# Cutting board effect on sharpness



## scott.livesey (May 20, 2019)

Interesting article on cutting boards and sharpness. All knives were the same. Many different types of cutting board. http://knifegrinders.com.au/16SET.htm
the old sailor


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## Larrin (May 20, 2019)

Here is the link to the pdf: http://knifegrinders.com.au/SET/Chopping_Boards.pdf


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## gstriftos (May 20, 2019)

Well that was unexpected..


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## Michi (May 20, 2019)

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.


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## ian (May 20, 2019)

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.


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## ian (May 20, 2019)

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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## Michi (May 20, 2019)

The video is worth having a look at.


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## Michi (May 20, 2019)

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…


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## CoteRotie (May 20, 2019)

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?


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## HRC_64 (May 20, 2019)

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.



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.


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## Larrin (May 20, 2019)

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.


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.


The results certainly are counter-intuitive. It would be nice if someone attempted to replicate the study. Or some variation on it.


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## gstriftos (May 20, 2019)

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.



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..


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## ian (May 20, 2019)

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.



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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## HRC_64 (May 20, 2019)

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.



The issue to me is that anyone who works extensively with poly boards knows they scar terribly. 

>>$75 Matfer poly board scraper/plane






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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## scott.livesey (May 20, 2019)

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.


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## Corradobrit1 (May 20, 2019)

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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## Walla (May 20, 2019)

Interesting...I may have to reconsider my board choices...

Thanks to the op for digging this up...

Take care

Jeff


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## stringer (May 20, 2019)

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.


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## parbaked (May 20, 2019)

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



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.


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## oval99 (May 20, 2019)

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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## John Loftis (May 20, 2019)

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.


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## HRC_64 (May 20, 2019)

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...



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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## milkbaby (May 20, 2019)

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.





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!







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 (May 20, 2019)

Yea, I’m a little confused how it works. Is it only checking sharpness at one point along the edge?


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## milkbaby (May 20, 2019)

ian said:


> Yea, I’m a little confused how it works. Is it only checking sharpness at one point along the edge?



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)


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## Larrin (May 21, 2019)

Some of those plots looks like noise. A 30-50 gram difference in sharpness is basically no difference.


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## captaincaed (May 21, 2019)

Larrin said:


> Some of those plots looks like noise. A 30-50 gram difference in sharpness is basically no difference.


The plots also have different Y scales, and that can make comparison tricky.


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## scott.livesey (May 21, 2019)

The only unexpected result I saw was edge grain and some plastics treating the edge the same as end grain.


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## Illyria (May 21, 2019)

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.


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## Pila (Jul 26, 2019)

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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## Lotmom (Jul 26, 2019)

This is very interesting to me but not at all surprising.
This is the anecdotal evidence I've been giving to my customers for years - that plastic cutting boards are nicest to your edges.
that being said, nothing beats the feeling of a nice solid wood board, but if your only concern is edge retention, plastic is the way to go.

My educated guestimation is that wood and other natural products have natural deposits of silica in them (that's one reason a paring knife's edge lasts longer than a chef knife, it never touches the board) but plastics are uniform and always softer than the edge...

Idk, I'm still trying to find a plastic board that looks good, isn't slippery, and gives good feedback.


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## bahamaroot (Jul 26, 2019)

All I know is every time I read another cutting board test it always says something different from the last. It seems every test out there contradicts every other test out there. So...I just use what I like, period. Like my big ass BoardSMITH!


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## Benuser (Jul 27, 2019)

Not too surprised, Krupp's 4116 holded quite well on crapy poly boards, where simple carbons lost their sharpness very quickly.


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## wilburh (Jul 27, 2019)

For home use I don't think it matters much which board you use but , to qualify this post, I have a couple of mid-priced sharpening stones and while I'm not one that likes to sharpen, I'll do it every time it's necessary to keep my Japanese knives quite dangerous. Can't say what is the best or even what is better but I have a Boardsmith maple cutting board that's getting somewhat old and it looks better than when I first got it. That said, I've been through a lot of mineral oil and beeswax but the application takes little time and works well. I don't think you can find a better board...as good maybe...but not better.


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## stringer (Jul 27, 2019)

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. 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.



I am responding to this rather old post on this thread because I want to clear up a few misconceptions about professional kitchens. There is no national health code for food service operations (at least in the US). There are model code recommendations put out by government agencies like the FDA, by private companies like ServSafe, and by not-for-profits like NSF. States and localities develop their own health codes based on these models and whatever else they feel like. Health codes (at least in the United States) are locally enforced at the city or county level. The same health code pretty much applies the same to every kind of food service operation within a locality whether that's a restaurant, a private club, a food truck, a hospital, a school, etc. Every county or city has some variation. Even each individual inspector has their own list of pet peeves and areas of emphasis. 

In addition to the state/county/local inspectors there are also private inspection companies. It is very common for hospitals, schools, national hotel and restaurant brands, and other big institutional type establishments to have standards that supplement/exceed the rules laid out by the local authorities. They will hire companies to conduct the same sorts of periodic health and sanitation inspections to enforce these standards. Some places that deal with people who have compromised immune systems and the like will have the strictest rules and may even require that only NSF knives be used or only plastic cutting boards. In fifteen years of work in restaurants, private clubs, and hotels in three different states I have never encountered such a requirement. Most inspectors just want to make sure that all of your food contact surfaces/equipment is being washed and sanitized in one of three methods.

1. High temp dish machine (This is obviously horrible for knives and wooden boards, it will even cause plastic to warp over time)
2. Low temp, high chemical dish machine (Equally horrible for knives, the chemicals are extremely corrosive to steel and will ruin a wooden cutting board very quickly)
3. 3 compartment sink, Rinse, Wash, Sanitize (This is fine for knives and if you're dish staff is careful can work with wooden boards but they still will never last as long as poly)

Despite not being required by the health code, most places doing large banquets or even just busy restaurants are unlikely to use wooden cutting boards in the back of the house (I have seen them used for front of the house stuff where presentation matters more). In addition to being easier to sanitize, plastic boards minimize the risk of cross-contamination. The boards are color coded, red for meat, blue for fish, brown for bread, green for veg, yellow for chicken, etc. Wooden boards, especially end grain, are much more expensive than plastic. They are less durable and get warped easier and are more likely to be stolen. So partly because of health/sanitation, but probably mostly because of expense, you don't see them. I have seen a bunch of places that have Boos Block or similar prep tables. These are a nice compromise. They don't really get used for chopping stuff so much. But for some projects, especially baking/pastry/pasta stuff, working off of a wood surface is much nicer than stainless steel.


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## stringer (Jul 27, 2019)

I have also seen these at several places. They are definitely wood, but not like a traditional cutting board. They are used on the deli style reach in coolers that are on restaurant lines. They get sanded down periodically to eliminate grooves and scratches. I don't know how they compare to plastic for edge retention. Probably similar. They are
dense and hard.


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## parbaked (Jul 27, 2019)

That looks like Richlite, a composite made from wood pulp and/or paper.
It is the material used in Epicurean cutting boards, but was used in commercial applications before someone decided to use it to fabricate cutting boards.
https://richlite.com


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## Dendrobatez (Jul 27, 2019)

Interesting test, I know I like end grain boards for the boards durability - I don't usually worry about edge retention at home but I'll keep this post in mind when I'm buying a board next.



HRC_64 said:


> .
> >>$75 Matfer poly board scraper/plane



This may be the coolest thing I've seen in awhile, I have to use those poly boards at work and due to health code we end up throwing out boards when they get rough looking.


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## stringer (Jul 27, 2019)

parbaked said:


> That looks like Richlite, a composite made from wood pulp and/or paper.
> It is the material used in Epicurean cutting boards, but was used in commercial applications before someone decided to use it to fabricate cutting boards.
> https://richlite.com



That makes sense. They are very similar to Epicurean boards and I have also seen Epicurean boards being used in restaurants as well.


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## JohnnyChance (Jul 27, 2019)

I've honestly never really noticed any appreciable difference between different style cutting boards.

That being said, he used the knives with factory edges, which will all have an aligned burr or wire edge. That explains the differences in initial sharpness and also the "noise" as Larrin called it, as well and improvements in the edge.

Even redoing the test with sharpened knives, we have no way to know how good his burr reduction was. Without completely removed burrs the entire test is void. Might as well have titled it "We test 10 different wire edges on random surfaces".




Illyria said:


> 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.



That sounds like a Hi-Soft style board. The online pictures for them all seem to be more cream colored, but all the ones I have used are more tan.


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## MashMaster (Feb 19, 2021)

I did post a more detailed reply to this but as it was my first post it was lost before I confirmed in the newbie forum. 

I have exactly the same end cutting board used by knifegrinders in the test. I can tell looking at the photos on page 5 of the pdf that the board was brand new. The board new is covered with a hard polyurethane varnish. The first thing I did when I purchased mine was to sand off about 1mm of the surface to remove the hard polyurethane finish. I flipped by board upside down I get a tick tick tick sound off the varnish and a thum thum thum chopping sound off the sanded and oiled side. If you look at the data from knifegrinders you can see sharpness BESS readings when up and down in a cycle pattern, you can also see the testing area was moved around the board. I suggest that test measured cutting or scraping polyurethane varnish off, more than it did cutting on the board. Actually it was more slicing on the board no chopping motion at all, and if you think about it the burnishing effect is from slicing how the test results got better on the hard plastic boards. But chopping or even push cutting mostly chop where the rubber meets the road or the knife the board.

The second thing is the board is not as assumed what is called blackwood specifies of acacia, there is a company in Australia that makes custom blackwood acacia boards they are $500AU and up! The acacia chopping board is actually made in Thailand, there are literally 1000s of species of acacia. Some the common ones in grown in Thailand are pretty hard up there with longitudinal bamboo!

I think the rest needs to be redone with a known timber species for hardness grain size etc. On an oiled board (any decent one will be the board in testing cost me under $50AU delivered so cheap its hardly worth of the cost of bee's wax to maintain it (mineral oil cheap bee's wax at the markets is $). So you testing end grain nor varnish or polyurethane cutting surface.

Hard to test but I would like to see some kind of chopping test. I am a push cutter whilst that has sliding in the material there is impact on the board, and if I have my Nakiri out there is more chop than push.


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## DavidPF (Feb 19, 2021)

It seems to me that the testers have just done a _very_ poor job of simulating how boards (and knives) are used. Similar mistakes to if someone created an automobile crash test dummy that weighs 2 pounds and is inflatable - all the test graphs would show results, but the test itself wouldn't be valid because it wasn't similar to reality, and the results it generated would be worse than useless.


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## MashMaster (Feb 19, 2021)

DavidPF said:


> It seems to me that the testers have just done a _very_ poor job of simulating how boards (and knives) are used. Similar mistakes to if someone created an automobile crash test dummy that weighs 2 pounds and is inflatable - all the test graphs would show results, but the test itself wouldn't be valid because it wasn't similar to reality, and the results it generated would be worse than useless.


It would have been nice to see something from theboardsmith or boo a known board for starters. But to be fair the people doing these texts for the community are not the are not zwilling victorinox or shun or any of the big producers. Even the testing from certain cutlery associations does not have big money large industry funding. I dont think a single type of test will capture all knife users but my guess is you have slicers, choppers, rockers and push cutters. Accurate testing for all techniques and the machinery to do the testing would be expensive. 

I give credit where credit is due to knife grinders for the testing they did and sharing their results with the community. I think the test they did is pretty good for slicing cutting. It would have been nice to include a slicing test by hand eg 200 slicing actions on the knife by hand just as a control on the same board against the testing rig. I think they should not have used factory edges as there was too much variability in them. I would have started with shop sharpened. 

I have read on the forums that some people prefer maple over walnut and cherry boards they how because they are harder the knife glides over the board more as opposes to sticking. Very similar to what I have read for some of the soft synthetic boards ok for slicing too sticky for push cutting/chopping.


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## DavidPF (Feb 19, 2021)

I care a lot less about what boards they use - that's very easy to change in the future. The unrealistic test conditions are preventing sane results and need to be examined first.

Basically they've built a board-testing robot, but the robot is currently very stupid, improperly equipped, and poorly trained.


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## mengwong (Oct 10, 2022)

ian said:


> Are there many examples of hi-production operations where they don’t use plastic boards?


In Asia, I’m used to seeing this at every roast meat & chicken rice hawker stall… (note the heel park at 2:04)


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## bradmacmt (Oct 11, 2022)

I'm sort of shocked that traditional Hinoki was not used in testing.


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## blokey (Oct 11, 2022)

I'm more surprised there is edge grain bamboo board

edit: woops I mean end grain


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## MowgFace (Oct 11, 2022)

blokey said:


> I'm more surprised there is edge grain bamboo board


Here’s a picture of mine.


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