A sharp knife is safer...

A sharp knife is easier to control, and requires less force than 'less than sharp knives' can. There is a better chance to get hurt when pushing and forcing a knife to cut, and the cuts are usually much more sloppy than when using a properly sharpened knife/tool.
 
knifenut1013 said:
never too sharp...
The knife is not dangerous the user is.
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65535 said:
Don't blame the tool.
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230grains said:
you should probably pay closer attention.
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knarfeng said:
If you cut yourself testing the edge you are doing it wrong.
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Edgyone said:
Hmmm.

A knife's edge should never be sharper than the user...
:D:o:D
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Planterz said:
Less effort, combined with predictability...The only time a knife can be "too sharp" is when the user is careless.
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merlin49 said:
I have been trying to get an edge too sharp for almost 60 years and have never made it. Some of are pretty sharp but never too sharp.
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Never Too Sharp
 
ctbrew, guess I'm old school. Your knife needs to be as sharp as possible, consistent with it's intended role and the material it is made from.

With regards to restaurant work, I have owned, and managed, and worked in food service for most of my life. My observation has been that the most serious knife accidents were the result of a dull knife being worked to hard or fast.
 
I have a knife that is too sharp, I keep it in my car that is too powerful. Sometimes my woman (who is too good in bed, and too beautiful) comments that I am too handsome, and she complains (but not too much) that the meals I prepare taste far too good....

This whole topic is preposterous.

Enjoy your knife as sharp (or dull) as you prefer!
 
On my recent hunt when I shot a 400 lb Boar one of the property owners hopped right on the boar to start gutting him with his dull S&W fixed blade. Right before he started I said I had a really sharp knife (my Spyderco Mule which was hair whittling sharp) in case he needed one. He started trying to open up the animal and barely got a few inches with some serious force and I told him my blade would make life easier. He grabbed my knife and in shocking speed had the pig opened up with the innards out of the animal without a Nick on him. He could have had a nasty would using his hunting knife, instead he easily got the job done with a very sharp knife in no time and asked me to sharpen his knife like mine. It was the least I could do to sharpen his knife for letting me on his property to get hogzilla, though I said my knife's M4 steel gets sharper than any other I've tried. It didn't stop me from putting a 2000 grit hair whittling edge on his blade ( he does a lot of skinning so I left a bit of tooth) that he is extremely happy with, and no cuts to be found on him.

I have cut my thumb in half lengthwise to the top of my thumbnail being stupid with my Spyderco Native a couple years ago. Lots of pressure from gauze made it stop bleeding by time the ER Doc saw me, and she marveled a cut could be so clean. She was shocked a pocket knife could do that, she said it looked like a giant scalpal did it (after a recent trip the Doctor I found out scalpals are surprisingly dull, my edges are WAY sharper) and she sewed up the meat of my thumb and left the nail alone. The nail never even fell off, and to this day you have to look super close to see the scar from that incident. A dull knife may not have gone all the way through, but at minimum would have made a ragged , ugly cut. I'll go with sharper every time.

Mike
 
Saying a knife is too sharp is like saying a firearm is too accurate .

No such thing as too sharp , just like with everything in life , education and attention is the key , and must be exercised when using.
 
I handle my knives every day without incident. The only time I've cut myself within the last few years was cutting fruit with someones dull kitchen knife. I'm sure if I had used whatever pocket knife I had at the time, I wouldn't have cut myself.
 
I bought a knife that was dull, so I sharpened it. With a bit of work it felt reasonably sharp, but wouldn't take the hairs off my arm. So I stopped for lunch and tested the knife on a tomato - it was friggin' useless. So I went back to sharpening and kept at it until it could shave. I cut a tomato for dinner with it and it worked well. Now if a knife cannot shave the hairs off my arm then it is NOT sharp enough to be an effective cutting tool for me!

There are exceptions of course - my butter knives don't need to be particularly sharp. But apart from them my fixed blades and my folding blades and my SAK blades and my multitool blades - all are either sharp enough to shave or are in need of a touch up with a sharpener.

Too sharp doesn't exist, but too careless definitely does.
 
knarfeng said:
At no point is the knife "too sharp". If you cut yourself testing the edge you are doing it wrong.

This is not to say that there are not different types of edges for different types of cutting. But "too sharp"? Never in my experience.
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what he said. and also if you cut yourself with a really sharp knife it is easy to close up. if you get cut with a dull knife it could cut you more jagged thus making it harder to close your wound. at least those are my 2 cents.
 
gunmike1 said:
On my recent hunt when I shot a 400 lb Boar one of the property owners hopped right on the boar to start gutting him with his dull S&W fixed blade. Right before he started I said I had a really sharp knife (my Spyderco Mule which was hair whittling sharp) in case he needed one. He started trying to open up the animal and barely got a few inches with some serious force and I told him my blade would make life easier. He grabbed my knife and in shocking speed had the pig opened up with the innards out of the animal without a Nick on him. He could have had a nasty would using his hunting knife, instead he easily got the job done with a very sharp knife in no time and asked me to sharpen his knife like mine. It was the least I could do to sharpen his knife for letting me on his property to get hogzilla, though I said my knife's M4 steel gets sharper than any other I've tried. It didn't stop me from putting a 2000 grit hair whittling edge on his blade ( he does a lot of skinning so I left a bit of tooth) that he is extremely happy with, and no cuts to be found on him.



I have cut my thumb in half lengthwise to the top of my thumbnail being stupid with my Spyderco Native a couple years ago. Lots of pressure from gauze made it stop bleeding by time the ER Doc saw me, and she marveled a cut could be so clean. She was shocked a pocket knife could do that, she said it looked like a giant scalpal did it (after a recent trip the Doctor I found out scalpals are surprisingly dull, my edges are WAY sharper) and she sewed up the meat of my thumb and left the nail alone. The nail never even fell off, and to this day you have to look super close to see the scar from that incident. A dull knife may not have gone all the way through, but at minimum would have made a ragged , ugly cut. I'll go with sharper every time.

Mike
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got any pictures of your mule?
 
I let a guy at work borrow my Case Peanut recently when he couldn't find his own knife (a cheap, gas station-looking thing when I saw it later).

When he returned my Peanut the next day, he complained that it was too sharp, and showed me the cut on his finger. I shrugged and said "it's not much use if it's dull."
 
Did anyone else notice the original poster was talking about bread knives in a sandwich shop? Don't leave the knives laying on the counter to have an "occasional brush" with how about that? There's a zillion other intelligent things you could do with that setup to avoid cuts, especially when things are done in a prep line.

Stupid topic. Where's my deadhorse?
 
Kaizen1 said:
I think the big problem regarding sharpness has to do mainly with what a person has grown accustomed to. If someone is used to using more pressure because they tend to deal with dull knives, then we can see why they might have trouble with the sharper knife. Their cutting technique was developed based on a dull knife. This can happen the other way around. If someone is used to dealing with super sharp knives, then he might not be familiar with struggling with a duller knife for the same reason, his technique is based on a super sharp knife.
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Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing!
We have a winner! :thumbup:
 
The only knife I've ever had more than a tiny (paper-cut bad or less) cut with was a DULL knife that rolled off and across my fingers. Sharp is safe.

I think the problem with sharpening other's knives is that it's too much at once. If you make them a bit sharper and then let them get used to it and rinse/repeat, they'll be able to handle it and it won't be as scary. I can see how someone used to leaning into a cut might not know what to do when presented with an atom-splitting edge.
 
The way i see it, if your consistently cutting yourself and then in return decide to keep your knives less sharp, you may allow you knife to get to that point where its not so easy to get the edge back which requires lots more sharpening. Sharpening knives is where alot of ppl end up cutting themsleves so i guess its a lose lose situation for you (not the OP, ppl in general).

Keep em sharp!

perch
 
knifenut1013 said:
The knife is not dangerous the user is.
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Best post in the thread so far. :)

I worked in a slaughter house for 2 years and saw more people injured trying to cut hide with a dull knife then those cutting it with a sharp knife. Mine were ALWAYS razor sharp and I was so good at my job because before my break was up every day i would touch my blades up on the stone to make my knives do the bulk of the work for me. Carpal tunnel can be formed when using excessive pressure in the palm of your hand.
 
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