How Do You Test Knife Sharpness?

[AKY]

Thaddeus touched upon what I was going to say about edges. Edges that are good shavers are very smooth and usually thinner. This is a 'push' cut. Edges with serrations, ones you can see and ones you can't see (micro serrations), are good slicers.

A knife that can cut hair (of course I do this!) will not necessarily by efficient at cutting rope. This is why we have serrated edges. Case in point. Ever try to slice a loaf of bread with a hard crust using a plain edge? Sharp or not, it won't perform optimally. You most likely will end up mashing the bread all to hell. That's why we have 'bread knives' - serrations.

All I'm trying to say, and others have touched upon this as well, is that what is sharp for one task is not necessarily sharp for another. I believe Blade or Tactical Knives magazine had an article about this very thing.

Me? I shave the cat. That fine hair is a good test!

TTFN,Tony

 

[Bob Irons]

Dogs butts and cats fine hair! Hope the PETA folks don't hear about this forum!

They usually don't have much of a sense of humor.

I usually cut my bread with a little levity, a lot of thankfullness - and that bread knife helps too!

 

[Bartman]

This thread is killing me! I was laughing so hard I dropped my Socom(was playing with it)..Shaveing my hand, it fell on the floor a stuck right in my big toe..Stocking feet. Those Mini socoms have really sharp tips!!

NO *&$%!! I think it stuck in the bone!!
Well just thought I'd tell you that. Who's got the hairy fingernails?

This has been one funny thread..Only knife nuts would understand..No actually these replys would be funny to SEINFELD! LOL
Later guys

 

[Frank]

Bartman, as soon as I turned 40, hair started growing out of my ears, nostrils and fingernails. Pretty depressing. Which side of your hand were you shaving?


------------------
Frank
jqsurf@worldnet.att.net

 

[Bob Irons]

Speaking of hair. Do you all remember seeing those werewolf kids on the Guiness World Records TV show. Just think of all the testing they could do before running out of hair!

Wonder if they're knife nuts?

[This message has been edited by Bob Irons (edited 10 March 1999).]

 

[Doug Mason]

I do all of the above.

- Run it on the Sharpmaker for a bit then do the drag-down-the-thumbnail. This will let me check the blade in sections and by leaning it one way or the other I can feel the drag change if there is still a slight burr.

- Drag across the thumbpad. This seems to be a good test to see how thin you have the edge

- Post-It pads. I have about a zillion Post-It notes on my coffetable. You get 'em free when you buy anything from Amazon.com and I guess I've pilfered them from years of office work. They have a very consistant thickness and once you get a "feel" for how a sharp knife can cut them it is a quick and easy compare, plus you can slice in blade sections to make sure you have the entire edge done evenly.

I was at a knife show once and we were was talking about the sharpness of a particular knife in front of me. We pulled it open to do a quick shave test and of the three of us (me and two strangers), none of us had any (visible) hair left on our arms or hands to test it! We all looked at each other and just laughed.

--Doug