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My Grandfather's whittling knife after 2 months of daily use
I've been sharpening and carving with his old Opinel for 60 days straight and the blade actually looks DIFFERENT now, thinner and more curved from all the stropping. Anybody else notice their tools changing shape over time like that?
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adamr144d ago
Yeah my grandpa's old knife went through the same thing and I thought I was losing my mind. You're basically sanding away metal every time you strop it so of course the profile changes over time. Two months of daily use is a lot of strokes on that blade even if you're gentle. It's not a bad thing necessarily unless you've somehow made it wonky looking. Just means you're actually using the thing instead of letting it sit in a drawer.
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the_faith4d ago
And another thing people don't think about is how the angle changes as you go. When the blade gets thinner that edge is sitting at a slightly different angle against the stone. So now you're not even sharpening the same way you started. It's a whole new geometry on that thing. I noticed after a while my knife was actually slicing through paper smoother than when it was new, but it felt different in the hand.
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the_richard4d ago
Man I honestly thought I was the only one who noticed this. @adamr14 you said it exactly right. I used to think a blade just stayed the same shape forever unless you ground it down on purpose. But after sharpening my own knife for a few months straight I saw it getting visibly thinner too. It makes total sense when you think about it though. Every time you strop or hone you're basically scraping off a microscopic layer of steel. Over time that adds up and changes the whole profile. It's not something you'd notice unless you're looking at it every day.
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