Ceramic knife

A

angi

Joined
Apr 28, 2011
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151
I was looking on ebay and amazon and i found ceramic blade knives and they are very cheap. i own a busse and i love it but i heard ceramic is the best edge holding and it wont rust but it will chip and crack. as a skinner would be good? or foe example ceramic will hold that wicked edge forever?
 
I've heard the ceramic can chip from cutting fruits, vegetables, and boneless meat. I've also heard it doesn't take as fine an edge as steel can, so I'm not sure how "wicked" that edge will be. You might have better luck with a titanium carbide blade.

I also see a bit of a downside with the limitation of only diamond sharpening.

Even if you only use it for EDC, I suspect my Para2 in S90V will hold its edge much longer.
 
I have an old Boker ceramic folder and while it is a scalpel I just won't use it as an EDC due to its brittle nature. I had to send it to a special sharpening service to get that edge back because it is extremely hard.
 
I'd skip it.
I've owned and sharpened multiple times: Boker 2040 Ceramic Titanium Delta, Kyocera OK-45 utility knife and two Yoshiblade ceramic santokus.
Even though I was always extra careful, and with kitchen ceramic knives, always used them on washed soft ingredients and on top notch end grain wood board(as edge friendly as it gets) still, in couple months the edge becomes unusable, at least to me. I am positive it's not my knife skills or the board or ingredients, because I have no trouble keeping from chipping edges on 64-67HRC steel knives, with very acute angles 5-10 per side.

Sharpening can be done at home, but IMHO it's simply not worth the time and the effort. In the beginning, I used to use Silicon Carbide microabrasives, very time consuming, but excellent practice for freehand sharpening ;) Later on, I've acquired Edge pro diamond plates, and that did speed things up considerably, except those tend to wear at higher rate, and the edge on ceramics doesn't last nearly as long as its high hardness might suggest.

As for the sharpness, I could never get any ceramic knife close to what a good still can be. For all 3 maker's knives listed above, I could improve factory edge sharpness, w/o big hassle(relatively speaking), but it never gets close to quality steel.

For experimenting, I've used one of the Yoshiblade santokus as veggie prep knife, didn't even last a moth before gong dull. Main difference was that some of the vegetables were not washed, and dirt particles in them caused more severe chipping at a faster rate.

So, in a lab condition or some very specific use it might be a good thing, but for a human being, in real life kitchen it's not as beneficial. For outdoors use it's far worse. Skinning something can cause impact on bone, skin itself won't be that clean, etc.
 
My Yoshiblade that I own came razor sharp out of the package, and now (half a year later), with almost daily use, it is still hair sharving sharp. I tried to resharpen it on my diamond sharpener, and all it did was shave the diamond coating off. Ceramic is nice, but ridiculously hard. There are a few ceramic sharpeners you can get, just look around.
 
Cold Kill said:
I tried to resharpen it on my diamond sharpener, and all it did was shave the diamond coating off. Ceramic is nice, but ridiculously hard.
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Diamond is harder than ceramics, and it is used to sharpen ceramic blades. The reason you shaved diamond coating was too much pressure during sharpening.
 
Gator97 said:
Diamond is harder than ceramics, and it is used to sharpen ceramic blades. The reason you shaved diamond coating was too much pressure during sharpening.
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It wasn't a high quality diamond sharpener. Even my regular steel knives were taking diamond coating off.
 
They're not worth the trouble IMO. They're way too fragile and difficult to sharpen. I'll gladly give up a little edge retention to not have to deal with that. Oh, and some people say that ceramic knives are sharper, but that's not really true (as other users have noted here). Theoretically, ceramic knives CAN get very sharp, but they never come anywhere near that sharp, and it's too difficult to get them as sharp as steel blades can be.
 
Cold Kill said:
It wasn't a high quality diamond sharpener. Even my regular steel knives were taking diamond coating off.
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Then you were probably pushing too hard then, too. The diamond coming off doesn't mean that the diamonds are too low quality, it means that you're pushing so hard that they diamonds break free from the adhesive. Pressure and speed don't get you anywhere with sharpening; it's all about keeping your angles consistent and your hand steady.
 
Cold Kill said:
It wasn't a high quality diamond sharpener. Even my regular steel knives were taking diamond coating off.
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If even steel blades were doing it, why use it as an example to show how hard ceramic blades are?
 
Cold Kill said:
It wasn't a high quality diamond sharpener. Even my regular steel knives were taking diamond coating off.
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Like Kreole said, bad sharpener is hardly a a proof of ceramic blade hardness, which is very high, no questions asked. However, even top quality diamond sharpener makers, e.g. DMT explicitly warn you against two things, using dry sharpeners, and using anything greater than light pressure. Eventually all diamond sharpeners loose the crystals anyway, no matter how careful you are.
 
I got a ceramic folder and it is fun to use but many good kitchen knives with good steel, proper geometry, and care will do much better. Ceramic is potential trouble, especially if you don't get one of the better ones.
 
thank you guys , youe thoughts were helpfull. ill skip the ceramic knife. what about a tungsten carbide knife. do they make a knife out of that?
 
ive used the yoshi a bit, not as sharp as i would of liked. a food prep knife. no way would i trust the stuff for an edc blade.

instead of looking for something that will never require sharpening try learning how to sharpen your own. very rewarding. :thumbup:
 
You've already gotten lots of good advice. There's no denying that ceramic knives definitely have shortcomings, like being brittle and hard to sharpen. However, despite knowing these shortcomings, I added one to my collection, simply because of the "cool factor." It's the same reason I have an obsidian bladed knife, and a knife with glass scales that is totally impractical. If you feel you "need" a ceramic knife to round out your collection, I say go for it. Just be aware of the trade-offs and downsides that everyone pointed out.

- Mark
 
angi said:
thank you guys , youe thoughts were helpfull. ill skip the ceramic knife. what about a tungsten carbide knife. do they make a knife out of that?
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Not at the moment. But those would also have some issues with chipping.
 
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