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I know I'm setting myself up for being picked up, but... I use an older knife that I've never sharpened outside of "occasionally" running it back and forth agai

I know I'm setting myself up for being picked up, but... I use an older knife that I've never sharpened outside of "occasionally" running it back and forth against a tough fabric. It cuts literally everything just fine; cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, etc. Nothing about my use of it _seems_ unsafe; but I expect that's partially because I don't cut very fast. Cooking, when I'm involved, tends to be "social time", where we prep and chat at the same time; so there's no rush. I'm not saying it's not a good idea to sharpen knives, but a lot of people make it sound like you're a dangerous monster if you don't. And that just doesn't seem to be the case.

LordDragonfang 1y ago
> outside of "occasionally" running it back and forth against a tough fabric. As I understand it, that's technically stropping, not sharpening, but it should be sufficient to keep an already-sharp blade sharp over the long term as long as the blade doesn't see extremely heavy use. That said, most people don't strip their blades any more than they sharpen them.
- lazide 1y ago
  I’ve seen people use knives on glass cutting boards and granite countertops (directly). They quickly became… not knives? Pieces of pointed sheet metal? I don’t know, what do you call a previously perfectly fine knife which now is unable to perform any knife like action?
  - aae42 1y ago
    A dull knife
    - lazide 1y ago
      A dull knife can still cut. I’ve run across ones so dull they couldn’t cut clear tape on packages. Literally just grabs the tape and it rips off . Like I used my finger. At that point, isn’t it more of a prop?
      - dotancohen 1y ago
        It is an ex-knife. It's just resting? It's pinning for the fjords. Beautiful plumage, ain't it?
  - tstrimple 1y ago
    For some reason my daughters love to use my decent knives to cut food on top of ceramic plates and they frequently get tomato crushing dull. I bought an overpriced sharpener that had excellent reviews (from actual knife sharpeners not just Amazon customer reviews) that I think may be a counterfeit from Amazon. I think I just need to learn to sharpen well with stones and hide my knives better.
thom 1y ago
We moved house recently and I bought some new knives for the kitchen. My wife is now constantly cutting herself because she has no intuition for how sharp a knife should be. I can’t really imagine what the safety argument is against dull knives.
- rkomorn 1y ago
  Maybe there's some bell curve of knife skills proficiency where the better you are with knives, the safer they are when sharp, but generally: Dull knives are more likely to slip on whatever you're cutting (and cut you instead). They're also more likely to need more force when cutting which means less control.
  - IanCal 1y ago
    People say this a lot but the dull knives I have won’t cut my hands around the force required to cut, say, veg. My sharp knife will cut my hand at extremely low levels of force. Also the direction the dull knives can slip is usually along the surface of what I’m cutting which would almost always be away from my hand.
    - rkomorn 1y ago
      I guess it depends on how dull your dull is. The knives I consider dull will absolutely cut me if I do something dumb, and I'm much less likely to do something dumb when the blade goes straight through what I'm cutting without having to use any force. I guess it also depends how and what you're cutting. I sure wouldn't try to julienne carrots with a knife that doesn't easily slice through the carrot.
      - bfdm 1y ago
        The telltale sign for me is that chopping an onion causes the layers to separate from pressure before the knife starts to cut in. Super dangerous.
- lazide 1y ago
StopDisinfo910 1y ago
> It cuts literally everything just fine My parents are the same and honestly the sharpness is fine for how they use their knives. I don’t know for yours but theirs don’t cut just fine at all. They barely cut. It’s ok if you actually have to think and push through each cuts but a complete no go for any serious cutting. It’s a huge waste of time because it prevents any kind of fast work but they don’t know how to safely work with a knife anyway so they don’t notice. My father immediately cut himself the only time I actually sharpened so I stopped trying. Anyway an ultrasonic knife seems like a cool idea. The technology is common in industrial setting for cutting. I think it’s cool to bring it to a kitchen knife even if it always remains a gimmick.

LordDragonfang 1y ago

> outside of "occasionally" running it back and forth against a tough fabric. As I understand it, that's technically stropping, not sharpening, but it should be sufficient to keep an already-sharp blade sharp over the long term as long as the blade doesn't see extremely heavy use. That said, most people don't strip their blades any more than they sharpen them.

lazide 1y ago
I’ve seen people use knives on glass cutting boards and granite countertops (directly). They quickly became… not knives? Pieces of pointed sheet metal? I don’t know, what do you call a previously perfectly fine knife which now is unable to perform any knife like action?
- aae42 1y ago
  A dull knife
  - lazide 1y ago
    A dull knife can still cut. I’ve run across ones so dull they couldn’t cut clear tape on packages. Literally just grabs the tape and it rips off . Like I used my finger. At that point, isn’t it more of a prop?
    - dotancohen 1y ago
      It is an ex-knife. It's just resting? It's pinning for the fjords. Beautiful plumage, ain't it?
- tstrimple 1y ago
  For some reason my daughters love to use my decent knives to cut food on top of ceramic plates and they frequently get tomato crushing dull. I bought an overpriced sharpener that had excellent reviews (from actual knife sharpeners not just Amazon customer reviews) that I think may be a counterfeit from Amazon. I think I just need to learn to sharpen well with stones and hide my knives better.

thom 1y ago

We moved house recently and I bought some new knives for the kitchen. My wife is now constantly cutting herself because she has no intuition for how sharp a knife should be. I can’t really imagine what the safety argument is against dull knives.

rkomorn 1y ago
Maybe there's some bell curve of knife skills proficiency where the better you are with knives, the safer they are when sharp, but generally: Dull knives are more likely to slip on whatever you're cutting (and cut you instead). They're also more likely to need more force when cutting which means less control.
- IanCal 1y ago
  People say this a lot but the dull knives I have won’t cut my hands around the force required to cut, say, veg. My sharp knife will cut my hand at extremely low levels of force. Also the direction the dull knives can slip is usually along the surface of what I’m cutting which would almost always be away from my hand.
  - rkomorn 1y ago
    I guess it depends on how dull your dull is. The knives I consider dull will absolutely cut me if I do something dumb, and I'm much less likely to do something dumb when the blade goes straight through what I'm cutting without having to use any force. I guess it also depends how and what you're cutting. I sure wouldn't try to julienne carrots with a knife that doesn't easily slice through the carrot.
    - bfdm 1y ago
      The telltale sign for me is that chopping an onion causes the layers to separate from pressure before the knife starts to cut in. Super dangerous.
lazide 1y ago

StopDisinfo910 1y ago

> It cuts literally everything just fine My parents are the same and honestly the sharpness is fine for how they use their knives. I don’t know for yours but theirs don’t cut just fine at all. They barely cut. It’s ok if you actually have to think and push through each cuts but a complete no go for any serious cutting. It’s a huge waste of time because it prevents any kind of fast work but they don’t know how to safely work with a knife anyway so they don’t notice. My father immediately cut himself the only time I actually sharpened so I stopped trying. Anyway an ultrasonic knife seems like a cool idea. The technology is common in industrial setting for cutting. I think it’s cool to bring it to a kitchen knife even if it always remains a gimmick.