Holy Day-am!!!! That Kangaroo and Nanocloth wins first place!!!!

The kangaroo and naon-cloth are shocking, really.

Yes the Roo and Nano cloth are pretty amazing stuff for sure. We have seen differences in stropping media, but these are at least an order of magnitude better.

Another thing that I found interesting and maybe a bit disapointing was how comparatively rough the Chosera 10K stone left the blade. As Tom might say, "from the macro level" this stone leaves a real mirror finish. We have discussed the limitations of our cameras, and I am sure it is all in my technique with the Veho, but I never would have guesssed, nor have I seen, the level of scratches being left by that stone.

Additionally this series of photos really turns a bunch of the common wisdom on stropping on its ear. What are considered to be the best stropping media around just flat are amazingly abrasive on their own.

It is just counterintuitive that soft "smooth" leather or balsa can scratch hardened steel like they apparently do.

Again, great stuff Clay!

Wow, those edges are sweet! Count me in for an order... This may be what I've been looking for. I got an edge on a razor to pass the HHT, but it was holding the hair really close to the edge. Then when I went from the .25um paste (Norton) to the .125um spray I lost the HHT capability... was really weird. Looking forward to getting some of that stuff! Probably too early to tell, but which would you prefer Clay, nanocloth or kangaroo leather? Which one is easier to mount to one of the normal strop paddles? (i.e. I will remove the leather from the ones I have and replace it).

Awesome work bro... keep it up. Looking forward to seeing pics w/ your new microscope, lol!!! Did you see the thread a while back where someone had posted a link to another forum where a guy had a 1000x microscope that he could take pics with? You should just pull the trigger and get one... you know you will have one eventually anyway, haha!

Edit: its called a metallograph... here's the thread, check out those edge pics! Unfortunately, they're real expensive... $1700-$1800!!!

I am really impressed by the super smooth polish I got from the Roo and Nano-Cloth. That said, the smoothness doesn't necessarily translate into either performance or durability for all cutting tasks. The blade did best at the HHT after the plain cow top grain and the plain horse butt top grain. As far as the 10k stone goes, I'm still a big fan - my thinking on it is this: if you want a great cutting edge, then 10k, or 1.74um is an extremely well rounded level of finish and the uniformity of the Chosera scratch pattern is exceptional, plus the path to get there is short. I went straight from the 1600# ceramics to the 5k/10k combo and was at that level within just a couple of minutes. As far as the scratches go, the 10k is nearly 7x as coarse as the .25um strops on roo leather, so we're getting about what we should expect and it's hard to overstate the necessity for some micro-teeth, ideally perfectly formed, uniform micro-teeth. After all this, I find myself wanting to do a massive cutting comparison of identical blades with different finishes! What I'd really like to do is develop a matrix that helps us to pinpoint exactly which finish is best suited for a given application both from a performance standpoint and from a durability standpoint. Another big factor is ease of maintenance. I think a lot of the fun of the Wicked Edge platform at this level is the ease with which one can experiment and contemplate the exact best geometry and finish to apply to a given knife. Lots to explore...

PhilipPasteur wrote:

razoredgeknives wrote:

I had a lot of that going on, pass/fail, pass/fail on the HHT with the various strops. The ones that did the best by far were the horse butt top and cow top.

razoredgeknives wrote:

Both mount the same - they're coming from Ken already affixed to aluminum blanks, so you just peel back the cover on the tap, press on and you're done. It's too early to decide between the two, have to do LOTS more testing.

razoredgeknives wrote:

Yeah, just a mere $1700-$1800... not right away, but eventually.

wickededge wrote:


lol, yeah... pocket change for ppl like you w/ big money!!

So did you try the HHT at each step w/ the kangaroo/nano cloth as well? Theoretically it should work better you would think... unless it is like you propose, that there is a happy medium where you have a bunch of micro serrations that are highly polished that will "grab" the hair and lop it off... the normal rule of thumb seems to be the higher the polish, the easier the HHT will be... may be a faulty assumption!

What is HHT?

Horse Hair Top?

Clay, I have to compliment you on doing some OUTSTANDING work demonstrating the capabilities of Nanocloth and Kangaroo.

I also want to make the point that using the WEPS platform to do this testing is a match made in heaven and a testament to what precise sharpening is all about!

Those micrographs are STUNNING and demonstrate beautifully what I've been saying about these compounds and strops and the importance as you get finer compounds of the effects of the substrate on masking the effects of the compound.

I hope you don't mind if I quote your work and use these pictures elsewhere to further promote your work and the products on the WEPS platform.

I could more obviously see that getting a 'pure effect' or compound only effect was critical at the higher grit levels like eighth and tenth micron snd finer, but your quarter micron pics strongly suggest that the nanocloth and 'roo may have additional benefits at even lower grits, possibly well below 1 micron. So I'm anxiously looking forward to the additional work on the coarser compounds I sent you with the additional nanocloth samples.

Using a surface that is smooth beyond the limits of light microscopy as a starting point for demonstrating other abrasive preps like the 10k Chocera is also a SUPERB way to demonstrate the scratch pattern of that stone without the confusion of residual coarser scratches. Again NICELY Done!!

Now when we go beyond eighth micron down to 0.025 microns we are talking about a particle the size of a small virus, so I suspect that the resultant scratch pattern will also be beyond the limits of ANY light microscope. Yet we may well see some differentiating characteristics in the way the light gets reflected from these surfaces using your current equipment. Something like the effect that you see using an ultrafine graticule as a prism (just wildly speculating here about what to look for) like you see doing spectroscopy. Perhaps a high resolution mirror effect visible at full magnification. Can't wait to see the results!

Very exciting work, Clay!

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Ken