01-07-2018, 09:52 PM
Mr. Mark exclaimed, “On the other hand, you have another, more popular way to degrade edges. Cut Stuff.”
If edge retention is what you are looking to test, I have always thought, and still do, that this makes a lot of sense. Cut stuff. It works. It has to work. It makes sense that cutting stuff most closely mimics, if not actually is, real-world use of a blade. And, is not real-world use the most applicable, if not the very reason for edge retention testing? Mr. KG’s pig plant data is a perfect example. If that is not real-world edge retention testing nothing is. While it is not used for edge retention testing, one of the main advantages of BESS sharpness testing is that it tests edge sharpness by, guess what… cutting stuff.
What is missing in the cutting stuff edge retention testing world is consistency of the material being cut. Some folks cut rope while others use cardboard, or whatever. The BESS scale would be worthless if it were not for the consistency of BESS test media. What is needed for edge retention testing by cutting stuff is a universally agreed upon test media.
Of course there are other factors such as pressure and length of cut, etc. that would need to be standardized, but that’s not really the point. To me at least, as far as edge retention testing goes, cutting stuff just makes sense and what I intuitively consider.
That said, it may turn out that data gathered from a pressure test may actually correlate to edge retention. Mr. Mark, I’m guessing that you would concur that if that were to be true and reliable, that it would be very cool and welcome considering the reduction of effort required. I know that I find the idea of spending hours testing by rope cutting daunting. There is one big difference however; edge retention data arrived by cutting stuff is direct, but pressure data would be inferred or indirect.
To me, the test stand would simply be a hardness test that might be useful in testing if edge hardness is reduced by heating or comparing the hardness of various blades. Kind of a poor man’s Rockwell test, yet with the ability to test edge hardness which is something that as far as I know cannot be achieved with a Rockwell tester. If it ends up that edge retention assumptions may be gleaned from such data then great, but that is yet to be determined.
If edge retention is what you are looking to test, I have always thought, and still do, that this makes a lot of sense. Cut stuff. It works. It has to work. It makes sense that cutting stuff most closely mimics, if not actually is, real-world use of a blade. And, is not real-world use the most applicable, if not the very reason for edge retention testing? Mr. KG’s pig plant data is a perfect example. If that is not real-world edge retention testing nothing is. While it is not used for edge retention testing, one of the main advantages of BESS sharpness testing is that it tests edge sharpness by, guess what… cutting stuff.
What is missing in the cutting stuff edge retention testing world is consistency of the material being cut. Some folks cut rope while others use cardboard, or whatever. The BESS scale would be worthless if it were not for the consistency of BESS test media. What is needed for edge retention testing by cutting stuff is a universally agreed upon test media.
Of course there are other factors such as pressure and length of cut, etc. that would need to be standardized, but that’s not really the point. To me at least, as far as edge retention testing goes, cutting stuff just makes sense and what I intuitively consider.
That said, it may turn out that data gathered from a pressure test may actually correlate to edge retention. Mr. Mark, I’m guessing that you would concur that if that were to be true and reliable, that it would be very cool and welcome considering the reduction of effort required. I know that I find the idea of spending hours testing by rope cutting daunting. There is one big difference however; edge retention data arrived by cutting stuff is direct, but pressure data would be inferred or indirect.
To me, the test stand would simply be a hardness test that might be useful in testing if edge hardness is reduced by heating or comparing the hardness of various blades. Kind of a poor man’s Rockwell test, yet with the ability to test edge hardness which is something that as far as I know cannot be achieved with a Rockwell tester. If it ends up that edge retention assumptions may be gleaned from such data then great, but that is yet to be determined.