blades, etc, for many years. I've been looking at the Work Sharp machines lately, but there's something zen-like to sharpening fine steel by hand.

[HKGuns]

I blame this thread for my cut hand yesterday. After reading this thread I broke out the lansky and sharpened up all of my various hunting knives to near razor sharpness. I even used the leather stroping hone.

The wife pulled out some dull kitchen knife for me to carve turkey with and after one slice I pulled out a freshly sharpened hunting knife to cut up the turkey.

I picked it up to clean and put away and with my greasy hands it slipped and started to fall on my Patagonian Rosewood floor. Without thinking, I grabbed it with my right hand to prevent floor damage and now have a nice cut in the palm of my right hand. Just barely short of requiring stitches.

Great. Yes I know, let it fall.

[JC5188]

Another item that comes to mind, is that those that do not sharpen their knives probably are unaware of what train wrecks most factory grinds are. I have Benchmades, ZTs, Spyderco, Kershaw (oddly kershaw and spyderco seem to be the least offensive here) and they come with high spots, uneven grinds, over grinds, screwed up ricassos (this one is not an issue to me, but real knife snobs get bent out of shape due to it). I have been slowly removing an over grind in a benchmade over the last year, as it was so bad that it required quite a bit of steel removal.

My ZT302 factory edge looked like it had been done with a 4" angle grinder.

Oddly enough, except for case pocket knives, the only factory stuff I have that came super sharp are a couple of Ka-bar mules from Taiwan. Stupid sharp for $35 Taiwan knives.

As far as sharpening, I can get them sharp but it looks like hell compared to someone who is really good at it. I usually take mine to an old man at a pawn shop who does it free-hand on a wheel. 3 bucks a blade. He polishes them to a mirror, hair popping edge. I was so fascinated by this the first time, I would show people by shaving a little arm hair. Unfortunately, I got a bit carried away and the Mexicans at work started calling me "patches".


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[texancarbine73]

I have several knives I rotate through. Mayor tune up is done using The Wicked Edge and touch ups using the Sharpmaker usually. I like my knives very sharp