Novelty Cutlery Co... driving me slowly toward the ceiling fan with rope in hand
This thing is making me crazy. It's a Novelty 5/8 I got a while back that I'm doing a restore on. When I got it, it was just the blade, and apparently someone had started to restore it but decided not to. The blade was in very good shape, but it had been breadknifed. So, I ran it through the hone gauntlet. 1000 King, 4000/8000 Norton, 12,000(?) Chinese... not sharp enough. I decided that maybe I needed to lap my hones, perhaps that was the reason it wasn't coming out the way I wanted. So, I lapped them all down. Sure enough, my 4000 was in odd shape, so I thought I may have solved the problem. Took it to the 1000 to reset the bevel, checking it with my loupe throughout the whole thing, got it looking beautiful and passing the TNT and shavin'.... ok, well, not shaving arm hair, because like many of you fine upstanding gentlemen, my left forearm looks like the goddamn Bonneville Salt Flats; so I have resorted to my calf. (thank god for winter weather and the overall lack of temperatures requiring shorts)
Long story short... I'm convinced the bevel is good. Ran it through a 15/5, 10/5, 5/5, 3/5, 1/5, 1/5 pyramid until it would pass the... uh... calf hair test, then moved it up to 1/5, 1/5, 3/5, 5/5, 3/5, 1/5, 1/5, 1/7. Just like with the bevel, I've been looking at this damn thing through a loupe the whole time, edge looks slick. TPT felt great, but I couldn't get it to pass the HHT to save my life. I decided, "Well, many people say the HHT isn't all that accurate necessarily anyway." So I moved on to the 12,000 for about 60 licks... starting with a slurry, then diluting every 10 passes until the water was clear as the Gulf of Mexico used to be. The TPT? Sharpest, smoothest thing I've ever had my hands on that wasn't a woman. Still, no HHT. Decided f#%k the HHT, stropped and shaved. Lotta pulling and scraping... took it back to the second 4000/8000 pyramid and repeated steps 6 through 10 or whatever. Still no good. Repeated again, same results. Any new approach ideas would be appreciated. I have no idea at this point.
This is the first time I've tried any blade that was at the complete starting line... tis driving me crazy after all the hours I've put into it.
