One collector's comment about blade thickness changed my whole sharpening routine

I was at a knife meet in Portland last spring and a guy looked at my custom drop point and said the edge angle was way too steep for the steel, which I thought was nonsense at first. He explained how the blade thickness affects how the edge rolls under pressure, so I went home and reprofiled it from 20 degrees down to 17, and now it slices through cardboard like butter without chipping. Has anyone else gotten feedback like that that made you rework your whole setup, or do you stick with what feels right until it fails?

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olivia_wilson1mo ago

That bit about reworking your whole setup caught my eye. It's funny how one small comment can flip a switch. Same thing happened to me with my guitar strings a few years back. I'd been using the same gauge for a decade because it was what I started with, never once thinking about how it matched my playing style. A buddy pointed out I was fighting the strings more than playing them, so I switched to a lighter set and suddenly barre chords weren't a workout. It's like that with a lot of things, you get locked into a habit and don't question it until someone gives you a better frame. Then you wonder why you didn't see it yourself sooner.