Dull knives are a problem at best and a danger at worst, but can a knife be too sharp? A knife can certainly be unnecessarily sharp. Not every blade is designed to have a razor edge, and in some cases, you don’t want that. Moreover, when you over-sharpen regularly, you are removing more material than necessary. Although it is a minuscule change each time, you are thinning the blade and removing the material. If you want your knives to last, then trying to keep a pocketknife sharp enough to shave with is ridiculous. Although a sharper knife indeed cuts better, you don’t need to shave with a cleaver that will hit bone hard. In fact, having that edge too thin and sharp could cause more chipping and damage. After years of sharpening, using, and re-sharpening my knives, I’ve learned a lot about having the correct amount of sharpness. I will walk you through everything you need to know about sharpening blades.
Can a knife be too sharp? A knife cannot be too sharp for cutting. The finer the edge, the better the cut, but it is crucial to balance the need for clean cuts with the overall maintenance of the knife. A thinner blade is sharper and gets dull or broken easily, leading to more sharpening. Sadly, excessive sharpening will wear your knives down.
Can Kitchen Knives Be Too Sharp
A kitchen knife cannot be too sharp. The short answer is that kitchen knives are meant to be as sharp as possible. However, there are some downsides to over sharpening your knives.
First, if you are newer to knife use in the kitchen, a very sharp blade is dangerous. Sharper knives cut more easily with far less pressure. While this seems like an advantage, it is a risk for your fingers.
The other problem with over sharpening your knives is that a thinner edge breaks more easily. Not only will too much sharpening wear through your blade faster, but it means you need to resharpen more often to keep that edge.
You don’t need a razor to slice food. That said, you should opt for a sharp kitchen knife that holds its edge well. A good, fine-edged knife will help you get more done in less time with less hand fatigue when you’re cooking. Find the right balance for your blade styles.
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How Sharp Should A Knife Be
A knife should be as sharp as possible to cut through whatever it is meant to cut. There is no such thing as a knife that is too sharp. However, you can balance your needs by minimizing the metal you remove from the edge as you sharpen.
By sharpening your own knives, you can control how much metal you take off when the blade gets dull. The right amount of sharpening can prolong your knife’s working life. A good knife should last you a lifetime.
Asian knives are among the sharpest. These blades are sharpened at a mere fifteen-degree angle. Meanwhile, typical kitchen knives are sharpened between seventeen and twenty-two degrees for a fine edge. Other knives, such as pocketknives, are fine between twenty and twenty-two degrees. Choosing your sharpening angle is part of learning to care for your blades responsibly.
Notably, knives from a factory often come less sharp than you want them for daily use. Doing this helps prevent the blades from chipping as they shift around during shipping. If you want a sharp-from-the-box knife, make sure you check to see whether the manufacturer does this for you.
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Dull Knife Problems
Using a dull knife should only ever be a last resort. Sadly a less-sharp knife edge isn’t cutting so much as it is tearing and crushing through things. This isn’t the only issue.
The duller your knife, the harder you have to press to get through a substance. Pushing harder causes more trauma. Plus, it will wear your hands out faster and cause more pain than necessary.
Are Toosharp Knives Worth The Money
Choosing the right knives can be dicey if you’re not familiar with the company. Though a knife can’t be too sharp, the materials need to be higher-quality to hold an edge without unnecessary brittleness. What about Toosharp Knives? Is this brand worth it? In a word, yes.
All the Toosharp knives come from Japan. This brand uses high-quality steel and other materials to create superb, cost-effective blades. If you haven’t yet tried out one of these kitchen knives, I highly recommend them.
Toosharp knives come pre-sharpened so that you can use them right away. You will appreciate the craftsmanship of these well-engineered and highly polished blades. Moreover, the handle materials are also of excellent quality.
Better still, Toosharp knives are well balanced. Having the right balance and edge will aid you in cooking and cut down on hand and wrist fatigue. Whether you’re making one huge meal or you cook all day professionally, these knives are well worth getting for your collection.
Try the high-quality TooSharp Damascus Chef Knife for yourself. This knife is made with sixty-seven layers of Japanese AUS10 super steel. With an HRC (hardness) of sixty-one, you can keep a razor-sharp edge on this blade without excess chipping. Plus, you get the reassurance of a lifetime warranty against manufacturing defects. Have Amazon ship this Chef Knife to your door by clicking here.
How Sharp Is An Obsidian Knife
Obsidian knives are so sharp that they are the best example of ‘too sharp’ that exists. Our ancestors knapped these knives from raw stone, and since then, we have created duller knives. Like prehistoric sharks, the obsidian knife was so perfect early in its development that nothing more effective has ever come along.
Obsidian knives are the sharpest blades on earth. Or rather, they can be. Not all obsidian is sharpened to its utmost, but all of it can be. In fact, obsidian is still used today for surgical instruments.
If you looked at the sharpest steel in the world and the sharpest obsidian under a microscope, you would see the difference easily. Microscopic, sharpened steel is jagged along the edge. Even at that small scale, obsidian is still smooth enough to cut a cell in half.
So, how sharp exactly is obsidian? Well, you can hone it to a single atom thick. By comparison, a monofilament line is measured in percent of a millimeter from about one-third to more than three mm thickness. A razor is around point-two-three millimeters, so a little thinner than a fine monofilament line.
Understanding The Obsidian Edge
One atom is less than a nanometer or about thirty angstroms thick. Angstroms are one, one-hundred-millionth of a centimeter. In short, obsidian is a rival for diamonds in terms of fine edges, though obsidian is regrettably more brittle. Humans can’t see anything that small without a high-quality microscope.
To understand how thin sharp obsidian is, we have to scale down from the easily envisioned millimeter. A micron is a thousand times smaller than a millimeter. There are a thousand nanometers in one micron. An atom is point-one to point-five nanometers thick.
With all the technology we possess, literal centuries of honing our skills and materials, there’s still nothing like obsidian for a sharp edge. We created duller blades because you can have a knife that is too sharp. A one-atom-thick blade could make quick work of sheathes with truly little pressure to slice through. A knife you cannot carry safely is ‘too sharp.’
Final Thoughts
You can hone any blade until it’s thinner than human hair and will shave like a razor. Although a knife cannot be ‘too sharp per see, there’s no point in making a butter knife you can shave with. It’s best if you always consider the function of the blade first.
Every knife should be sharp, but a chopping blade will go dull quickly if you give it a filleting edge. The finer you need to slice, the thinner your blade should be, and that makes it sharper. However, the trade-off is that you are wearing the knife down and making the edge more fragile.
Instead of over sharpening your blades, practice getting them to the perfect sharpness for their style quickly and efficiently. The ‘sharp as a razor’ trick gets old fast when you have to redo it after each use.
