Cutting board effect on sharpness

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Wow. If what's reported in that article actually stands up to more scrutiny, a whole lot of conventional wisdom has just gone out the door.
 
I wonder how the Vic factory edge compares to most of ours in terms of refinement. Can’t say that I’ve felt the same increase in sharpness over time that the authors describe, but then again I’m not testing it with a machine.
 
A thought: cutting on end grain (or hi soft) feels nicer than edge grain (or hard plastic). I wonder if many of us automatically assume that this means it dulls the knife less. Certainly, the feeling is more than enough justification to buy premium boards, though. As a home cook, that’s why I buy fancy knives. It’s all about the feel.

Edit: although there’s also the question of whether you’d get similar results with knives that tend to chip rather than roll. Anyway, this reminds me of the recent ATK thread, where they ended up recommending a teak board after testing.
 
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Unless I wasn't paying attention, an edge grain board is friendlier to my knives than an end grain board, bamboo is not nearly as bad as it's reputed to be (and edge grain bamboo is better than end grain bamboo), and plastic boards are better than just about anything else. In particular, the $2.50 boards I can pick up at the supermarket are better than an expensive end grain board.

The only thing that wasn't surprising in these results is that glass is bad for knives.

Let the board wars begin…
 
Thanks for that, Michi, very interesting. I use Hi-Soft boards, kind of disappointed that a cheap HDPP board gives better edge retention or even improvement (Though cutting on a Hi-Soft feels great as @ian pointed out). I wonder if the results would be different for harder steels?
 
Michi said:
Wow. If what's reported in that article actually stands up to more scrutiny, a whole lot of conventional wisdom has just gone out the door.
Click to expand...

The problem with this article IMHO is that all the cutting boards were 'new' (perfect),
and the downside of plastic and to some extent edge-grain is how they deteriorate.

The second issue is IMHO empirically people tend to not observe this in use,
eg in high volume production on plastic boards people are using their hones
and stones ALOT and commenting on performance degradation.

The idea that they weren't adressed in the linked article to me was a red-flag.
So these two issues need to be addressed by someone.

Very interesting and thought provoking read, however.
 
HRC_64 said:
The problem with this article IMHO is that all the cutting boards were 'new' (perfect),
and the downside of plastic and to some extent edge-grain is how they deteriorate.
Click to expand...
I think you're being a bit unfair to him. He cannot account for every variable, and simulating wear on the cutting boards themselves in some consistent way would be difficult.
The second issue is IMHO empirically people tend to not observe this in use,
eg in high volume production on plastic boards people are using their hones
and stones ALOT and commenting on performance degradation.
Click to expand...
The results certainly are counter-intuitive. It would be nice if someone attempted to replicate the study. Or some variation on it.
 
Michi said:
bamboo is not nearly as bad as it's reputed to be (and edge grain bamboo is better than end grain bamboo), and plastic boards are better than just about anything else.
Click to expand...

Since I am using edge grain bamboo and plastic my observation is that bamboo really kills the edge between them and my hardest knife is around 59hrc.
The problem with my plastic board is that, being lighter, it feels more flimsy so I don't feel confident going on faster pace.
Edge on bamboo may be deteriorated faster due to faster pace (or not according to the article)? Need to find a more robust plastic board..
 
HRC_64 said:
The second issue is IMHO empirically people tend to not observe this in use,
eg in high volume production on plastic boards people are using their hones
and stones ALOT and commenting on performance degradation.
Click to expand...

Are there many examples of hi-production operations where they don’t use plastic boards? I know nothing, but the idea of cooking for a 300 person banquet with a nice end grain board seems strange to me. Just curious whether there are good comparisons, or whether it’s just that with high volume, you need to hone/stone a lot.

Edit: I appreciate and agree with your concerns about wear on plastic, though.
 
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Larrin said:
I think you're being a bit unfair to him. He cannot account for every variable, and simulating wear on the cutting boards themselves in some consistent way would be difficult.
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The issue to me is that anyone who works extensively with poly boards knows they scar terribly.

>>$75 Matfer poly board scraper/plane
scraper-for-polyethylene-boards.jpg


I don't mean to argue about the test and saying that the author should be denigrated for not making a "perfect" experimental framework. My point is that somewhere in the discussion anyone who has empirical experience with these boards would be red-flagging this as an obvious area of weaknesss. Typically in a (research paper) discussion omitted variables are red-flag and/or caveated...

"X,y,z variables were excluded...however P+Q+R (logic) tells us they are likely non-material" or "XYZ were excluded and are an avenue for future study ... theoretically they could explain this counter-intuitive empirical result in our paper"...etc.

Hope this makes sense...
 
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Yes poly boards scar easily and terribly. But, I can buy a piece of HDPP 48"x20" for about $25 delivered, enough for a bunch of various size boards. I end up buying a new sheet every 18 months or so.
 
Isn't acacia considered a particularly hard wood and therefore have a detrimental effect on edges. I would like to see the results of end grain walnut or maple, which are far more common as woods for chopping boards
 
Interesting...I may have to reconsider my board choices...

Thanks to the op for digging this up...

Take care

Jeff
 
I've never used an end grain board or a Hi-Soft. But I have been beating the crap out of knives every day for 15 years. High paced hard chopping. I don't notice much of a difference between edge grain wood and plastic for knives 58 and softer. For knives 59+ plastic creates a lot more micro chips than edge grain wood boards. I've definitely never had the pleasure of working with a board that makes my knife feel sharper. I think there would be some problems applying these test results to harder steels sharpened at steeper angles. Those edges won't roll like the Vics. And that's most of the stuff you see around here. As far as scarring, that all depends on how you're using the boards. I think it's possible, especially at home, to use plastic for a really long time without scarring being an issue. In a commercial kitchen, scarring is inevitable.
Heavy cleaver chopping and serrated knives are the worst offenders. But once they are there, grooves, scars, and scratches are also especially damaging to high hardness steel.
 
Corradobrit1 said:
Isn't acacia considered a particularly hard wood and therefore have a detrimental effect on edges. I would like to see the results of end grain walnut or maple, which are far more common as woods for chopping boards
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They address that in their study. Read the third paragraph on page 5.
Acacia has comparable hardness to maple (5000 N).
I speculate they used Acacia as that is what was available locally and was closest in hardness to maple, the most common wood for boards in the US.
 
Verrry interesting. Been thinking about this topic a lot recently since I just started sharpening. I never felt the price of an end-grain board justified its price and hassle of cleaning/upkeep for its dubious edge-protective qualities. By no means is this study definitive (I too would like to see a study using hard-Steel knives and I’m not crazy about them stating they can “confidently say” anything — many more studies are needed for something approaching confidence), but I do know it’s time to replace my four-year-old plastic board. And with this new study, I figure I don’t have much to lose buying another plastic HDPP board!
 
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That's the second time I've read about someone trying to do an objective (automated/mechanical) test on cutting boards and knife sharpness in the last couple months. America's Test Kitchen did one as well.

Using maple rather than acacia, they observed different results... end grain maple contributed to knife edge retention more than edge grain maple. I don't know much about acacia, other than that it's a cheap asian hardwood. I don't know if it's an apples to apples comparison with the typical domestic hardwoods used in end grain butcher block such as maple, walnut, and cherry. Relative janka hardness does not mean they woods are otherwise comparable. It's weird to me that two different scientific tests got opposite results.

One of their other key observations was that scratch marks in a cutting board contribute to dulling a knife's edge. They didn't give me access to their test data, so I don't have specific information. But the implication, for real world use, is that a cutting board that gets readily scarred up will dull knives more quickly. There are caveats to this, obviously... a glass or granite cutting board might not scar up but will certainly dull your knives in a hurry. But... that result surprised me. I knew about bacteria hiding in scarred up boards, but didn't know it would impact sharpness.
 
ian said:
Are there many examples of hi-production operations where they don’t use plastic boards? I know nothing, but the idea of cooking for a 300 person banquet with a nice end grain board seems strange to me...
Click to expand...

This actually depends alot on the local health code, edge grain wood isn't outrageously expensive...



depending on your definition of "volume"...of course the answer can also change

 
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THE GLASS CUTTING BOARD SHOWED AN INCREASE IN SHARPNESS THROUGH THE FIRST 400 TEST SLICES!

Look at the actual data and you'll see things that don't seem to make sense. I copied their data and made the following graphs from it.

yy779jQ.jpg

From the graph above, you can see the sharpness (remember LOWER number = GREATER sharpness) after slicing on glass actually INCREASES during the first 400 slices. Excluding the outlier at 400 cuts, bamboo even shows increased sharpness through the first 1000 cuts!



DGGMYTn.jpg

Ok, how about the acacia wood edge grain versus end grain? From looking at just the starting sharpness versus the ending sharpness after 2000 cuts, what they show in the table on page 5, the sharpness gets better going from 125 to 115 for edge grain (long-grain in their words) or 130 to 110 for end grain. But the actual data shows a trend that seems to say they get duller through the first 800 cuts but then start to get sharper again!

Also, take note that the initial sharpness of the knives tested ranged from 120 to 195, so we are not comparing apples to apples to begin with.

The upshot to me is that there are some problems with measuring sharpness in their experiment. The data seem to show there may be errors in the precision of the measurement and/or errors in the accuracy, most likely both from the scatter and trends seen. The data given were averages of three readings, so we have no access to the raw data, only the averaged data. However, you can see that the sharpness seems to go up and down willy nilly. For example the acacia end grain sharpness swings up and down over a range of 35 points (120 to 155) through the first 600 cuts. Is the knife actually getting sharper then duller and then sharper and then duller again? It's possible... but not likely; therefore, it's more likely a problem with the sharpness measurement.

Looking at the sharpness testing apparatus and the manufacturer website, it looks like you cut a piece of test media (looks like some sort of plastic thread) which is threaded into a holder. Inconsistency of the test media could lead to scatter. Inconsistency with the tension applied to the media when strapped into the holder could also lead to scatter.

All in all, from the data the conclusion I would be willing to draw is that there may be some dulling when cutting on tempered glass, but otherwise the data is not of high enough quality to otherwise draw many conclusions. Multiple data points on each cutting board should be made, i.e. multiple knives tested per cutting board material versus just one knife per material, and perhaps multiple (more than the 3 used in this experiment) sharpness measurements per data point.
 
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ian said:
Yea, I’m a little confused how it works. Is it only checking sharpness at one point along the edge?
Click to expand...

That's what it looks like to me. So this might be an issue unless the knives are marked and retested at the same points along the edge each time. (Go to 40 seconds in on the video below to see the test)

 
Some of those plots looks like noise. A 30-50 gram difference in sharpness is basically no difference.
 
The only unexpected result I saw was edge grain and some plastics treating the edge the same as end grain.
 
When I was staging in Pujol, they had semi-tanish cutting boards that were flexible, maybe half an inch thick.

They were incredible. No damage to the edge, felt great cutting on them.

Unfortunately never got the name/brand.
 
Regarding board testing: Australians move the knife front-back on the same spot under a load. Edge cuts into and then bevels lean onto the board. That protects edge from further degradation and can even sharpen it. When did any of you made 2000 perfectly aligned cuts in the same groove of the board?

My inquisitive esperience with cutting boards, many years of it say:

1. I am unable to find and difference in good wooden boards and edsge grain board.

2. Boards must show scares as that means they stopped the knife minimizing damage to the edge (as I desribed in the first paragraph).

3. There are excellent plastic boards.

4. When I was testing chipping of my knives, a 9 dps Gyuto microchipped immedietelly at several spots when I tried cutting the same thing but on a Bamboo board. Except for that, it never chipped, not even when cutting with 10 kg of pressure.

5. Knives used by people around me with no training and knife skills are in terrible condition. The same users make holes (not grooves) in all above cutting boards. The same knives (maker and steel but different model) used by me on the same cutting boards have no problems ever. So, my conslusion is that knife skills and thinkfull cutting beat all above except for the Bamboo. They never use anything sharper than 13 deg without my supervision.

But: I cut daily, they hardly ever do. I also abandoned most of what I was taught in my knife training regarding cutting and adapted for better and easier cutting. I am lazy :) If we all think the same, it only mans someone is not thinking at all :)
 
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