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Can your knife cleanly cut toilet tissue?

A

Al Arsenault

Joined
Apr 25, 2020
Messages
1
ERdept said:
I was wondering if your knife can to this. One day I was in the bathroom doing something :eek: and had my very expensive folder with me in S30V steel, hair poppin' sharp with a thin blade to boot, and took a piece of toilet tissue between two fingers and tried to cut it with my knife.

It couldn't do it. The knife cut about a quarter inch into the tissue then the tissue tore. I was surprised and dismayed.

Are you experiencing the same thing? Could this be the most challenging material to test your knife with? Will Cliff Stamp use this in upcoming tests. :D

Cliff
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After a long time trying I have finally been able to do this. A BM Bailout with M4 sharpened with 800 grit diamond final stone and honed on 2000 grit lapping film. It will cut cleanly with directional change ability nice and slow.

I cannot express how impressed I am with CPM M4. I am fortunate to have a Miyabi 8" chef knives of V10 steel. Both the M4 and the V10 are right at 64 Rockwell and chime nicely with a finger nail click. I am confident the Miyabi will cut the TP as well.
 
Bastler said:
Well, you know, I've never tried to cut toilet paper. I just tear it off the roll.
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Right? It's as though some "engineer type" realized that some folks don't keep a hair-poppin' blade in the crapper and made it this way for us.

God bless that genius.

Oh, and I did not fight two wheelchair-bound senior citizens for this Charmin 4 pack just to hack it up.

Old bitties were tough like shoe leather.

Chairborne Rangers they were.
 
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Yo...;);)sometimes I buy the cheap stuff and they glue it down so bad it's hard to get the roll "started"
I used to wind up tearing through like 5 layers to get a free end loose.
Figured out that a light swipe with my pocket knife can get me a free end to pull off the roll when the factory glues it down too hard.
So, technically, all my knives cleanly cut toilet paper, from a certain point of view.

If you mean, do they cut a hanging piece of toilet paper the way I normally cut up junk mail??, hell no!!:D I aint worried about having a knife that daggum sharp.
I normally just make sure the entire edge catches and bites my thumb nail and, if available, cleanly cuts a piece of junk mail and then I'm good to go.

For the flippin hell of it, I ran a kitchen knife made of CTS-BD1N (64HRC) up through the grits on Japanese water stones stopping around 8000 and it cut kleenex tissues and the heck outta my pinky finger. Still, sharpening is another hobby of my mine and I was pleased with myself having gotten it that sharp.

That knife is really thin and really doggone hard, I don't care to spend all that time on a knife made with thicker softer metal. I'm no master sharpener and can't seem to get my EDCs THAT sharp and don't really care to.
I dull 'em up too quick for it to be worth it to me. More power to you though.
I see no practical reason for an EDC to be that sharp, but it's definitely an achievement for a sharpening hobbyist.
 
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Currently, my skill level and equipment doesn’t allow me to cut toilet paper cleanly yet, but it doesn’t really bother me. All my working knives can cut paper cleanly, I keep ‘em that way, and I’m happy. Heck, if your knife can cut electrons and open black holes, more power to ya. Someday, I hope to put a similar edge on mine. :D
 
A Ginsu knife can cut through cans, frozen food packages, and chop wood, and after all of that, produce nice clean and thin slices from a ripe tomato. But, because of the serrations, it won’t slice bath tissue without tearing it. If the toilet paper isn’t tearing cleanly along the perforations, but clean-edged sheets are desired, employ a cutting board and a plain edge bladed knife, dedicated to bathroom use only.
 
Welcome to Bladeforums Al.

I don't know if my knives can cut tp, I haven't tried. My knives can slice paper. Good enough for me.
 
gazz98 said:
Welcome to Bladeforums Al.

I don't know if my knives can cut tp, I haven't tried. My knives can slice paper. Good enough for me.
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:thumbsup: Do I care if my knife will cleanly slice TP? No. If TP was not perforated, I'd probably use a scissors to cut it when using.

Some of the commercial stuff you see in rest rooms is not perforated. Does that mean you need to retrieve your SAK to cut it?
 
My test is to take the blade into the bathroom and try to "dry-shave" my sheek.

If it will cleanly dry shave facial hair, IMHO, it's "sharp enough."

The other test I use is push cutting newsprint both along and across the grain.
 
I used to get really obsessed with sharpening until my knives could cut like that. Then I realized that if my pocket knife was sharp enough to cleanly push cut printer paper it was plenty sharp enough for anything I was gonna do. In the kitchen the test is cleanly dicing a tomato. I just genuinely don't need my knives to be any sharper than that, so I don't spend much time or effort getting them much sharper than that unless I have someone to impress.
 
None of this is about the practicality or need to cut TP with a pocket knife.

It's about mastering sharpening skills to a high level -- like whittling hairs.

Personally, I'm skeptical about the OP's claim to be able to cut TP slowly, cleanly while changing directions of the cut. I'd have to see that.
 
My semi-mirror edged Kwaiback can slashes TP with a quick wrist action downwards and cuts with slight shreds if i'm going slowly. But practically speaking if i can push cut post-it paper or phonebook paper im plenty happy enough.
 
:) I got all manner of free junk mail catalogs with nice thin paper . That's plenty good enough for my sharpness tests . :cool:

I sure ain't cutting up any of my precious TP ! :p
 
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