With the most demanding tests, the edge oxidation effects the result. Immediately before those tests the edge should be stropped on clean smooth leather or clean linen to restore its original sharpness.
Chromium in stainless steel reacts with the oxygen in the air to form a passive complex chrome-oxide surface layer that prevents further oxygen from rusting the surface.
This film thickness originally is 3-5 nm, but can reach 20 nm on mechanically polished surface, i.e. worsen sharpness score by 5 to 20 BESS.
5 to 20 nm added to the apex radius, multiply by 2 in terms of thickness, i.e. 0.01 to 0.04 micron of added edge apex thickness.
Practically it means that the most challenging sharpness tests like the top HHT, that you can perform immediately after sharpening you can not an hour later. Oxidation can easily change your sharper than razor edge to just safety razor sharp if not duller, which is not enough for the most challenging tests.
Finally I've got a full assortment of Rizla cigarette rolling papers.
From the Rizla website: "The variation of thicknesses determines how long the paper burns for, Red papers are the thickest so burn the fastest while Silver are thinner and burn the slowest."
Smokers know that pleasure from a cigarette partly depends on how fast it burns.
I've got Rizla Silver - the thinnest, then goes Blue, Green, Orange, and Red is thickest.
Tested them for cross push-cut with the same blades I used to test Tally-Ho rolling paper:
Wilkinson Sword DE safety razor - scores 30 BESS on the PT50 edge sharpness tester, has 0.05-0.06 micron edge apex width; and
a knife that scores 20-25 BESS, i.e. about 0.04 micron edge apex width.
With the Tally-Ho rolling paper, the Wilkinson Sword razor almost passes the test, but the cut is somewhat rough; the knife passes cleanly.
Silver - Wilkinson Sword razor - clean push-cut
Blue - Wilkinson Sword razor - clean push-cut
Green - Wilkinson Sword razor - clean push-cut
Orange - Wilkinson Sword razor - roughens the paper
Red - Wilkinson Sword razor - tears the paper
Silver - Knife - clean push-cut
Blue - Knife - clean push-cut
Green - Knife - clean push-cut
Orange - Knife - clean push-cut
Red - Knife - roughens the paper
The most resemblance with the Tally-Ho rolling paper has Rizla Green.
Results contradict our intuitive expectation that a thinner paper would be harder to cut.
I've updated the chart on our website
http://knifegrinders.com.au/Manuals/Sharpness_Chart.pdf