Injuring yourself with a knife - was it SHARP or DULL?

I heard this a lot when I was a cook, reason being , when you are cutting something with a sharp knife, most of the time you keep your form, fingers curled in , thumb pushes the food out and the chefs knife chops down off the outside of your knuckles.

I saw a guy cutting carrots with a dull, dull knife, and when he was struggling to cut threw the carrot, he lost his form, started pushing hard , and his thumb moved out under the chefs knife. Chopped off his thumb, about half way up his finger nail.
We put his thumb on ice, put it in his pocket and rushed to the hospital.
They were not able to reattach it.
 
I always heard that a dull knife is more dangerous because you tend to push hard to cut stuff and slip. But the sharp knife is less forgiving.
Once I was sharpening a Vantage pro. I looked at the edge on one side, looked at the other side, and noticed a little white thing on the edge. I realized I had my left hand a little too close to the knife when I turned it over to look, and took off the very top layer of skin on my finger. Never felt a thing. "Sharp enough, I said."

You know how when you are lifting heavy furniture, you are careful to lift with your knees, not your back- keep your weight centered, etc? And then you throw your back out reaching for a pencil at some careless, awkward angle? Would you say that light things are more dangerous than heavy things?
 
Cut my thumb in half with a very sharp fixed blade. Also I had a dull knife close on my hand and do some damage, but it only would of been far worse if it were sharp. I've never understood that expression
 
The only times I've cut myself there's always 3 common factors. A sharp knife, alcohol, and boredom :D
 
A dull knife is suppose to be dangerous because the user will have to compensate and thats when mistakes are made.

if I handed you my chef knife and you examined the edge, I will bet that youd respect the edge.


a dull knife will cause large scar while scary sharp wound would heal clean.
 
I've cut myself with dull and sharp various ways.

Dull blades frighten me. I cut a LOT. My hand speed is 100% mechanical and muscle memory. If the blade is dull I can't rely on my experience to put the knife where it goes with full confidence that it will cut into what I intended it to rather than skip off and go some other direction (like my knuckle).

as a side note I've never cut myself using the blade in a production manner.

Mostly from handling them in an unusual manner... Like hastily wiping a razor sharp blade off the stone.
 
Cannot recall ever getting cut by a dull knife. Last time I got cut bad, sometime back in the early 90's when I first got into the larger knives. My first was a Spyderco tufram coated aluminum full serrated Police model. Had it close on me accidentally. Yeah, it bit me good. One thing to be said for sharp knives, is the cuts usually heal pretty fast due to the cleanness of the cut. Think I wore a bandage for two or three hours, after that it did not bleed anymore.

Once in awhile, I get a small cut on one of my fingers whilst sharpening. Nothing to write home about and they never require a bandaid or anything else to control the bleeding. A bit of pressure for a few minutes, all done with.

I do not own any dull knives at this point. A dull knife is a useless knife. Mine are all folding scalpels. They'll cut you if you look at them cross-eyed. They magically jump out of my pocket and bite. ;-)
 
Yeah, it's kind of a silly saying. I think the dangerous thing is not a "dull" knife really, but one that's semi-sharp -- dull enough to bind up and require pressure, but sharp enough to still bite you.

All of my cuts have been with wicked sharp knives, AFAIR. Last month I damn near cut the top of my left index finger off with a Spyderco Persian... worst cut I've ever had, couldn't use the finger for about a month. Actually, still can barely type with it. Got a weird bump there where it healed.. hoping it goes away! Just remember to always pay attention when using a knife. I'd say that a scary sharp blade is more dangerous, as you can easily cut through tendons and other vital things.
 
I cut myself running my thumb down the SPINE of a knife - it was squared at 90 degrees. Took me completely by surprise when I saw blood everywhere!
 
Were on a forum full of knife enthusiasts I think we have a very strong bias to having sharp knives over dull ones compared to the average public. And yes last time I cut myself with a knife it was a with sharp knife, I don't own any dull knives.
 
I've been cut with both sharp and dull blades. If I recall, the dull blade injuries were more serious.
 
This happened some fifteen years ago, I was young and didn't know how to sharpen knives. There was a hole in the garden hose near its end, so I wanted to cut this part off. My Opinel was as dull as the usual non-knife nuts knife is, and that which should have been an edge simply glided over the outer layer of the garden hose. Now how everybody who has spent some time working with dull knives knows, the key to success in such a case is to puncture the object that needs to be cut with the tip and then use the "edge" to saw through. Combine this ingenious strategy with my then careless habit of not locking the Opinel when I needed it only for a single cut and the result is as follows:

"I need to cut that garden hose"
"Fish out Opinel and open, no need to lock, I'll make this one cut fast, I need to get this done"
"Damn, can't cut this hose with a regular knife edge, better puncture it with the tip"

Of course the knife folded on my index finger, I've put enough pressure on the tip that, even though the blade was dull, my finger was cut almost to the bone. That scar is clearly visible to this day. I've learned a lot from this incident - I haven't cut myself deep enough worth mentioning since then.
 
I've cut myself twice since getting into knives, both of them needed stitches. The first time was with a Spyderco Zulu that I had just received that was one of the sharpest knives I've ever received out of the box. I was very excited to have finally got it in the mail (it was the only overseas trade I've ever done so it took longer than usual) so I opened up the packing and pulled the knife out of the box while walking to the couch. I opened up the blade right as I got to the couch, and the knife was so gorgeous (and exactly what I had been looking for) that I got kind of glued to it and ran into the couch and DROPPED the Zulu. :eek: I immediately picked up my knife and sat down to inspect it and make sure it didn't get damaged, but when I sat down my knee felt weird... I hadn't noticed that the knife had sliced me on the way down, it didn't even bleed for the first few minutes. And it never hurt, until the next day when I tried to go to work with six stitches in my knee. The cut wasn't very deep, about 3/16ths of an inch deep and 1 1/4 inch long.

Second time I cut myself was with a dull knife. :confused: I was in the middle of tinkering with an old machete (basically scrap, just something to practice on before I try to make my first knife). At the time I was adding jimping to the spine, so I had the knife in a vise with the spine up and the edge facing down. I had the vise as tight as I could so the filing wouldn't shake the knife too much, so when I when I was finished for the day I went to loosen the vise, but it was very VERY stiff... I put some put some force behind it and pulled up sharply and the lever flipped up and threw my hand into the blade. Now the blade was dull, but not rounded or flat, it was just an old jacked up edge that happened to be thin enough to cut if enough force was added. Now this cut was NOTHING like the cut on my knee, this one I FELT... It hurt like hell and bled like crazy. The cut was on my thumb, just below the knuckle at a slight angle across my thumb. Luckily the cut didn't hit either of the two tendons that are in that area.
 
far as i remember all mine were sharp. excluding this mornings straight razor slip while shaving. my last few were from fondling a tenacious and polishing the back of an elk skinner. between those 2 the elk skinner was worse, polished past the tip & cam back down under the blade. Cut my index finger right down to the bone just below the finger nail.
 
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