What really dulls your knives?

Cardboard really seems to dull my super fine and acute edges also I've found Zip ties and other plastic products to be edge killers as well.
 
I find that air really dulls my knives. I flick it open a few times and it doesn't seem as sharp as it was so I constantly go and strop it.

:p
 
Originally Posted by davek14
Scraping burrs off metal parts at work. Any suggestions as to a steel which will hold up to THAT.
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Yeah, you'll be using a file, so whatever steel that is.
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Use the spine of the blade instead of the edge
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I've been looking for a pocket knife with a real metal-cutting file as its small blade. Even Leatherman multi-tools (which would be too big) have softer, more wood cutting files.

Using the spine is great advise for some uses. I'm talking more like cutting/scraping a burr off as you would with a sharpened three corner file.

The right tool for the job is the one you have handy if it works. As long as you are aware of its limitations.
If I have many parts to do this to, I get a sharpened file. If I have one or two, I reach into my back pocket.

:)
 
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I believe other parameters are important as well to determine edge-retention for a blade - the type of heat treatment, and the edge geometry. For eg., the s30v on my Spyderco Sage dulls faster than the one on Ritter mini-grip. :-)
 
Errr.. this thread isn't too old so I will add my 2 cents. I have found that no matter what steel I use (benchmades new M390 on the afck) after cutting everything I cut there will always be grains of sand, mud, grit, etc. that will ding the edges of the blades. So using a buck 420HC or Benchmade M390 doesn't make a whole lot of difference for me, other then the parts not getting dinged stay sharp longer. On a recent fishing trip I got out on shore and got a plastic mountain dew bottle laying on the beach and cut the top off so that I could fill up my live well. Cut the top of it off using the benchmade M390, then noticed it had some grit on the inside of the bottle. I held the edge so that it reflected the sun light, and yup, there was a lot of area along the length of the edge which reflected a lot of light. It still cut but would not push cut paper at all without grabbing all along the edge.
 
Errr.. this thread isn't too old so I will add my 2 cents. I have found that no matter what steel I use (benchmades new M390 on the afck) after cutting everything I cut there will always be grains of sand, mud, grit, etc. that will ding the edges of the blades. So using a buck 420HC or Benchmade M390 doesn't make a whole lot of difference for me, other then the parts not getting dinged stay sharp longer. On a recent fishing trip I got out on shore and got a plastic mountain dew bottle laying on the beach and cut the top off so that I could fill up my live well. Cut the top of it off using the benchmade M390, then noticed it had some grit on the inside of the bottle. I held the edge so that it reflected the sun light, and yup, there was a lot of area along the length of the edge which reflected a lot of light. It still cut but would not push cut paper at all without grabbing all along the edge. I also found that certain cigars seem to roll edges too, while others don't.
 
I've found cutting on a ceramic plate will dull a knife. I try to hold the blade up just a little higher than whatever I'm cutting on a plate.
 
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