Looking for kitchen knives with AUS-8, Kershaw?

[Jeff Clark]

I want to try kitchen knives with AUS-8 blades. Kershaw commonly uses AUS-6 and AUS-8 in their knives. Does anyone know if they use AUS-8 in their kitchen knives? Does anyone have experience with their kitchen knives.

Does anyone know of another source for kitchen knives using AUS-8. (I'm looking for a fine grained stainless that will take a very sharp edge. A rockwell of 57-58 would be nice. I'm not looking for something that is super tough.)

 

[clintonsucks]

Hi Jeff. I just had a similar post last month for ATS-34 or better, kitchen knives. Watch out, this subject has been discussed, to death, many times and you'll probably catch some $#!+ from our elder members. Try search for more info.

I did find a couple of great resources though. "DOC" Gundersen has 440C and Steve Mullin has ATS34, 440V and D2.

http://www.aa-webwizard.com/knifeworks/intro.html
http://www.nidlink.com /~packriver/index.html

 

[Sal Glesser]

Jeff - MAC knives are maded from AUS-8. If you'll pardon the commercial; MBS-26 gets sharper than and stays sharper longer than and resists corosion more than AUS-8. It can also be ground thinner to more easily pass through food.
sal

 

[Jeff Clark]

Thanks guys,

My question wasn't "where can I find the Ultimate Kitchen Knife" it was really just where can I find something a bit better and interesting to experiment with. I don't have any AUS-8 knives now and it seemed relatively good to experiment with as a kitchen knife.

I get most of my good kitchen knives at garage sales and Goodwill these days. Since I like to sharpen, this is not only cheaper, it is more fun. Yesterday I stopped at a Goodwill where I thought I might find some MAC knives to play with. What I found instead was a set of 3 Spyderco kitchen knives with MBS-26 blades! You can't imagine my surprise and delight, even though the store wanted a full 95 cents each for the knives.

They are all roughly chef's knife contoured, two with smooth edges while a medium sized one is serrated. The serrations will take real work to clean up and the smooth edges are real dull.

I sharpened the smaller smooth edge last night. It was pretty tough. It seemed pretty high in rockwell. As I worked, it just kept getting sharper! There's a point where most knives plateau and stop getting any sharper, this MBS-26 doesn't seem to understand the phenomenon. By the time I got to my fine ceramic rods it shaved better than any kitchen knife I had except for the Russell Green River carbon steel. After I stropped it with the green buffing compound it reminded me of a straight razor.

That is an amazing material. When I look at the alloy components it doesn't look special. I assume there is something very special in the mechanical and thermal processing of the blades to make it work like that.

Thanks for the suggestion Sal.

 

[James Mattis]

Kershaw's kitchen knives are AUS6, not AUS8. They say their customers will not tolerate the slightest staining from abusive environments like a dishwasher or a long soak in the kitchen sink.

Last year, I got somebody on the phone at Fiskars, who said, after some prodding, that their Balance Plus line was 440A - again, stain resistance being the highest priority. More recently, a call to them reaches a "housewares" person who is not familiar with basic concepts like heat treatment or the idea that a kitchen knife should be sharp.

The good news is that Spyderco will, in the forseeable future, be bringing in a limited run of more of their MBS-26 kitchen knives, besides the four models they make now.

And sometime next year, maybe, don't be surprised to see a few Fallkniven kitchen knives in VG10.


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- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com