Another Sharpening Thread - Consideration of Cost

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So, if I got "fish and fries" in the US, what would i be missing vs. getting them in England. Blancmange on the dessert menu?
 
There's generally never chips served in a full English breakfast either, if that's what your asking?
 
There's generally never chips served in a full English breakfast either, if that's what your asking?

I think if you asked Americans what we thought an English breakfast was, we would say "six pints of beer?"

When I was in college, they ran us pretty hard at a lower first tier state school here (they tier universities in rankings 1-4, my state school was lower tier 1). The English students would show up and they would drink on weeknights, even in technical majors.

And we would say "wow, they either bold or really smart and can get away with it".

And within a couple of weeks, they would be complaining that the work level was too high and interfered with "pub after school". The bars were probably excited to have someone who would sit at the bar at 4pm on a wednesday.

I don't know that much about Blancmange other than the name sounds French and an English friend her had his daughter make some and serve it. He said "it reminds me of my childhood". It looked interesting but the taste wasn't as good. Is it a breakfast food? It was served at dinner in this case - that's dinner in the northeast sense, in the evening, not in the old american or southern sense (mid day).
 
Follow up on this whole idea of treating the edge separately on purpose.

This is the knife made in the thread below - the one with the black handle. It's stainless steel and a little soft, but not as soft as a commercial stainless knife. Softness usually creates a problem with abrasives cutting more deeply and getting rid of a fine burr.

This is at 150x sharpness. The divots not at the edge will disappear with use or be honed out - this is just the original "quickie edge" as a matter of manufacture, but the sharpening method is india, ceramic rod and buffer.

The rod and buffer by themselves will keep this knife going for a year. And I may need to do 10 strokes on the india at the end of the year.



The edge is about 2-3 times as fine as an 8k grit waterstone, and with the buffer included takes about 1 minute. I didn't really care for the idea of an expensive ceramic rod so I bought a big one that was $15 or $17 or something, and I'm glad that's all I bought. It's fantastic - settles in like a spyderco and on a knife (where the edge won't be abraded off by wood), the fact that it's fine and not super fast doesn't matter.

The buffer deals with any burr of any consequence left after finishing the 30 seconds with the ceramic rod and ending with lighter strokes.
 
Part of the point of the prior post for everyone to consider sharpening is that the edge is created and there are marks near it, but treating the edge itself at a steeper angle prevents wasting time ever removing them as a separate step. The fineness of the edge is absurd, but unwinding sharpening beyond just creating a burr and taking it off (to making it fast and practical) is a hobby that fits well with making.

There is a point where a sharp knife is no longer really a safe knife for others, but not everything we have or make has to be out for public use. This knife is past the point of adhering to "a sharp knife is a safe knife", though.

What's described here is similar to the whole unicorn concept, but the concept isn't original - it's everywhere in parts in real life before everyone wanted to dumb down sharpening or create platitudes (perfectly flat planes). It's nice to see that both hasluck and holtzappfel went to some detail to describe the importance of setting things up to treat only the edge.

The brightening in the picture above shows that there is a radius at a very small scale (thousandths). That makes the edge resistant to deflection without turning it into a blunt rounded large pile of doo. Just as would be the case on a plane or chisel or carving tool.



The same edge that does that, then also does this (cutting sticks like carrots).

(I made a second banana video - some guy thought maybe I was throwing it. Could've been a girl!) . Camera is laying on the edge of the counter, so 2 feet is probably about right. Banana on plate today, too!!)

20220906_160847.jpg
 
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