I’ve always heard dull blades are the most dangerous, but whenever I nick myself shaving my legs it’s always with a new blade. Does the dull blade thing only apply to kitchen knives and not razors?
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Dull blades take more force which means they’re more likely to slip, they also create jagged cuts.
They are more dangerous as they don’t cut cleanly, it’s more of a jagged cut which is harder to stitch back together. It’s easier to cut yourself with a sharp blade. It’s more dangerous and difficult to put your skin back together with a dull blade.
a dull blade will need more force to makes its cuts…the issue is this extra force also makes it more likely the knife will slip into somethnig it shouldnt and the extra force behind it causes more damage.
there is also the mental factor, that people in general respect a blade they perceive as sharp and handle it more carefully, and may be more reckless with blades they htink arent sharp.
Dull blades being the most dangerous is kind of a roundabout way of mentioning the actual danger.
It’s true, with a sharp blade, like a razor, it’s very easy to get small cuts, and even bigger ones if the knife isn’t handled properly. For those small cuts a dull knife would definitely be safer.
Where a dull knife becomes unsafe is in that you have to put a lot of force & pressure behind the tool, which are qualities you trade in for control.
A sharp knifes slides through what it’s supposed to cut, it might nick you, but there’s seldomly much force behind it.
But to get a dull knife to cut through what you want to cut you have to use a lot of force, and if you’re pushing hard on a knife, and it slips, it could easily make it’s way into your body, while still retaining a lot of the force initially applied, making the risk for much much worse wounds a lot higher than with a sharp knife.
It might help to think of it this way: a super sharp blade might cut you more easily when you get cut, but you are less likely to actually get cut. A dull knife will be much more likely to actually cut you, and the damage will not be as clean
The idea is that a dull blade that is not effective when used in a proper manner is much more likely to be used improperly in an attempt to effective… Improper use contributes to the likelyhood of making a mistake.
You cutting yourself shaving is just because your an idiot…
So when i say “a sharp knife is a safe knife” there is the assumption that the end user is in fact, not an idiot…
No knife is a safe knife in the hands of an idiot…
Dull blades are more dangerous because you have to push harder to get them to do what you want. Pushing harder introduces unpredictability. This unpredictability is what’s dangerous.
The big difference there is that with shaving you are deliberately passing the blade along your skin so a sharp could nick you where a dull one might not.
The danger comes in when cutting something else, you have to use more effort with a dull blade so it’s more likely to slip and hit an unintended target.
To be honest I think this saying isn’t backed by any facts or research.
I’ve been cooking a long time, with a lot of knives. And I’ve only ever given myself a serious cut with razor sharp fancy knives.
Sure they take less effort to cut your food, but they also go through your flesh like butter as well.
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