Store bought knife quality

[Atlas Knife Company]

I know you all have reasons to discount store knives. I had an experience yesterday with one a friend brought in to have me sharpen. It was a big ogre killer of a knife made in china. You know, the kind that sells for $10 at a flea market. Obviously it didn't state what kind of steel it was other than "STAINLESS". I sharpened one side, and thought it sharpened very easily. I decided to take a file to it and it cut right into it. I tested a few other store bought knives and about half of them were hardened. No wonder they won't hold an edge. . .

Is it bad practice to test a knife this way first to make sure it is hardened before you buy one?

 

[Sam Salvati]

They wouldn't like you doing that to the henckels in Williams Sonoma LOL

 

[stealthchaser13]

it should be, but stores wouldn't like you doing that to their product.

 

[Mattohn]

ill have try this on my POS

 

[Atlas Knife Company]

What fun. I've just tested every knife in the kitchen and only the Solingen cleaver is hardened! I was beginning to think it was the file, but my bowie and the tip of a wood chisel were both unaffected.

 

[sunshadow]

a file will cut hardened and tempered steel, as a file is harder than what the tempered hardness is, it will not cut tempered steel as quickly as un heat treated steel. The real test should be can you cut or scratch it with a known good standard knife like a Buck 110 (which I believe are heat treated under the supervision of Paul Bos and his assistant who took over running the heat treating services)

-Page

 

[Patrickknives]

I bought several ceramic sharpening rods trying to find one that would touch up my kitchen knives, really no luck it took quite a while to restore an edge. So tried the stones on my Henkle knives and it 10 strokes on each side they were really sharp, needless to say they get dull pretty quick.

 

[me2]

File testing a knife and using that to determine if its hardened can be misleading. I filed the blade of my old Cold Steel Scalping Knife and it tested at HRc 60. I had a $2 machete that could barely be scratched by a file, but would bend as much as you wanted, pretty easily. Many knives are tempered to the 55 to 57 HRc range, which a file will cut.