Why can't I cut paper?

J

Jfd986

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Jul 15, 2020
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Sharpened my santoku knife (some garbage knife I got for free online) on a 1000/6000 whetstone. I can slice a tomato super thin without having to hold the tomato.

Whenever I try to cut newspaper, the newspaper bends or doesn't get shredded properly. Is there a certain technique to cutting newspaper or is my knife just not "newspaper" sharp? Does it matter? It seems pretty stinking sharp to me. I'm a home cook, I cook maybe twice a week, I'm vegetarian, my best knife is an Ikea 365+ santoku knife. The sharpest one is this free one I got in a trade and just sharpened up, so technically that's my Best knife, I'm just saying the Ikea one is my favorite and will soon also be sharpened.
 
It can be anything from the grain in the paper to how fast or slow you try to cut it ... to it may be a bit of the burr not removed completely from your edge ... but if you are slicing tomatoes without issue it is probably the paper or some factor on the angle you are holding the knife to the grain of the paper. Try turning the paper from what would be the side to the top or bottom and cut ... or angle your knife blade and try to cut it that way ... you may get different results. If you attempt to cut paper at a 90% angle it takes a very sharp edge and going slow in some case or it can tear if you are doing push cuts.
 
JJ_Colt45 said:
It can be anything from the grain in the paper to how fast or slow you try to cut it ... to it may be a bit of the burr not removed completely from your edge ... but if you are slicing tomatoes without issue it is probably the paper or some factor on the angle you are holding the knife to the grain of the paper. Try turning the paper from what would be the side to the top or bottom and cut ... or angle your knife blade and try to cut it that way ... you may get different results. If you attempt to cut paper at a 90% angle it takes a very sharp edge and going slow in some case or it can tear if you are doing push cuts.
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Thanks for that explanation. I am now completely unconcerned as to whether or not my post-sharp knife should be able to cut paper, and I will just focus on murdering tomatoes into transparent slices.
 
Because it is so thin, free hanging (holding at one side) paper can be surprisingly difficult. A small wrinkle, a bit of moisture and that entrance cut goes awry.
While I do test my edges with the local paper, functional sharpness is really the best test.
 
Jfd986 said:
I can slice a tomato super thin without having to hold the tomato.
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your knife is super duper sharp.
if you can't cut newspaper, then it is your technique.
if you give me a violin and a bow, i cannot produce a clean D Sharp Minor either. ;)
 
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Are you sure you have removed the burr? Here's my experience: I freehand sharpen my traditional slipjoints using small DMT stones -- 220, 325, 600, 1200, and sometimes 8000. I'm not very successful at removing the burr using just the stones. When I finish a knife it feels sharp, acts sharp, cuts sharp, but often won't slice paper. My secret weapon is an Opinel or Victorinox mini steel. A few strokes on a mini steel and I can easily slice (and sometimes push cut) very thin paper across the grain.
Some notes: I use very thin paper from old financial reports. Often a knife fresh from the stones will slice with the grain but not across the grain. Using the mini steel brings it up to slicing across the grain. (Basically, that behavior is how I assess the paper's grain direction.) I've read that while the Opinel and Victorinox mini steels are good, there are others that should be avoided.
 
Ace Rimmer said:
Are you sure you have removed the burr? Here's my experience: I freehand sharpen my traditional slipjoints using small DMT stones -- 220, 325, 600, 1200, and sometimes 8000. I'm not very successful at removing the burr using just the stones. When I finish a knife it feels sharp, acts sharp, cuts sharp, but often won't slice paper. My secret weapon is an Opinel or Victorinox mini steel. A few strokes on a mini steel and I can easily slice (and sometimes push cut) very thin paper across the grain.
Some notes: I use very thin paper from old financial reports. Often a knife fresh from the stones will slice with the grain but not across the grain. Using the mini steel brings it up to slicing across the grain. (Basically, that behavior is how I assess the paper's grain direction.) I've read that while the Opinel and Victorinox mini steels are good, there are others that should be avoided.
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I have an Ikea ceramic rod that I use for weekly honing, I suppose I can try that. I used a 1000/6000-grit stone to sharpen and strop respectively. It was some basic stone I bought off amazon, overpriced for the Canadian market but did its job, imo. Idk how to tell when the burr is Truly removed, but when I run my thumb down from the belly of the knife to the edge of the blade on each side, I don't really feel anything.

I don't know how to post videos on here, so this is the knife:


Note that it's a beefsteak tomato I'm cutting which are the largest ones I've ever found, and also note that I don't really know how to do a "quick job" of demo-slicing a tomato, I just wanted to get it thin.

I know this won't really help decide whether or not the burr has been removed, I just wanted to show this because that's what I mean by "I think my knife is sharp". Idk if that's sharp enough to be called sharp, but idk it seems sharp enough for me. Also that was my second time ever sharpening, so I'll admit there's a lot of practice still to be had.
 
Cheap stainless, as used in kitchen knives, needs a LOT of deburring attention. If there's a wire edge (burr, by another name) remaining on the apex of such a blade, it'll be very unstable in attempting cuts in thin/fine paper. Such paper, because it's so light, will deflect away from the edge if it's not very keen and stable. A tomato, on the other hand, is heavy enough to allow cutting without deflecting away, even if the cutting edge isn't very clean of burrs. In fact, ragged, toothy burrs on an edge can sometimes initiate a cut more easily, into a tomato.

Knives like these will de-burr and clean up very nicely on a denim strop with some AlOx compound. White or grey stick-type compounds or polishing pastes like Flitz, Simichrome, etc. work very well for this on a denim strop. It's how I've finished the edge to a thin, low-angled, polished convex on a couple of my cheap santoku knives, in fact. Finished as such, they zip through fine paper and tomatoes alike.
 
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Jfd986 said:
Sharpened my santoku knife (some garbage knife I got for free online) on a 1000/6000 whetstone. I can slice a tomato super thin without having to hold the tomato.

Whenever I try to cut newspaper, the newspaper bends or doesn't get shredded properly. Is there a certain technique to cutting newspaper or is my knife just not "newspaper" sharp? Does it matter? It seems pretty stinking sharp to me. I'm a home cook, I cook maybe twice a week, I'm vegetarian, my best knife is an Ikea 365+ santoku knife. The sharpest one is this free one I got in a trade and just sharpened up, so technically that's my Best knife, I'm just saying the Ikea one is my favorite and will soon also be sharpened.
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Jfd986 how much do you know about sharpening and have you been sharpening very long,one of the more common mistakes that beginner's make is they do not know they need to raise a burr to make sure they apex the point of the edge.

If you didn't do that go back and sharpen just one side at a time and keep doing the side you started on until you feel a burr on the other side of the edge all the way across it then flip the knife over and repeat that process.
 
wade7575 said:
Jfd986 how much do you know about sharpening and have you been sharpening very long,one of the more common mistakes that beginner's make is they do not know they need to raise a burr to make sure they apex the point of the edge.

If you didn't do that go back and sharpen just one side at a time and keep doing the side you started on until you feel a burr on the other side of the edge all the way across it then flip the knife over and repeat that process.
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So what I did was, I raised the burr on one side with the 1000 grit stone, and I could feel it with my thumb. Then I flipped the knife over and did the same thing for the other side (with the knife appropriately positioned to enable this on the other side)

Once I got that done, I went to the 6000 grit stone, and I think my stropping technique wasn't as effective as it could have been, so I'm going to try to closer emulate the techniques of other youtube knife people who are clearly successful with this.

Additionally, I am going to deburr the knife between the sharpening stone and the polishing stone from now on. We have 30 wine corks in a "cork collection" in my house, I'll see if my Dad can spare one and I'll run the knife through it a few times to try to deburr it before hitting it with the polishing stone.

It is noteworthy that I used the mini santoku knife today to cut some coffee crisp for ice cream and noticed the cut marks in a new cutting board I had. This made me think, could I have just deburred the knife somewhat without realizing it? Then I watched some paper cutting on YouTube more closely and realized 1) they use magazine paper not newspaper 2) they hold the knife at a shallow angle to the paper, 30 degrees sometimes less 3) they almost never cut straight through the paper, they always cut sideways. I tried that today with a 3-inch utility "santoku" knife that I sharpened yesterday after the knife in this topic was sharpened, and it destroyed the paper.

Some deburr on the stone itself, but I saw an earlier comment saying the cheap stainless steel needs "more deburring" so I'm gonna try to use cork, or perhaps a small block of wood.


Are global knives more straightforward to sharpen and deburr than cheap knives? I've been trying to justify them to myself for a while now, and I tried one and it was the sharpest most well-balanced thing I've ever held.
 
marchone said:
Global knives are very good and are used in many commercial kitchens.
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Would you say they're more straightforward to sharpen though? If I used the same process (1000 grit, deburr, 6000 grit) would it go faster or be easier or lead to a sharper edge, with a global knife? I'm just trying to get ab objective sense of how that steel may behave more favourably with sharpening.
 
Global knives are likely made of a better, read harder, steel than your IKEA knife. They’re hardened to 58-59 Rockwell. Which is a good range for a kitchen knife. That said, it sounds like your sharpening skills have gotten ahead of the quality of the knives your using. That’s a good thing because you want to make mistakes on a cheaper knife as you learn.

If you like the looks of Global knives try one. Personally, I’d go for one from the Classic line. But I’m a Western chef.
 
Global knives are likely made of a better, read harder, steel than your IKEA knife. They’re hardened to 58-59 Rockwell. Which is a good range for a kitchen knife. That said, it sounds like your sharpening skills have gotten ahead of the quality of the knives your using. That’s a good thing because you want to make mistakes on a cheaper knife as you learn.

If you like the looks of Global knives try one. Personally, I’d go for one from the Classic line. But I’m a Western chef.
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When you say gotten ahead, do you mean they're better than the quality of the knives or do you mean I'm trying too much with knife sharpening and I need to slow down and do simpler stuff? LoL

My Ikea knife is X50CrMov15. This is likely where you might be able to help me differentiate, because I didn't find a whole lot of difference (in the admittedly short search I did) between this steel and the Cromova 18 for Global. However, I have recently learned that how the steel is Treated matters a lot more than what exact steel it is.

I tried the G-2 , I am definitely All For the classic line but I'll probably settle on one of the santoku knives instead of the G-2 because, while I am also a Western chef, I am vegetarian and I do mostly chop-cutting oraor slice-cutting whatever it's called, and very little rock-chopping. The santoku knife has just felt more suitable for me (I don't care whether or not it has the little recesses though) and it has a point, which makes it more comfortable for me to use than a Nakiri (although I don't think anyone should necessarily have more of a problem with a Nakiri. I just like watching the point go in.)
 
marchone said:
You’re a chef?
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Sorry I misspoke, I meant I'm a home cook who lives in the West. I cook mostly vegetables though, and mostly Asian/South Asian/ random food that looks good on YouTube. Not a chef, won't make that mistake again, my bad.
 
I sharpened a Farberware Chef's knife for the girls a couple of weeks ago with my WE130. I didn't write it down but I think I gave it a toothy 800 grit at 13-15dps. Out of curiosity, and because I love tomatoes, I went to the kitchen to check it out a few minutes ago.
It seemed kind of dull to my finger checks, but cut thicker printer paper ok, but not very well. It would still slice up a tomato pretty easily but I had to use a sawing motion. Next time I sharpen it I will see how well that it slices up a tomato.
After I sharpened it before, it would glide through magazine paper with ease. Next time I sharpen it, which will probably be sometime this weekend, I'll test it on paper and a tomato and see how easily it slices it up. I might also go up to the 1000 grit stones and see how long the knife cuts.
 
Sharpen on the 1000 grit side and deburr on the 1000 grit as well. Raise the angle several degrees and use LIGHT pressure. Then do a few passes at the original angle on the 1000 grit side alternating one pass per side. Then go to the 6000 side and alternate passes and finish by stropping a few alternating passes. If you can feel the burr with your fingers, a cork won't remove it.
 
Also agree as above from me2 - With soft & ductile stainless like this, a wine cork isn't likely to help with deburring.

More often than not, burrs on these steels won't easily come off until they've been abraded very, very thin. This is why I previously suggested the denim strop with some AlOx compound, as it works very well in doing that and is likely the easiest method as well, as compared to deburring on a stone. As mentioned, if you can feel it with your fingers, it's probably still too heavy to be stripped off in a wine cork.
 
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