How sharp should an EDC knife be?

[jackh]

C’mon, polished edges are useful. You never know when you might need to clean some food out of your teeth or pluck a rogue nose hair.

True that- plus if you polish your less than stainless blades that oxidation has nowhere to start and it’s just banished to the depths once more.

I like using the polished bevels as a mirror when I comb my hair. :)

[Daveho]

C’mon, polished edges are useful. You never know when you might need to clean some food out of your teeth or pluck a rogue nose hair.

True that- plus if you polish your less than stainless blades that oxidation has nowhere to start and it’s just banished to the depths once more.

I like using the polished bevels as a mirror when I comb my hair. :)

Plz confirm the comb you have is also polished?

Mine isn’t.. I’ve really let the team down

[Bloke]

I like using the polished bevels as a mirror when I comb my hair. :)

[Eli Chaps]

When it can't cleanly cut the stuff you need it to cut, it isn't sharp enough.

[kadinh]

I like to have mine at least able to shave hair. That's what I aim for. When they can no longer shave hair, I try to remember to touch them up so they don't get super dull.

[UserNameBill]

For Me and my EDC usage... opening boxes... cutting sandwiches... opening plastic bags and hard plastic clamshells. I find that sharp enough to shave arm hair as the upper end and to easily slice cut news paper as the lower end is where I like to keep my EDC.

The hardest part for me is which knife to take with me.

[me2]

I think the tests performed showed that getting a refined edge and then taking one or two really soft strokes perpendicular to a fine sharpening stone to remove just the most fragile part of the apex resulted in edges that last the longest, though they never start as being the sharpest.

Don't know if that answers your question and yeah, it was Cliff Stamp who did the testing. I could be wrong about the results, his results were sometimes less than firm.

I think you have the order mixed up there. The light cuts into the fine stone were done first to remove any damaged bits from the edge. Then the edge was shaped/apexed, deburred, and refined as needed for the intended use.

I have tried what you initially described though. I sharpened a chopper to a fine, arm shaving edge, then did 2 passes very lightly into a 4000 grit water stone. It worked for the intended purpose, but wasn't good for much else. When chopping small branches and kindling on a firm chopping block, it lasted basically indefinately. For cutting light branches or brambles, it didn't work well at all.

[Bill1170]

C’mon, polished edges are useful. You never know when you might need to clean some food out of your teeth or pluck a rogue nose hair.

True that- plus if you polish your less than stainless blades that oxidation has nowhere to start and it’s just banished to the depths once more.

Polishing the whole blade is work. I’ve done a few of mine and it helps keep corrosion from starting. That said, the polishing references in this thread are mostly concerned with the edge bevel only.

[The Mastiff]

I'm not going to obsess about super high polishes any more. I'm fine at 35 ( 30 to 40 degrees if needed but my daily carry VG 10 is around 35 degrees) )degrees inclusive with 1000-1200 grit fairly thin but not too. I choose 400-600 grit when I need to cut something that does well with more aggressive edges. I do want the sides to be as accurate as I can get them and wish I could do better there even when I use a guided system. Likewise making sure any burr or wire edge is gone is as important to a high performing edge as any factor I've seen.

I've seen well sharpened machine buffed edges at 50 degrees inclusive that would dry shave cleanly with a tough and lasting edge. Likewise I've seen edges under 20 degrees inclusive at 8K grit that wouldn't do more than scrape hairs when shaving. A quality edge needs more than thin, low angle and high polish.

Joe

[vivi]

There is also a misconception that you either have hair whittling sharp polished edges, or can almost scrape arm hair sharp toothy edges.

You can have both. Low grit edges that are hair whittling sharp. At any angle. You can run your edge at 400 grit, 30 degrees per side, and still have hair whittling sharpness. That would be an incredibly durable edge that can slice rope and cardboard all day, or split a hair.

It's not an either or sort of thing.