Can You Make Your Blades Sharper?

We get this question from people who are used to dangerously sharp traditional blades, and who believe a blade has to be extremely sharp to be effective. If you’re used to dangerous traditional blades, you may wonder how Slice^® blades, with their finger-friendly^® edges, could possibly be effective.

Slice blades have a unique edge—made possible by their material, zirconium oxide, and our proprietary double-angle grind. It is this grind that makes our safety blades just sharp enough to get the job done, while lowering your risk of injuries. Here’s a demonstration:

 

Just how sharp does a blade need to be? Think about that for a second. It only has to be sharp enough to get the job done, right? It needs to cut whatever you’re trying to cut. Any sharper than that, and you’re unnecessarily putting yourself in danger of a laceration.

This graphic shows how Slice blades have a much smaller initial cutting zone than traditional blades, thereby reducing your exposure to the part of the blade that actually does the cutting:

In their quest to determine whether Slice blades are “sharp enough,” some people have gone so far as to deliberately try to cut themselves with Slice safety blades. We don’t recommend this. Not only is it a poor indicator of whether the blade is effective, but… ouch!

Slice blades are safer than traditional blades but they can cut skin; any blade will cut you, given enough pressure and determination on your part. Please treat all blades with respect and use common-sense blade safety practices.

So, yes, we could make our blades sharper, but then they wouldn’t be safety blades. Slice blades are manufactured to be safer than traditional blades, whether metal or ceramic. Our blades start at an effective level of sharpness and stay there up to 11 times longer than metal blades. Sharpening our blades to the same unsafe degree as traditional blades would defeat the purpose.

You can learn more about Slice safety blades here.