Pocket Knife Vs Kitchen Knife

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smilesenpai

Joined
Dec 14, 2012
Messages
25
I'm curious. Why is it that a small pockets knives cost the same price as high-end kitchen knives that are much larger? The small knifes seem so much more durable and take a better edge.
 
What kitchen knives have in materials (amount/size) pocketknives make up for in complexity in build. So I'm not surprised that they're priced similar.

What I AM surprised at is that often people who'll not balk at spending hundreds of dollars on a pocketknife. Have cheap crappy knives in the kitchen....what's up with that?
 
because kitchen knives are boring imo.
the most expensive knife i own is around 150$ while my kitchen knife is around 50$.
 
smilesenpai said:
I'm curious. Why is it that a small pockets knives cost the same price as high-end kitchen knives that are much larger? The small knifes seem so much more durable and take a better edge.
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Could you give an example of this, because I'm not really following what you are saying here. The "...more durable and take a better edge" part really has me lost.
 
Echo those that posted about poor quality kitchen knives. I spoke with Murray Carter a few years ago and at the time I really wanted a neck knife. He was strongly urging against that and was an advocate for a kitchen knife. I do like cutlery in general, and to be honest my kitchen knives are used exponentially more from a hands on/minutes per day perspective than any of my 'pocket' knives. When traveling and in others kitchens, I can 'feel' the difference. (I grew up working in restaurants though so YMMV. And my wife is a better chef by far anyway, so I don't cook as much any more. Still lots of prep on occasion though.)

Not sure on the thickness or edge comments earlier. Other than a slipjoint, or opinal, most pocket knives have blades that are far thicker than I care for in the kitchen. I tend to like Japanese style blades over western though, so perhaps that is part of the reason.

A few years back, I also did an experiment with the following in the kitchen for 1 week when the family was away: SAK farmer, sypderco Mil, mora clipper, @ case jack.

The Mil and Mora made the least precise cuts, i.e. julienne veggies. The SAK and case were to small. The bevel on the mora was tough to get used too and the angle geometry on all were suboptimal. (right tool for the right job comes to mind here). At the end of the week, I concluded that a single good petty would be far better than all of them for kithen duty.
 
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"Could you give an example of this, because I'm not really following what you are saying here. The "...more durable and take a better edge" part really has me lost. " - marcinek

My purpose of knives if for the culinary world and I have watched on youtube of pocketknives and survival knives (is that what you call them) hack branches, saw, cut, slice think strips off paper and used as a level with much less damage to the blade than compared to a quality Japanese kitchen knife. Many kitchen knives would chip badly if not break under these conditions.
 
smilesenpai said:
"Could you give an example of this, because I'm not really following what you are saying here. The "...more durable and take a better edge" part really has me lost. " - marcinek

My purpose of knives if for the culinary world and I have watched on youtube of pocketknives and survival knives (is that what you call them) hack branches, saw, cut, slice think strips off paper and used as a level with much less damage to the blade than compared to a quality Japanese kitchen knife. Many kitchen knives would chip badly if not break under these conditions.
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I thought kitchen knives heat treatment were ran really hard, since there's not much abuse they would take. If I'm right about that, that's why they would chip, and break.
That's also why the steel isn't as high of a grade, because they can run the heat treatment a lot higher, than a pocket knife.
 
TotalDbag said:
I thought kitchen knives heat treatment were ran really hard, since there's not much abuse they would take. If I'm right about that, that's why they would chip, and break.
That's also why the steel isn't as high of a grade, because they can run the heat treatment a lot higher, than a pocket knife.
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I see. Sounds like a catch 22. So I wonder if it is blade of the high grade steel of survival knives made with the method of high quality kitchen knives.
 
With a little work any decent pocket knife can perform on a par with a kitchen knife (to my skill level atleast) only negative is when it comes to cleaning them
 
My pocket knife is sharper than my girlfriend's parents kitchen knives, so whenever I have to prepare vegetables there I use my knife.
 
LX_Emergency said:
What I AM surprised at is that often people who'll not balk at spending hundreds of dollars on a pocketknife. Have cheap crappy knives in the kitchen....what's up with that?
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Guilty. I'm working on it though, getting there.
 
Still not quite following. :confused: High end kitchen knives can cost thousands (even tens of thousands) of dollars. They are made of super high grade, hand crafted steel and run super hard to take and hold incredibly sharp edge. Of course they would chip if you tried to hack a tree with one.

These paper cutting "survival knives" are tougher and softer. So, sure, they are tougher, because they are built for people who enjoy beating the snot out of innocent trees in the name of "survival." :D They do not take a better edge, their edges are not more durable, they just dont chip. Because they are softer.

Good kitchen knife hard, "survival" knife (whatever that means) soft. Apples and oranges. Ferraris and Humvees.

And by pocket knife do you mean "folding knife" or "slipjoint"?

I'd still really like for you to give us an example of a small pocket knife/high end kitchen knife pair that you are comparing...I think it would make what you are asking about much clearer! :thumbup:
 
Take your pocket knife down to less than 8 degrees per side (16 inclusive) and let me know how much chipping you get. I've got a Konosuke HD2 Funayaki Wa-Gyuto that holds up just fine.

[video=youtube;GTHD2J2za6Y]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTHD2J2za6Y[/video]

[video=youtube;92L06bJhQ_o]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92L06bJhQ_o[/video]
 
TotalDbag said:
I thought kitchen knives heat treatment were ran really hard, since there's not much abuse they would take. If I'm right about that, that's why they would chip, and break.
That's also why the steel isn't as high of a grade, because they can run the heat treatment a lot higher, than a pocket knife.
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That's very very wrong. Most kitchen knives are ran very soft (54-55 hrc) BECAUSE they dont need to cut heavy materials just foods. The soft hardness helps with toughness when you encounter hard materials (bones, ice, etc).

On the professional use knives, particularly the Japanese kitchen knives can be ran hard (58hrc-63 hrc) because they are meant to be used by professionals who treat their knives appropriately and use the appropriate tool for the job (when they cost about $1,000 or more, people tend to take care of their knives a whole lot more).
 
Luis G. said:
That's very very wrong. Most kitchen knives are ran very soft (54-55 hrc) BECAUSE they dont need to cut heavy materials just foods. The soft hardness helps with toughness when you encounter hard materials (bones, ice, etc).

On the professional use knives, particularly the Japanese kitchen knives can be ran hard (58hrc-63 hrc) because they are meant to be used by professionals who treat their knives appropriately and use the appropriate tool for the job (when they cost about $1,000 or more, people tend to take care of their knives a whole lot more).
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It all depends. German kitchen knives tend to use a softer heat treat and typically steel that favors toughness over edge retention. Japanese kitchen knives are typically the opposite, using steels like vg10 (on the low end) up to sg2, cowryX, and zdp189 on the high end which are run sometimes up to 66-68 hrc. Then you get into the high end carbon steel Japanese knives using steels like aogami super blue and shirogami white steel. Those knives lost a bit in edge retention to the ultra high end stainless steels like zdp189, but are still run very hard and take an extremely fine edge very easily (think setting the blade on top of a tomato and the weight of the knife cuts into the tomato...). Truthful, it all depends on the food you cook and your knife knowledge. You wouldn't want to use an ultra high end Japanese knife with hard steel and an absurdly thin edge in any task where you might want contact bone. Similarly, you wouldn't want a thickly ground German knife if you were wanting to slice fish paper thin or very neatly and precisely cut vegetables. Then again, I may be a little more interested in such things as I do in fact cook professionally. I will say this though, if you're a knife nut, are obsessed with sharp edges, and geek out when your knife effortlessly cuts through the material you're cutting, then you really owe it to yourself to pick up a high end Japanese kitchen knife as your next knife. You'll find yourself looking for things to cut just to use the darn thing.
 
LX_Emergency said:
What I AM surprised at is that often people who'll not balk at spending hundreds of dollars on a pocketknife. Have cheap crappy knives in the kitchen....what's up with that?
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That's me. If you think about it, the average guy getting into good pocket knives is probably quite young, 18-mid twenties, a bachelor whose best meal is mac and cheese with cut up hot dogs, or possibly the kind of guy with a significant other who does all the cooking :P Though I'm definitely thinking more and more about investing in some good kitchen knives as I am starting to prepare more real food...

edit: and to many a pocket knife is much more personal than a kitchen knife. I personally love having a ridiculously high quality knife in my pocket each and every day, doing anything from cutting roots in the mud, to opening letters and preparing a delicious sandwich at work for lunch... Though the guy who creates amazing meals in the kitchen every day might think otherwise. And it's true that if you even prepare a couple good meals in the kitchen a week, the kitchen knives see more actual cutting chores than your pocket knife.

Corso said:
With a little work any decent pocket knife can perform on a par with a kitchen knife (to my skill level atleast) only negative is when it comes to cleaning them
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Wow, not even close. I use my Military in the kitchen a lot because it's much sharper than my room mate's cheap kitchen knives. In addition to it being longer with a decently thin grind compared to most modern folders it does okay. That said, a reasonable and sharp kitchen knife absolutely blows it away in the kitchen. There is no way your average pocket knife can come close to a decent set of kitchen knives. Even dull kitchen knives are better at many tasks than a razor sharp pocket knife. Try to get a good dice going with a 3.5" bladed folding knife with a 4mm saber ground blade and 40 degree edge.... yeah, I don't care if it can push cut free hanging toilet paper, tree top a maiden's hair, or whatever other sharpness test, it will simply be outclassed by a $20 chef's knife with anything approaching an edge on it.
 
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