pre-fab kitchen knife blades

M

manassas dragon

Joined
Dec 3, 2009
Messages
158
i'm looking at a set of three kitchen knife blades from texas knife supply.
the two larger blades are made from 8a high carbon steel and the utility paring knife is made from 440. all three blades are cryoed.

i know that there are better steels out there,but do you guys think that
these would be at least decent to good for the kitchen.

all comments are welcome.
 
I use one of these http://www.texasknife.com/vcom/product_info.php?cPath=119_299_315&products_id=499
as my day to day kitchen knife. I loaned it out to a few folks over the holidays (one I was sharpening most of her others for her and the other asked to try it out and might have me make her one).
It saw pretty heavy use and held up fine. Someone had used it on a hard surface and rolled the edge a bit but it wasn't bad and didn't take long to have straight and razor sharp again. I have some good kitchen knives and some crappy ones, this is the one I use when possible. I'm planning to make a couple of the Santuku style ones as well. A friend that loves this one wants one, I want one for myself and I plan to give one as a gift.

They're LIGHT, if you prefer a hefty blade you'll be unhappy. The particular model I have starts tapering while still on the tang, at least on the ones I've made. It's annoying because it makes it tough to bring the handle very far up. I do not suggest that line's paring knife, the taper starts WAY too far back on the tang. It's a design flaw that makes putting handles on it and having them actually flush with the steel all but impossible. A thick layer of epoxy might make it at least less of a problem, but unless you color the epoxy to match your scales it will be clearly visible.

In this pic you can see the two I've made with that blade. The one I use is the red handled one, the other was sold. The angle let me bring the handle scales a bit further forward up top without leaving a gap. The black handled one stops just short of where it starts being an issue.
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Yeah, I'm not as experienced as most on here...but from everything I've read, 8a and 440 are about as good as you can get for the kitchen. I'm thinking about going this route myself.
 
Did I miss something? 8A is not AUS8 and 440 is not a very good edge holder unless you meant 440-C Frank
 
I bought a Texas fillet blade from them because a friend was in a hurry for his knife, it's been used quite a bit on some big fish and it holds it's edge well.
Richard

Gregs1b.jpg
 
Go for the 440-C when possible. As others said, even the 8A, while not the very best, is better than what you would likely find at walmart or similar. I've made a couple 8A boot knives from TKS blanks and they're actually pretty decent steel. I do feel the extra couple bucks for cryo is worthwhile :thumbup:
 
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