Sharpest knife you’ve ever seen?

AntDog

AntDog

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Apr 3, 2001
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What’s the sharpest knife you’ve ever seen in person? What did you do to check how sharp it was?

The sharpest knife I’ve ever seen in person was one of these (Shiva Ki Mercenary). It would easily whittle hair and slice free hanging toilet paper and kleenex. I went to try to shave a patch of hair off my arm and it bit - instantly started cutting skin.

 
I’ve been slowly learning with a guided system, but have sent many out to professionals ,for that “insane” edge. The sharpest production knife ,factoring in thickness of the stock, was a new San Mai (made in Japan) CS Trailmaster. The convex edge would easily pop hairs and whittle thin receipt paper.
 
I don’t know if it was just me being a new knife collector or not but the sharpest knife I remember handling was a Compass Industries Sliver Falcon that I bought in 1981 or thereabouts.

Being somewhat inexperienced at the time. I wiped the blade on my shirt to remove my fingerprints and it cut right through the shirt and gave me a nice little slash on my belly.
 
Mine.....

I'm definitely not a sharpening expert, but I like a sharp knife. What I consider a good starting point for knife edges that can handle super sharp edges. Not all knives are for that. Thick edge chopper, as an example.....

On Sharp knives I like to fillet paper sheets.
Cutting them flat is much harder than cutting through the edge of the paper.

this was just before finishing the knife




This was the closest that I came to cutting myself, without really cutting myself.
I was checking the edge, and just knicked myself..... It could of been Worse.
Yikes, it was sharp....I'm sure it's even Sharper, with the new owner! :D
 
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Win Heger said:
I love your Shiva Ki pieces. My sharpest have been my Jimmy Fikes, incredible cutting ability and edge retention. They’ll carve hair, too,



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Those Shiva Ki knives are not mine, and it’s not my photo. Just wanted to illustrate what the mercs look like for those who might not know.

A good friend of mine had a two spirit blades and a merc years ago. They were the sharpest things I’ve ever seen in person (by a long shot).
 
Railsplitter said:
I don’t know if it was just me being a new knife collector or not but the sharpest knife I remember handling was a Compass Industries Sliver Falcon that I bought in 1981 or thereabouts.

Being somewhat inexperienced at the time. I wiped the blade on my shirt to remove my fingerprints and it cut right through the shirt and gave me a nice little slash on my belly.
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I have a buck 110 from 1997 that is probably the sharpest knife I own I did a cut test just the other day with the cardboard box that my floor jack came in and the amount of force the 110 required was less than my Large Sebenza MC and Hogue Deka MC, all three were stropped prior to testing. This particular Buck seems to ba an anomaly, I have 4 others and this is way sharper and always was right out of the box.
 
Well it certainly isn’t the one in my pocket, that’s for sure. Poor thing has some edge damage and desperately needs some work.

I’d say the absolute sharpest was a German straight razor. Sharpest normal knife was probably my old carbon steel opinel. That thing got stupid sharp real fast.
 
I recently went through all of my collection, and double checked them. I was surprised to note that the sharpest knives I own are not all big name customs, and exotic steels. most of them are mid grade stainless and carbon. infact I own two that can whittle hair from root to stem. they are the two wood handled Imperials from the late sixties, early seventies. I don't think I could get $15 out of them. as I recall, the steel used by Imperial back then was 440A.

The other double hair whittling sharp one is the Case folding Hunter

The rest of them will all whittle hair from tip to root only.

Two Helles, Fallkniven F1, Behring Knives Pro LT is the orange cord wrap, Buck 110, forementioned Case and the Imperials, benchmade mini Reflex, and finally, the Demko with an AUS 10 blade.

My sharpening is currently improving a bit month to month, but my S30V, S35V, S45V, etc. Has still never made it past hair whittling in one direction only.

Oh! and I nearly forgot, all of my David Mary knives are good for hair whittling one direction, sometimes two. i think it depends on the technique and the individual hair.
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Seriously though there is hair whittling (which isn't all that hard to achieve) and there is really great real world cutting ability which is another thing entirely.

I have gotten bevel up woodworking hand plane blades with 55 degree inclusive sharpening bevels to super easily cut repeated curls off the same hair while the hair is still in my arm but I wouldn't want to try the following tricks with it . . .

An edge that surprised and pleased me was one of my Cold Steel SRKs in 3V that I thinned and reprofiled the crap out of . . . put one of those "worthless" polished edges on it . It turned out to be around 12 degrees per side and ~ ten thou behind the edge .

I had a coworker take a video of it cutting , to send to his family member who makes custom knives for a living :
held the knife in my non dominate hand (left hand) . . . I slowly cut a curl off the end of my finger nail on my dominate hand and was able to just stop before the curl fell off .
That's my test for most of my EDC edges but always using my dominate (right hand) to hold the knife .

I have one or two more acute knives I use at work to cut soft rubber products . They wouldn't hold up to everyday EDC but when I spray some denatured or light oil on the blade and rubber and make a cut the finish on the rubber is shiny (even when cleaned up and dry) like it was molded that way / factory perfect .

ha ha one of those knives will cut through super big (half inch) wire ties so easy it is like : " What ? When are going to cut something ? I'm waiting . . ."
the edge does start to get kind of wavy and distorted if I make a regular habit of cutting huge wire ties with it though .
 
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