Why is paper so bad for knives

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Dude idk what your talking about, I could make a video showing how cardboard chips out hard steel. Now keep in mind these aren't enormous chips, but their enough to feel on your finger nail.
 
grownstar said:
Glytch5 is king of the necromancers!
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Age of the thread is irrelevant. His info in the revival was pretty much spot on. I know too many people who slice a few boxes and observe the super steel is still very sharp and it is declared superior winner over worker steels. If you actually use a knife it's easy to observe the super steels will not wear down to a working edge and hold it, they just keep wearing, and the more worn it is the quicker it degrades. Super steels after an honest day's work, not just slicing a few boxes, will become a mini hand saw to complete tasks. Later that night when you go to return the edge you realize you need lots of time and specialized tools. Where the working steels return to very sharp quickly with basic methods of sharpening.

Yeah he revived an old one, but the use the search function guys are worse than the you revived an old thread guys, I do the same thing. His information is spot on to my observations. Skip the super steels if you actually use your knife to do work. The super steels are best suited for the light user category where it might need a sharpening once a year and they will most likely stop at that kiosk in the mall to have the dude there grind and hack at it for them. Most likely they will get bored with it and get hyped up on the newest flavor of the month super steel anyway and ditch that old boring out of style super steel for the next INFIorior super steel.
 
You only had to wait 11 years to find out why cardboard/paper dulls knives. Cardboard and paper are wood products. Wood contains Silicates (quartz). Quartz is the basic ingredient in Arkansas sharpening stones. I can't avoid cutting paper, but I won't use a wooden cutting board. If I have to cut a lot of cardboard, I grab a box cutter with a bimetal blade.
 
In my testing I cut over a linear mile of cardboard, that's a measured linear mile + with 2 different knives in CPM 10V.

One Custom and the other the Spyderco K2.

Both knives would still slice phone book paper after cutting the cardboard.

Reviews and testing results are posted in the testing forum here on BF.
 
Receipt paper is a common material to test sharpness, so it is obviously not all paper that is the problem. Of course cardboard is bad, especially when the cardboard has a ton of inclusions, but plain paper is just paper. The bad paper, I would think, would be stuff like the super thick stock paper, or any of the special papers where they are thick or stiff. Any paper that has to be glued it a red flag.
 
Pretty interesting thread, thanks for the bump.

A few months ago I decided to start composting most of my cardboard. Since I'm a huge knife nerd, I use this as an excuse to cut it all up into mulch sized chips (this does help with decomposition, but I'm sure the amount of cutting I do is overkill.) I've been filling 1-2 five gallon buckets a week with "chipped" cardboard.

At this point I still can't tell much practical difference between a pretty wide range of steels. Granted, I am not looking hard or doing things in any sort of quantitative way, but was curious if anything would stand out in this type of use over time.

A couple of early impressions:

It seems like anything with a decent edge will cut cardboard/paper for a long time. Nothing has stood out as being especially good or poor to me (in terms of the steel). I haven't experienced anything I would call chipping yet on any knives, just slow wear.

There are also a LOT of variables. The cardboard itself is a huge variable, then you have things like grain orientation, the angle of the blade as it cuts, the force applied, the speed of the cut, the blade geometry, the edge geometry, heat treat, the sharpening grit, the state of the metal at the edge, etc...
 
I've never really understood the paper cutting stigma. Cutting anything will dull your blade.
 
Boris74 said:
...Skip the super steels if you actually use your knife to do work. The super steels are best suited for the light user category where it might need a sharpening once a year and they will most likely stop at that kiosk in the mall to have the dude there grind and hack at it for them. Most likely they will get bored with it and get hyped up on the newest flavor of the month super steel anyway and ditch that old boring out of style super steel for the next INFIorior super steel.
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So the steel junkies here don't actually use their knives. Thanks for filling us in on that one. Good to know.
 
Boris74 said:
Age of the thread is irrelevant. His info in the revival was pretty much spot on. I know too many people who slice a few boxes and observe the super steel is still very sharp and it is declared superior winner over worker steels. If you actually use a knife it's easy to observe the super steels will not wear down to a working edge and hold it, they just keep wearing, and the more worn it is the quicker it degrades. Super steels after an honest day's work, not just slicing a few boxes, will become a mini hand saw to complete tasks. Later that night when you go to return the edge you realize you need lots of time and specialized tools. Where the working steels return to very sharp quickly with basic methods of sharpening.

Yeah he revived an old one, but the use the search function guys are worse than the you revived an old thread guys, I do the same thing. His information is spot on to my observations. Skip the super steels if you actually use your knife to do work. The super steels are best suited for the light user category where it might need a sharpening once a year and they will most likely stop at that kiosk in the mall to have the dude there grind and hack at it for them. Most likely they will get bored with it and get hyped up on the newest flavor of the month super steel anyway and ditch that old boring out of style super steel for the next INFIorior super steel.
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You are sorely mistaken over super steels. Something like M390 will hold an edge bloody well forever compared to something like 420HC. M390 can chip, but it has remarkable edge stability and when it chips most all of the lower grade steels would be much worse off (but quicker to repair). Then you have steels like Elmax with incredible toughness for a stainless and surprisingly decent edge retention. Super steels are not the end of steel advancement, but they definitely are improvements over regular steels.
 
I gotta say i was in a similar boat on higher end steels. I was disappointed at first. I actually love me some 8cr. What i found out on a s30v blur was the first couple sharpening broke into what i can only describe as a better layer of steel. At first it chipped, rolled on anything. After a while like i said i got into a new layer of steel and it performs much better. No chipping.
 
Pioneer Valley said:
I gotta say i was in a similar boat on higher end steels. I was disappointed at first. I actually love me some 8cr. What i found out on a s30v blur was the first couple sharpening broke into what i can only describe as a better layer of steel. At first it chipped, rolled on anything. After a while like i said i got into a new layer of steel and it performs much better. No chipping.
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Yeah factory sharpening is usually terrible. I have had dozens of knives with at least a little discoloring around the tip. Factory sharpening is 100% quantity, with no focus on quality.
 
stabman said:
Cutting wood, cutting cardboard, stripping wires, cutting tape...you know, use.
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For the record, I'm not the only one to make these observations. Others have the same as I do, they even said it in this thread. My take is they use their knives like I do. My other take is some people think what I see as light to medium duty as being heavy use. To them super steels excell greatly. In my hands the fact they don't wear to a working edge and the more they wear the faster they degrade is not desireable in a working knife. They also require specialized tools to restore to an extreme level of sharpness. Last two times I touched up my 8cr13mov was with 320 grit sand paper and it was a matter of minutes till hair shaving sharp again.

It's all in ones perception on what they think use is. I fully understand how some can believe the super steels are superior. I can also understand why some don't understand why others report poor performance for them because they never used their knives like some people do. It's like looking at the Grand Canyon in pictures and telling everyone you grasp how large it is. When you see it in real life it takes on a whole new perspective to you. No matter how hard you try to explain it to someone you just can't. They need to see it for themself.
 
Boris74 said:
Last two times I touched up my 8cr13mov was with 320 grit sand paper and it was a matter of minutes till hair shaving sharp again.
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Silicon carbide paper is all I use for any of my knives, be they 1095, O1, 3V, 154CM, S30V, 5160, Elmax or M390.

I've used S30V to scrape rust off of steel, had to put a entire new edge on 154CM after an idiot friend cut something on a glass cutting board, and put a whole new tip on S30V after my brother busted 1/8" off the end of his Spyderco Military by hitting a steel pipe.

You don't need fancy equipment; the same stuff you're using for that Chinese steel works fine on better steel as well.
 
Buy a good pocket sharpener and keep using your knives to cut whatever you can! Knives are made for cutting !
 
stabman said:
You don't need fancy equipment; the same stuff you're using for that Chinese steel works fine on better steel as well.
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Everyone has regular sand paper laying around. Grab a sheet of 320 grit regular sand paper and take a dull super steel of your choice and make it shaving sharp in 5 minutes or less. Won't happen. The steel will wear the paper down to a rather smooth piece of paper quickly with no change to the sharpness of the blade. I know, I tried it. It's more like them fancy tools for super steel sharpening works on cheap wannabe junk steel too.
 
BOHAWG said:
Buy a good pocket sharpener and keep using your knives to cut whatever you can! Knives are made for cutting !
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Smiths pocket pal and pocket pal x2 are great. They fit in the pouch on most knives being sold today. I use the x2 in the field.
 
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