Well fella's, I'm having a different problem with checking the hair whittling edge on my knifes. For the past 10 years I have been shaving my head and the wife is getting tired of me sneaking up behind her and snatching a couple of hairs from her head. I'll have to stop that for a while or my arm will be too sore to sharpen any knives. She said she would cut off a few but lets face it, it's just not as fun that way.

Well I tried??? I thought I followed advise to a tee? The blade was sharp, but really no sharper then I have already done? I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong? I used feather light 5k choseras 350 strokes? i'm going to grab anther knife and try again? I'll report latter.

BillWood wrote:


lol, less painful way, just take the hairs off her hairbrush, I usually brush or comb my hair to acquire a hair, it's less painful that way

EamonMcGowan wrote:


Trying another knife is a good idea, to see what you get.

There's a few of YT videos showing some technique doing this.... hair whittling with Wicked Edge. ModifiedZ has one that's almost an hour that's pretty detailed, smokeeater908 has a brief one that's worth watching too. (Both should be near the top of the search).

Nick has a good point in his post... you might try testing your blade as you go.

nicholas6225 wrote:


Brilliant! Solves a big problem for me I no longer have to prowl the halls at Wicked Edge for volunteers, I'll just grab my wife's and daughter's brushes!

Little tip if you're having trouble whittling hair. I have found it's much easier to get a hair to split if you hold the hair by the tip (not the root). Hair is scaley and if you hold it by the tip, you are going against that grain and can get the whittling action started more easily.

If I walked up behind my wife with a knife . . . . . . . she'd turn around and shoot me with her gun !

Oh, you got me wrong. I would never try to cut some of her hair, I just grab a couple and pluck them out.

I watched ModifiedZ video and followed it exactly. Took about four hours to do my knife. It came out seriously sharp! But not hair whittling? I was however able to tree top a couple of arm hairs but even that was pretty sad?
I did notice at the end of ModifiedZ video he writes in he could not whittle hair till he used .5 paste.
Are you guys using the paste or am I just missing the boat?

EamonMcGowan wrote:

I guess I'm into old threads today...

I found that holding the paddles for a consistent angle was key. Since there's play between the paddles and the guide rods, you may not be hitting the bevel exactly the same with each pass (I measured a .4 to .5 degree variation). I used ModifiedZ recommendation: grasp the paddles so your index finger rests at the top and pushes toward the clamp, while rotating your wrist slightly to pull the bottom away from the clamp. This way you hit the bevel at the same angle every time. The first time I tried this, I produced a solid hair whittling edge.

-Pie