Too Sharp

B

Blue-Fox

Joined
Dec 8, 2013
Messages
16
Have heard that you can get a knife too sharp to cut tomatos.

I have never got a knife that sharp. Could someone with more sharpening experience please tell me if it is possible to get a knife so sharp it won't cut a tomato.

You could cut a tomato with a piece of rebar if that is all you had so please tell me what they are talking about.
 
The concept might be that you can get an edge too refined to cut some materials, IOW a toothier edge might cut some materials better. But I think any edge that is reasonably sharp would cut a tomato one way or another.
 
Its more about knowing how to cut a tomato and use a knife .

Usually more a problem of people being used to semi sharp serrated edges on $2 "vegetable" knives and not knowing what to do with a really sharp non serrated edge .

Youre average sushi chef will put paid to the myth tho , they make art out of food , they dont use an old ginsu to do it .
 
That video by smokeeater908 is a good one. Awfully nice folders also...a lot better than I work with...
 
Hearing the knives slam into the tile counter, then scrape across it...
Click to expand...

Not positive, but I think it looks like linoleum or something similar.
 
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Blue-Fox said:
Have heard that you can get a knife too sharp to cut tomatos.

I have never got a knife that sharp. Could someone with more sharpening experience please tell me if it is possible to get a knife so sharp it won't cut a tomato.
Click to expand...

No. The person who said that is clueless. Why are you listening to them and giving their crackpottery any credence?
 
I can get a knife hair whittling sharp, it still cuts tomatoes with ease. Is that still too dull to be too sharp?
 
Pretty sure you can cut a tomato with a microtome blade if you really wanted to. And if that isn't "too sharp" to cut than nothing is.
 
Blue-Fox said:
Now is your chance to reply if you ever got a knife too sharp to cut a tomato.:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I have been waiting for exactly this chance. Here is the story:

I had a tomato that went too soft and a bunch of knives. Decided to have a tomato cut off challenge. BK13, Opinel, Blur Tanto, SOG Spec Elite Auto, Case Tiny Toothpick, some others and my Higo No Kami. Lets focus on the Higo. I like to strop it while I watch TV (Black, Green then bare leather). It is sharp. Hair popping sharp. Phone book paper slicing sharp. But NOT skin cutting sharp. I can run my fingers along the edge and I am sure if I pushed hard enough to get it started it would result in a very clean and deep cut. But the initial pressure required to initiate the cut feels like it would be much higher than the BK13, Case and especially the opinel.

Now I have spent a lot of time on this forum and believe I have over-stropped it and rounded off the edge. There are no teeth on the edge. Very smooth. And it will of course cut a tomato but requires a lot more length of the blade to be pulled along the surface to initiate the cut. Once started it cuts easily. The blade geometry is not as conducive to slicing as the Opinel and I understand that but…

...the point being is it very sharp by common testing methods and many would say it is too sharp to cut a tomato.

I have a video of the Tomato CutOff 2014 (made it to show my brother) but it is 12MB and I don't have or want a Youtube account. If some techno member wants to post it I will email it to you and you can post. It shows the "too sharp" principle and what I believe the OP described very well.
 
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