Bess Edge-on-Up numbers

[Thomas Brannan]

I just received a Bark River Classic Drop Point hunter in S45VN.  The blade is .156” at the spine and the knife came with a convex edge.

I do what I think most people do when they receive a new knife.  You look it over, see if it will shave the hair on your arm, see if the blade will stick to your finger nail, and then slice some paper.  All really scientific 😀.  All-in-all I was not overly impressed with my initial findings.  It kind of shaved some hair (but it sure did not pop off my arm), it kind of stuck to my nail, it kind of felt sharp when I was lightly running my fingers across the edge, but it did slice paper very effortlessly…. But once again… I was kind of like – meh.

So I headed out to my garage and fired up the Bess Edge-On-Up tester and I was shocked when the numbers came back at roughly 160.  According to the Bess measurement scale 160 is indeed a sharp knife.  And I have been using this sharpness tester long enough to feel confident in the numbers that it gives me.

So what’s going on?  Does the convex edge make the blade “feel” not as sharp?  Is it possible edge thickness is influencing me?

Why are all the subjective test unimpressive, but the more quanitiate (like acutal slicing of paper) or the Bess knife sharpner results so drastically different?

Can someone shed some light on this for me?

And I have attached a photo showing the four arenas on the blade that I tested multiple times and the average result that I received.

Thanks – Tom

 

• This topic was modified 1 year, 9 months ago by Thomas Brannan.

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