I am not persuaded filed vs polished

[trashwood]

if ya go down and buy a tomato knife....ya get a knife with a serrated edge.  ya go down and buy a bread knife ya get a serrated edge.  try finding a survial knife without part of it being serrated.  

if you are tring to cut by pressure only as in pushing down on knife blade then scaple sharp might cut better but if the system you are using (as BH) is cutting by forward motion then I think a file sharp BH shrapened at the proper bevel is the best??????  

If indoubt tring cut thru a 2" hemp hawser using a serrated survial knife and a plain blade.  if ya  look at any fireman/emt rescue knife, how is the cutting edge shape.  did ya every wonder why???

i think it is not the filed edge that is the problem with light blood trials......I just have not had a problem with 3 blade Woodmans file sharpened...period.

shot placement, knowing game anatomy, and paying attention to the angles is the biggest problem.


The reason a butcher knife and scaple are polished edge is that a buthcer wants a smooth  round stake and a doctor wants a nice scar  

been wrong before not sure I am this time though.

rusty

[George D. Stout]

My quickest kills on deer have been with filed heads.  The will still shave hair off my arm, but they are filed heads....not polished.

[Teacher_of_the_Arcane]

Hello,

Understanding that a nicely knapped flint edge is considered sharper than a scalpel, is a flint hunting head serrated, filed, or polished??  
  :D

[sgrogg]

I don't have as many bow kills as a lot of folks on here and I sure as heck ain't no expert........BUT, the ones I've shot with a file sharpened head have left a heck of a blood trail.

I've got a brand new KME sharpener still in the box.  Haven't decided if I should break the seal or just keep using my $5.00 file.  The file is just so quick and convenient.

[RRock]

I read an article once that said the scapels used for brain surgery where made of polished flint. The reason was less trauma to the tissue and less bleeding.

[Sharpster]

Shoo... lots of sharpening threads runnin last couple days!

Rusty,
Haven't met ya but sure have enjoyed your recent posts.

I'm (of course) going to disagree here... heck the thread wouldn't be any fun if everyone agreed on everything.

On the serrated blades... it's been said that serrated blades are best for cutting bread, vegetables and rope. Personally I'll take a honed straight edged blade for any of the above... with the possible exception of the rope.

Here's why, the serrated blade makes a ragged cut and the honed blade makes a clean cut. Rusty, if you cut a piece of bread with your serrated blade it will cut through effortlessly, no doubt about it, but so will my honed edge and my blade will not leave a ton of crumbs on the cutting board. Why? because the honed edge slices each individual "cell" in the loaf perfectly cleanly while the serrated blade pretty much saws or tears through them. Now imagine those "cells" as veins and capillaries... do we want the cut ends to be ragged with lots of little stringy appendages for the blood platelets to get caught on and promote clotting or do we want the ends to be wide open like a fire hose so the platelets and the rest of the blood components just pour out the open ends?

As for Fire and rescue personel using serrated knives there's a very good reason for that too... They aren't interested in making a clean cut, they're only concern is getting the seat belt or whatever cut quickly. couldn't care less what the ends look like after the cut.

More good spirited debate to come on this one for sure.

     

Ron

[George D. Stout]

Scalpels for surgery use obsidian, not flint.

[trashwood]

Ron - disagreement is good and I don't take any of  this personally and got not ego involved in it.    

I am much more practical then theoretical.  Practically a half wit old geezer.    

From a sharp sharp veiw point I would like to know what steel the BH are made of, the quality control on the hardening process, and why some manufactures have indeed recommend the file sharpening process.  I think it is becuase they indeed know what steel is used and the quality of the hardening process. I must say that I have found some difference in the hardness of BH.  

I don't know what rockwell number BH are but if they are not pretty hard sharpening them to ultrasharp might mean they won't get thru big game with the edge in good shape.

I am not a sharpening guru but i do a lot of whittle and wood carving so I do know a little bit about bevels and edge holding ability.....from a practical stand point    

rusty -leave two holes, a high and a low and cut the arota- Craine

[SuperK]

Question:  If a broadhead is not made from metal with a high Rockwell hardness, won't a fine, honed edge "roll over" if it impacts a bone,hair or a muddy hide?  I understand that Grizzly broadheads have very hard steel in them that helps retains their edge.  On broadheads that don't have as hard as steel in them wouldn't a filed edge cut better than an edge that has "rolled over"?  Take two broadheads (maybe not Grizzlys), hone one and file sharpen the other.  Now shoot them both into a foam broadhead target.  Do this a couple of times.  Now feel the edge.  Its been my experience that the filed edge will still give ya a nasty cut while the honed edge feels like you would really have to try to cut yourself.  Does anybody know the Rockwell hardness of most trad. broadheads?

[SuperK]

Hey Trashwood, you posted right before I did.  Seems like were thinking along the same lines...

[trashwood]

SuperK - LOL well in this can't  be great minds thinking like cause I am only sligthly smarter than a pig.....well sometimes I am not that smart     came home with no bacon tonight. they out smarted me......maybe tomorrow

rusty

[trashwood]

of course what ever works for someone....as long as it is working.....i am for them, file or polishing compound

rusty

[JL]

I aways finish off my 2 blade heads with a few strokes on the crock sticks. Pop's hair every time. Sharp is sharp. Excellent shot placement and a sharp head on a well tuned arrow will put meat in the freezer every time. Everything else is just fluff.

JL

[Coonbait]

A good friend of mine is a surgeon and we got into this discusion once. He told me that a ragged cut (saw) tend to heal and clot faster than a clean smooth cut ( scalpel ). Like someone here mentioned ealier, it's easier for the wound to bond to all those little fingers on a ragged cut. But scarring is much worse. Just what I was told. Wouldn't want to find out either way!

[Sharpster]

On traditional glue on heads the rockwells range mid 40s to mid 50s. I think the manufacturer's tend to recommend file sharpening because it's quicker and quite a bit easier to get these heads "sharp" with a file than it is with stones and strops and polishing compounds etc.

Now on the softer steels, bevel angles need to be increased (steepened) to create a crazy sharp edge that will also take some punishment and not roll over like you and SuperK suggested.

Bic shaving razors are a great example of this. The primary grind is done at around 12 degrees. This makes for a wicked sharp edge but it is so fine and fragile that it would fail almost instantaniously. So they then add a second and third microbevel. The second microbevel is done somewhere around 25 dgrees and the third microbevel is polished at over 35 degrees. This way they make the cutting edge far more durable than it would be as a single low angle grind.

Another one that I like to toss out as something comparable to think about is a woodworkers bench or block plane iron. These are honed and stropped to hair plowing sharpness and there aren't many blades of any kind that have to work harder and stay sharp longer than those. These are also sharpened at very steep angles for the same reason.

More to it than just sharpness and rockwell hardness... bevel geometry is also critical in creating the sharpest and most durable cutting edges we can.

Ron

[trashwood]

Ron - agreed.  a good Hock plane blade honed to ultrasharp is a thing of beauty.  Ya can peel smoke fine shavings off wood.....ah till ya hit a knot     then it is back to the 800 water stone, 1200 water stone, then of course 4000 and 8000.

Now if ya look from the other point of view I give $50 for a Hock plane blade and $22 for 6 BH and there is a lot of put it together time in a three blade BH.  So in the final cut...do I want knot busting or skimming smoke off a fine piece of clear ash???

coonbait - i think you Doc friend is correct.....where I don't get the comparison is that a wound channel left by a file sharpen woodsman is a long way for jagged.  I can show ya a thumb scar on my left hand the filled two hand towels with my blood and was dripping on the ER floor before the ER doc ever got to it     cut was caused by a file sharp WW

rusty

[trashwood]

if ya really want to pull smoke off a clear fine piece of wood I recommend one of these at $120 a copy

Master of blacksmiths Kouichi Kobayashi forge-welds best quality high carbon "Blue" steel to soft wrought iron obtained from old ship anchors. To assure a razor sharp, long-lasting edge, each iron is carefully double tempered to Rockwell c66. The heavy chip breaker is hand-forged from laminated steels to improve stability and cutting effect. Blade width is 2-3/8˝ (60mm)and cutting width is 2˝.
The plane iron is hand forged in the small town of Yoita by Mr. Kobayashi. 15 years ago, upon the retirement of his father, he became a master blacksmith. This followed 25 years of apprenticeship and training as a journeyman.

.......in a 45 degree Dia.  

ya see it is not that I don't know how to sharpen and care for a truely fine edge, it is that I don't think it is the best tool for the job under discussion.  just a difference in opinion and neither point of view in this case is going to be easy to prove    

rusty

[Sharpster]

Originally posted by trashwood:
Now if ya look from the other point of view I give $50 for a Hock plane blade and $22 for 6 BH and there is a lot of put it together time in a three blade BH.  So in the final cut...do I want knot busting or skimming smoke off a fine piece of clear ash???

rusty

Rusty, I think we want both! or at least the best compromise between the two extremes. I try not to include the labor factor into the equasion. I want the sharpest most durable cutting edges I can get on my broadheads and how much time it takes... well, that's what it takes.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone,

Ron

[trashwood]

Same back at ya, Ron.  in the end we want exactly the thing a happy thanks giving and a short blood trail     I bet we both get them

rusty

[Sharpster]

Rusty,

It's certainly been fun. I look forward to doin it again sometime soon!

Now get out there an out smart one of those big ol hogs. We'll want to see pics of the bloodtrail of course, short as it may be.
 

Ron