Why Not Razor Sharp?

SOLEIL said:
I have always found that a dull knife will cause a more serious wound. It may not cut you as easily or as often, but when it does the wound is more of a tear than a slice. Tears cause more damage, take longer to heal and leave worse scars. As far as which is more dangerous, that is totally dependent on the person. I know people who can do more damage to themselves with a ball bearing than they can with a knife.
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X2, last time i cut myself was 2weeks ago and i got a cut from a sharp and dull knife on the same day on the same finger lol. The sharp knife was a kitchen knife i finished sharpening and stropping with, and i was cutting chicken, and i accidently cut myself, it was a very thin slice into my finger. 20minutes later, i was cutting a container for my sister with a POS dull knife, i had to use more force than usual, and when it slipped, it didn't slice a small cut, but it tore my flesh instead.

Zeasor, are your friends who always get cut by sharp knives the kind of people who always runs their finger down the blade?

For me, i only put hair whittling sharpness on knives i use, i don't need toothy edges, i don't cut thick rope or anything else than needs a toothy edge.
 
there are some reasons ive seen people give that i can see and/or agree with.

if you are using a knife for something that will knock off the razor edge rather easily and dont really need that sharp of an edge to cut what you are doing and use that one knife for the job all day every day you may not want to take the time to refine the edge all the way.

i like a sharp knife but i can see the reasons some people have for not wanting to invest the time to get their knife to that uber super sharp level especially when they are do something that they can accomplish their task safely and easily with something that they dont have to maintain as well.

i do prefer to be cut by a sharp knife since it heals a lot faster but dang can they cut deeper

-matt
 
Roger999 said:
...Zeasor, are your friends who always get cut by sharp knives the kind of people who always runs their finger down the blade?...
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I don't know. I suspect it is simply slopy technique like cutting things in their hands instead of using a cutting board. I stopped one woman who started cutting a radish by pushing it into the blade with her thumb. With her previously dull knives it was no problem. The new edge I put on her knife would have spit her thumb wide open. I suspect the friends I mentioned have developed careless techniques because their dull knives wouldn't "bite" them nearly a easily. That's why I am very careful about letting a guest use one of my knives. They will "bite" deeply.
 
I have some confusion about what a working edge is also. I typically sharpen my kitchen knives on a combo stone of course/fine India from Norton. The fine side will shave hair from my arm, and if I take the time to get all the dishwasher nicks out, it will whittle hair sometimes. This scares my inlaws somewhat, who occasionally come over for lunch or dinner and use the knives. Knives I carry for work that I will be the only one using I typically stop at the brown stones on the Sharpmaker, at 20 degrees after back beveling to 17, to minimize final honing and touch up time. These will usually whittle hair and shave above the skin about 1/8" or so. Apparently neither one of these is what most people refer to as a working edge, although its what I work with most of the time. In Wayne Goddard's book, he refers to the edge off a fine India stone as a working edge, but also states that it will shave, and continue to do so for a while, according to his rope cutting tests. I also see a working edge as something like finishing a machete with a coarse stone, just because it takes a lot of time to polish them, and the edge typically encounters things that will ruin any edge, such as dirt, rocks, and sand. That doesnt mean it wont shave, but most people wont take the time to polish such an edge since it looses it pretty quickly. The exception is something like a machete used for grass cutting or soft weeds. A polished edge here may work better, since there isnt that much to damage it, or a course edge may work better, as it cuts light vegetation with less force, again without the high risk of damage.
 
I'm gonna play devil's advocate a little here...

Now I know conventional wisdom says a dull knife is more dangerous blah blah blah. In my personal experience (though I hate to admit it), I'd found it not so true. I'vecut myself far more often on very sharp knives than on those which lack a good cutting edge. Now mind you, my hands are likely more calloused than your typical suburbanite, but still. It could just be that I typically have sharp knives and not dull ones. Or it could be I like to play with 'em too much. I don't know. Just say'n


:D
 
It's because somehow the logic that "sharp edge, keep your fleshy bits away" has somehow escaped the majority of our population. People don't sharpen their knives, develop bad habits around those glorified butterknives and then cut themselves with a sharp one because they treat it as if it can't cut them. It's makes about as much sense to me as sticking your hand in a blender to get some bit of food/ice unstuck while it's still plugged in. Why bother with a knife that can't cut?? Might as well use your fingers and tear stuff apart.
 
Buck268 said:
I'm gonna play devil's advocate a little here...

Now I know conventional wisdom says a dull knife is more dangerous blah blah blah. In my personal experience (though I hate to admit it), I'd found it not so true. I'vecut myself far more often on very sharp knives than on those which lack a good cutting edge. Now mind you, my hands are likely more calloused than your typical suburbanite, but still. It could just be that I typically have sharp knives and not dull ones. Or it could be I like to play with 'em too much. I don't know. Just say'n


:D
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The theory that one knife is more dangerous than another is the same as saying one type of gun is more dangerous than another. They all can be equally dangerous depending on who is handling them. The knife is inanimate and does not make mistakes. Even if it fails mechanically it is still the users responsibility to be using it in such a way that it will not hurt you if it fails. I know this is hard to avoid and I have many scars to prove it. Looking back I could have prevented all of them. But we all know how hind site is:).
 
I have to say the difference between "kinda-almost shaves hair off your arm" and slicing a hair in half is pretty huge. You don't really learn respect for the edge until you've worked with a knife that sharp. Mistakes are much bloodier no doubt, but they heal quicker since they're very clean :D
 
Soleil had a good explanation of the difference in "danger" between dull and sharp knives.

If you walk into any restaurant kitchen and look at the hands of the chefs at prep cooks, you will see hundreds of scars on every hand from cuts and burns. Chefs cut themselves ALL the time, usually through being rushed. Over time, most of them cut themselves less, and the older chefs will often only have healed scars, rather than bandaids to see. They've learned a few things over the years, and learned to never disrespect a knife by not paying attention.

The "danger" in a dull knife is that a person will be pressing down so hard on a simple tomato that they will almost amputate their finger, cut cartilage or tendons, etc. Sharp knives used by people who respect them, will only usually cause clean cuts, nicks and scratches. It's totally true that if you hand someone who uses a butterknife to slice tomatoes that they have a good chance of amputating their finger, but that's because they're used to the dull knife.

In some other countries like Japan, chefs spend a year or two just on knife skills in school; in this country knife skills is a two week class that involves cutting onions to a certain size, and that's about it. Forget about what normal people know. I often wish that I could put a sign on any sharp knife that other people are likely to use that points to the edge and says something like "warning, electrical fire!" so that they don't rub their fingers on it, or get careless.

In the end that whole idea of a dull knife being more dangerous really applies to people who understand something about knives; back in the day people had a better connection to knives than most do today, and it was an idea that made sense. I wouldn't give a sharp knife to half the people I know, because I know they would kill someone, or amputate something if I did, no matter how much I talked to them about it. Some people just don't care, and those people get butter knives and serrated ginsu knives to crush their tomatoes with.
 
i was cut twice by a big bowie i made back in 1993. it was beyond scarry sharp and when it cut me there wasnt much pain. the doctor said both cuts looked like a scalpel cut. i hardly have a scar from either cut. that knife made me nervous whenever i had it out of the sheath and i was extra careful when it was out.
 
Yoda has got it right for non-knife folks - they just rarely use a sharp knife!

I think it is a lot easier to cut myself with my razor sharp knives (polished) then the ones with a working edge (usually 600 DMT or 1000 waterstone). The razor sharp knife will just zip through many materials with pressure only, and the working edge can be better controlled by slicing. That doesn't stop me from mainly using polished edges, though.
 
Broos said:
Yoda has got it right for non-knife folks - they just rarely use a sharp knife!

I think it is a lot easier to cut myself with my razor sharp knives (polished) then the ones with a working edge (usually 600 DMT or 1000 waterstone). The razor sharp knife will just zip through many materials with pressure only, and the working edge can be better controlled by slicing. That doesn't stop me from mainly using polished edges, though.
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that is the best reason i can rally see for it, since i know of plenty of times that ya that knife is really sharp and ya its easy to cut but "o crap, cut to far" cause there was no control since it was as easy as warm butter

-matt
 
Most cuts come from "surprises" more than from sharpness or dullness per se. If you are used to extremely dull knives and are suddenly given a sharp knife it surprises you by going through material quicker than you expect. If you are used to sharp knives and suddenly use a dull knife you may be surprised when a cut does not progress smoothly and instead goes in fits and starts using high pressure. The most dangerous knives are ones that are dull along the part of the edge where you start your cut and then very sharp elsewhere. Those ones you tend to build up force in the dull area and then the blade jumps through the material in a hurry when you get to the sharp spot.

If you know what you are doing sharp blades are safer and more productive. You get a false idea of the safety of dull blades if you look at the number of injuries per man hour because less is getting accomplished in those man hours with the dull knives. Several times a year I get a dozen amateur volunteers working with me in the local soup kitchen. The people who are used to dull knives are used to cutting every celery stock and every strip of meat individually. I have to show them that with sharp knives you can stack and gather things and cut 6 to 10 pieces in parallel. I am easily 10x as productive as most of those housewives. After I get them trained and used to my very thin, very sharp knives (blades 2 to 3 mm thick and sharpened at around 10 degrees per side) most are converted.

My big training lecture is about how sharp knives aren't the enemy, the enemy is tricky food. Round food with tough skin is like fighting a judo expert. It will use your own strength against you and roll and parry your cutting efforts. Always trim or arrange your food to be stable on a cutting board (usually cutting a flat on the food and putting that on the bottom). Then use light pressure so that you have control. If there is a skin or tissue on the food that resists light pressure use a slight transverse slicing motion on your blade, but still use only light pressure. With these approaches you have great control and any accidents will likewise occur with only light pressure.
 
Whats the point of a dull knife unless you plan to use to spread butter, or severely injure yourself. Every knife I ever had I always put a razor sharp edge on it. The blade on my Wave is scary sharp! It is sharper than a brand new blade for a utility knife! I can shave the hair on my arm with it. Now, I know most people love to keep their knives like this 24/7, but if you try, you will wear a blade out in no time. I just sharpened mine earlier and once again, razor sharp. I sharpen mine when the blade no longer cuts through what I am cutting with ease. I refuse to have to push directly down or at an angle as hard as I can and risk my hand sliding down the handle and over a dull edge, which will do more damage. When I first bought my Wave, the edge was ok, but not sharp like I wanted, so I took the blade to my course stone, and formed it to the way I wanted it, than took it to the arkansas oil stone, and thats all it took. Now when it need sharpened, all I need is to get the arkansas oil stone and a drop of oil and run it down each side 10 times to bring back a razor sharp edge. Of course the blade is made of 420HC and is easy to sharpen. I know there are tougher metals out there that require more work, but I prefer these kinds of metals and carbon steels. Sure they may not be the best, but they hold an edge and when they do go dull, it doesn't take 5 minutes to get them back to the razor sharp edge. In fact, anytime my friends at work need a knife sharpened, they give it to me and get it back the next day with a razors edge. A friend of mine just gave me his S&W automatic and the edge was so dull i couldnt get it to cut through a plastic bottle! I formed the edges with the rough stone and finished with the oil stone, and now I can shave the hair on my arm with it.

If you want to carry a dull knife, you better off carrying a butter knife. If you wanna carry a good knife, learn to sharpen them or find someone who can do it for free or little money. I do it for free.
 
A knife does not have to be "razor" sharp to be sharp. The thinner cutting edge of a blade that has been sharpened to "razor" sharpness will not hold that "razor" edge for very long if you do a lot of cutting with it.
 
What's funny about this thread is how many people, agreeing, directed their posts towards non knife people.

This thread was started after getting yet another response on this website asking why I'd want my edges to be so sharp.*

If I can't espouse the merits of sharp edges on a knife forum without being questioned about it, where am I supposed to do so? :confused:

Either way I agree with most of what's been said, such as minor cuts from extremely sharp knives healing almost instantly for me, having superior control over cuts due to the decreased force needed etc.

*This has nothing to do with coarsely ground edges vs polished edges, or rare instances where the work being done with the tool is so abusive to the edge that sharpening with anything beyond a file would be a waste of time. This also ignores the glaring lack of logic concerning edge angles.
 
I believe that for an edc knife it's best to not make the blade as sharp as possible. Sharp enough to easily shave hair is fine; sharp enough that touching the edge with even the slightest pressure cuts you is overkill unless for some bizarre reason you use your edc for surgical procedures.
 
AfterTFD said:
I believe that for an edc knife it's best to not make the blade as sharp as possible. Sharp enough to easily shave hair is fine,"sharp enough that touching the edge with even the slightest pressure cuts you" is overkill unless for some bizarre reason you use your edc for surgical procedures.
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What I tell everyone that I sharpen knives for is that if you feel the blade touch you it has probably cut you. They like having a sharp knife and learn how to handle one very quickly:).
That is the way I like all my EDCs to be and that is the way I treat them.
Or at least try to:p.
 
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