What's with EDC and boxes?

[stabman]

True - I can agree with that

Cool.

 

[Kitten Party]

How else am I supposed to open the boxes that all my knives come in?

 

[stabman]

How else am I supposed to open the boxes that all my knives come in?

There have been times where that was a major use of my knives.
Well, that and cutting up the credit card bills...

 

[vanslem6]

^^^ From your description, I'm surprised all of the knives in that photo still have tips on them. Only kidding

 

[full flat grind]

I'm sure that this has been covered about 50 times in the past year, but the bottom line is, that the ability to cut boxes and still retain an edge is a tried and true test of any blade.

Agreed. Plus it's fun to reduce a bulky object to small pieces for the recycling bin, IMO.

 

[robgmn]

+1. Mannlicher stated it well too. It's a good test of a blade.

Which means that a lot of people spend a lot of time testing their knife blade instead of using a tool more appropriate for the job.
Anyone can do whatever they want, but if I see the arborist I'm paying by the hour chopping a tree down with a Busse instead of a chainsaw, axe, or handsaw, I might question what the heck he's doing

 

[stabman]

Well, although I get out to the woods as much as possible, I encounter more cardboard, vegetables and sandwiches in my daily life.

As to choosing the correct tool, I recall mentioning the topic to my wife in a prior thread (might have been about food that time...people love to ask why others are cutting stuff, it seems).
Her words were, "But, it's a knife...isn't cutting what it's made for?"

I tend to entirely agree with her.
I know my knives make terrible hammers, and they don't vacuum the carpet very well either.
But when I cut stuff with them, it seems to work.

 

[nine4t4]

WOW!!! I'm seeing the whole "WHAT STEEL SHOULD I HAVE?!!!!!" turned on it's head. By that, I mean that if your knife requirements is over 75% cardboard, you can actually justify spending money on higher-end steels.

Photographers will know that wood fiber is actually quite abrasive. Cardboard is actually a good test because it is much harder on a knife (and more real-world) than skinning animals.

I have a cheap slicer (I liked it and told the knife service is was missing). It has not seen more than a steel in years. I can shave my arm or make fish transparent, but I wouldn't cut a box with it. The knive is a P.O.S. but I can maintain an edge.

For that reason I can't justify spending money on a german or japanese slicer. Although, they will keep a great edge and the German knives are crazy hard!!!! If I pass this on a stone for an hour I have sushi level sharp (I've cheated with diamond and burnishing steels)

Flip this on it's side again. Utility blades are great to a point, but they REALLY fail. Whereas those of use that use a real knife can keep a bit of stropping material nearby and touch up to razor-ish as we go.

I would go with tool steels knives for all day cardboard. D2 and above. But they are less good for day to day.

 

[AusLoX]

I think dirty cardboard may have sand and other debris embedded that can damage an edge, but I believe the abrasive you are referring to that is in fresh cardboard is clay. This is also what make cardboard effective for stropping things.

Your are correct. Clay in clean and sand/clay on dirty cardboard. Basically abrasive media that's readily available to test the wearability of steels/edge strengths.

 

[Bigfattyt]

For those who prefer using a box cutter on cardboard, I highly recommend the bimetal blades by Lenox. Irwin also makes them. The edge lasts significantly longer than the Stanley blades, plus they won't snap off if bent. Except the very tippy tip, which is 100% the harder edge steel.

Also, utility knife blades CAN be sharpened, although almost no one does it.

I have sharpened those replacement blades. It was funy, because I have have like 100 replacements.

 

[AusLoX]

I've broken down > 100 boxes in a day before.

I use my knives for anything and everything. Bottle opener, food, boxes, trimming bushes/shrubs, garden work, unwrapping pallets, etc., etc.. I was scraping tape off a mirror with my PM2 yesterday. Basically there's always a knife in my pocket, so I will try to use that before I go find a different tool.

Get yourself some m4 steel man. Cut through chain link fence with this one. Chipped a little but it worked out

 

[Spey]

Your are correct. Clay in clean and sand/clay on dirty cardboard. Basically abrasive media that's readily available to test the wearability of steels/edge strengths.

Edit: as I misread one word.

The 92 of 100 cuts through dirty cardboard can cause an edge to chip, same as the 1st of 100. All it takes is running into a single piece of embedded debris that is barely larger than the width of the apex (tiny rock-chip, piece of glass, etc.) completely skewing any test data a user may be attempting to compare. Testing without baseline media is not much more than playing around. I have seen folks learn this time & time again.

Even new cardboard is known to have occasional embedded debris that can significantly skew test run results. In general many if the principal edge retention reviewers I follow have moved away from cardboard when discussing and performing comparison trials unless they are using the medium as an illustrative as to how badly results can be skewed by contaminated and/or inconsistent media (a number of Cliff's videos and related threads exemplify this as do others).

I do not mean to argue anything here, but to clear up what you may have "perceived" I wrote.

So, to be clear I do not believe cardboard to be an effective "test" medium for edge retention. I do believe it can be used to strop things (which is what I wrote in previous post).

Regards,

 

[Insipid Moniker]

I do not believe I said "Clay is clean", nor did I mean that by intention. Not sure we're you are attempting to go with that.

The 92 of 100 cuts through dirty cardboard can cause an edge to chip, same as the 1st of 100. All it takes is running into a single piece of embedded debris that is barely larger than the width of the apex (tiny rock-chip, piece of glass, etc.) completely skewing any test data a user may be attempting to compare. Testing without baseline media is not much more than playing around. I have seen folks learn this time & time again.

Even new cardboard is known to have occasional embedded debris that can significantly skew test run results. In general many if the principal edge retention reviewers I follow have moved away from cardboard when discussing and performing comparison trials unless they are using the medium as an illustrative as to how badly results can be skewed by contaminated and/or inconsistent media (a number of Cliff's videos and related threads exemplify this as do others).

I do not mean to argue anything here, but to clear up what you "perceived" I wrote.

So, to be clear I do not believe cardboard to be an effective "test" medium for edge retention. I do believe it can be used to strop knives (which is what I wrote in previous post).

Regards,

Large enough sample sizes and correcting for standard deviation should be enough to compensate for poor testing medium. Cardboard is far from ideal, but it's frequently encountered and can provide a general idea of edge retention through repeated cutting.

 

[Spey]

Large enough sample sizes and correcting for standard deviation should be enough to compensate for poor testing medium.

I agree (if "general idea" presumes to ignore micro-chipping and small damage that many folks ignore or can't see/feel).

Would you care to give the average reader here an example of how many lineal feet of cutting this takes to correct for poor testing medium.
And, how many trials.

 

[Insipid Moniker]

I agree (if "general idea" presumes to ignore micro-chipping and small damage that many folks ignore or can't see/feel).

Would your care to give the average reader here an example of how many lineal feet of cutting this takes to correct for poor testing medium.
And, how many trials.

Depends on how many tests before you get consistent results. If your standard deviation is 5% or less you'd probably only need three runs to get a fairly accurate idea, the higher the deviation the more runs would be needed so you could reduce it to the mean and get a solid idea.

Not saying people do this, just there are definitely ways to compensate for imperfect testing media.

Also, this method would compensate for micro-chipping, that's one aspect of edge retention after all, and it shouldn't be ignored or completely avoided if we're testing to apply to real world conditions.

 

[Vinifera]

Having a glass of wine with my wife. She plopped down a small round of cheese and an apple on the kitchen table with a small cutting board. I used my Case CV Sodbuster to carve up the cheese and apple as I was too lazy to get up and retrieve a gyuto or other kitchen knife. I generally use whatever pocket knife is handy for cutting chores unless I'm doing food prep and then I use my kitchen cutlery which I have way too much of. Alas no cardboard cutting tonight but would use whatever pocket knife was handy if presented with cardboard.

 

[robgmn]

Someone should do a test that no one should really ever care about:
Have a third non-vested party break down two identical boxes to identical size pieces.
Do one with a box cutter/utility knife, the other with a mid-priced folder or fixed blade.

See which job is done the fastest, which cutting utensil retains the cleaner edge when done, which one is the most comfortable to use, etc.
Argument solved.

 

[Vinifera]

Cardboard cutting tests and edge retention.

 

[stabman]

Someone should do a test that no one should really ever care about:
Have a third non-vested party break down two identical boxes to identical size pieces.
Do one with a box cutter/utility knife, the other with a mid-priced folder or fixed blade.

See which job is done the fastest, which cutting utensil retains the cleaner edge when done, which one is the most comfortable to use, etc.
Argument solved.

No it wouldn't be.
It would still be based on personal opinion.

If you did it with machines through a variety of thicknesses of cardboard that would get closer to it...but people would still argue.

There are still people deluded and stupid enough to argue that the world is flat!

 

[stabman]

What boggles my mind is that the people who judge how I use knives the most are...knife people.

Seriously, it's pretty much only here that people complain about me using a folder to cut food, or open a box, and only on the internet has anyone thought using a karambit for utility purposes is a sin that wil attract a SWAT team.

In real life, no one gives a crap!
A the lab, no one said "Hey, use a box cutter"; what they said was "Hey Mark, you have a knife...can you open this box?"

When I've used my carry knife to cut food in a restaurant, no one cared. The waitresses did not care, nor did any customers. In fact, the customers seemed to be enjoying eating their food and talking to friends and family, rather than staring at people to find something to judge them about. Weird!
But here at Bladeforums, I was told how it was against the dictates of arbitrarily made up rules of politeness, that only internet people seem to be privy to.

Moral of the story?
There isn't one...but damn, there are a lot of judgemental people here!

Oh, and I opened another box today with my EDC folder, so there.