The demand for high-end kitchen cutlery keeps growing.

beanbag

beanbag

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I'm not sure if this is the right sub-forum to put this, but I thought this New York Times article might be of interest to some of you blade smiths.

I keep seeing more kitchen knives for sale in the knife maker's forum, so I'm guessing many of you are aware of the trend.

Link to article:The Knife Rack goes High-End

Bean
 
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A few errors in the article like carbon is better than stainless - repeating an old myth when you consider CPM154 and other high tech stainless. Yes the high end knives have a growing market.
 
TV shows, like the food network and other how it's make type shows have increased blade awareness, whether the info they spread is right or wrong, that's another matter.
 
I've been watching this movement grow for many years now. I believe now is near the peak for people to either get on board or get left out. There's still lots of room for makers who make them correct but there's unfortunately only about 1 out of 100 who do.
 
i took note a few years ago to and have been makign them ever since (i ll let the hunter bowie crow duke it out for sales :) )
i have tho added straight razors to my bag of tricks
 
I was thinking about selling a few of my shun knives and getting a better kitchen knife. They are good knives but I realized that I don't need a whole set. It was a gift but it was one I wanted. I don't use the 10" chef because its so big and I wish the 6" were a little bigger. I have never used the slicer, used the bread knife only once. I could sell maybe the unused ones for good money since they are in relatively unused condition and get a nice $300 or so custom/damascus 8" chefs.

I always tell people not to buy a crappy knife set at Macy's or whatever department store. All you need is maybe 2 or 3 knives and you could get a decent set for the price of a 10 piece crappy knife set.
I have given a few people kit knives I have made from knifekits or Jantz and they have all told me they are alot better than the cheap knives they have.
I think when you have a good knife that stays sharp you realize how much more they are truly worth.

I was thinking about making one for my brother when he gets married, a sort of japanese style chopper out of 440C would only be my 3rd knife ever so I wouldnt say it is high end though.
 
eyeeatingfish said:
I think when you have a good knife that stays sharp you realize how much more they are truly worth.

I was thinking about making one for my brother when he gets married, a sort of japanese style chopper out of 440C would only be my 3rd knife ever so I wouldnt say it is high end though.
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Just by starting with decent steel you're making a big jump from the department store knives. I'm amazed when people argue "All the big companies use 420, it must be good stuff." What they fail to understand is that factories cranking out 1,000 blades a day don't choose steel for its performance, they choose it based on how slowly or quickly it wears out their tooling, and to a lesser extent, if they can get away with calling it "Stainless".

Anyway, if you like 440C, you'll love CPM-154 and CTS-XHP.
 
james terrio said:
Just by starting with decent steel you're making a big jump from the department store knives. I'm amazed when people argue "All the big companies use 420, it must be good stuff." What they fail to understand is that factories cranking out 1,000 blades a day don't choose steel for its performance, they choose it based on how slowly or quickly it wears out their tooling, and to a lesser extent, if they can get away with calling it "Stainless".

Anyway, if you like 440C, you'll love CPM-154 and CTS-XHP.
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Only if people stop trying to grind kitchen knives like bowies and machetes. The steel could matter less.
 
C-9 said:
Only if people stop trying to grind kitchen knives like bowies and machetes. The steel could matter less.
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I think you are gonna get some argument on that. One potato, two potato, three potato four, use good steel and you'll cut a lot more.:D

Robert
 
C-9 said:
Only if people stop trying to grind kitchen knives like bowies and machetes. The steel could matter less.
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I don't get your point. Better steel, properly HT'ed will support a thin edge better. Of course the steel matters, otherwise we might as well just use chipped rocks :confused:
 
I said it could matter less, not that it doesn't matter. Grind trumps steel for me. I would take a mediocre steel lets say the common X50CrMoV15 used in lots of Euro cutlery hardened to 56-58 HRC with an excellent grind over a hollow bowie style grind or a convex machette grind in whatever supersteel with whatever amazing heat treat. This is exactly the mentality that holds many custom knife makers from really penetrating the high end knife market. They over emphasize the characteristics of steel and underestimate the importance of the overall geometry. The steel is important so far as it supports the geometry from failing immediately and over prolonged use, and if someone it trying to use a chopper grind in a kitchen, its a waste of whatever potential they got from whatever steel they used.

If you want to take the comment out of context and make the extreme argument of garbage steel and/or rocks, then my response is a hammer made out of any super steel isn't going to cut well either.
 
C-9 said:
Grind trumps steel for me.
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Now I understand, and I certainly agree. I don't slice tomatoes with a bowie. Would you agree that if the grind is the same, an extra few bucks spent on better steel is worthwhile?

That brings me back to my point about department store knives and cheap steel.... I may grind a dozen blades in a good week, that may cost me an extra hundred bucks up front for great steel vs. mediocre steel. If that were 1,000 blades... yikes.

To be fair I'd still rather have 420 or something similar than a chipped rock :)
 
Chipped rocks , flint or obsidion [natural glass] have VERY sharp edges .I've seen a video of an animal being butchered with a chipped rock and it would be hard to do it faster with a knife.
 
For any given geometry (and usage), if a knife suffers from immediate failure such as edge rolling, then improving hardness either through heat treat or steel selection is going to help a lot. On the other hand, if the edge is failing immediately from chipping, super steels are not your friend and neither is high hardness. So "improving" the steel is going to help, but what exactly constitutes an "improvement" depends on the mode of failure. And then there's carbide fallout and such too.

Otherwise, all that extra alloy and hardness in super steels is not going to get some sort of performance increase except in edge longevity which is important, but by switching to "improved" steels you're often sacrificing either chip resistance, or under tempering to compensate for increased chippiness, and introducing vulnerability to rolled edges.

For grinds where a "supersteel" can fit well within the bounds of avoiding immediate failure, yes you will probably see an increase in performance through increased edge life, but that doesn't mean it will be able to compete in cutting ability with a steel that can take a geometry that walks a fine line between rolling and chipping. And it certainly excludes any bowie grinds from competing performance wise.
 
mete said:
Chipped rocks , flint or obsidion [natural glass] have VERY sharp edges .I've seen a video of an animal being butchered with a chipped rock and it would be hard to do it faster with a knife.
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But not on a cutting board. And not with vegetables. Skinning knives have a different operating environment than kitchen knives, regardless of whether or not it contributes to the food that ends up on your plate.
 
mete said:
Chipped rocks , flint or obsidion [natural glass] have VERY sharp edges .I've seen a video of an animal being butchered with a chipped rock and it would be hard to do it faster with a knife.
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I'm sure that's true, I've seen micro=photos comparing flint and obsidian to steel blades and the difference is astounding. But I feel steel is more versatile. ;)
 
As for the stainless vs. carbon debate, that will never be resolved.:D The one disadvantage to traditional carbon steel knives is that I have been told that some local health departments frown on their usage in restaurants. The advantage when compared to the typical decent mass market stainless knives like Henckels is HOW they go dull. Obviously, you cannot stop the typical consumer (like my mother at times and my two sisters-in-law) from cutting on glass cutting boards or granite counter tops. But my limited experience in having to deal with the consequences of these actions is that the stainless knives tend to chip out, whereas the carbon steel ones are more prone to roll or flatten. Some of the knives owned by my family come to me looking like the straight razor in the Bug Bunny cartoon "The Rabbit Of Seville" IMO, any proper kitchen knife should probably have an edge thin enough that you need to "realign" the edge with the steel or what have you. But I know that I could take the typical abused carbon blade and sharpen it on a regular stone, whereas the stainless knives need the gentle prodding of the KMG. I know that the new CPM "super" steels willhave alot more wear resistance, but I haven't seen anything to indicate that the chippiness is a whole lot better than say ATS134. I may be wrong. The 416/carbon steel "san mai" knives liekBurt Foster and others make seem like an interesting solution to this age old problem, but my first attempt to laminate such a billet was wildly unsuccessful.
 
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Glass/stone cutting surfaces and putting knives in a dishwasher are two of the very few things that automatically void all my warranties, express or implied.

I haven't taken CPM-154, CPM-3V or CTS-XHP down to as thin an edge as, say, Del's beautiful chef's knives, but I've taken them pretty darn thin and haven't experienced any measurable chipping when using them for camp purposes or in shop-testing. Butch Harner could speak to that a lot better than I can. There's no question that they're harder to sharpen than traditional carbon knives, of course.
 
Isn't CPM-3V non-stainless? I was under the impression that it was a CPM tool steel with a bunch of vanadium and about half of the chromium as "true" stainless.
james terrio said:
Glass/stone cutting surfaces and putting knives in a dishwasher are two of the very few things that automatically void all my warranties, express or implied.

I haven't taken CPM-154, CPM-3V or CTS-XHP down to as thin an edge as, say, Del's beautiful chef's knives, but I've taken them pretty darn thin and haven't experienced any measurable chipping when using them for camp purposes or in shop-testing. Butch Harner could speak to that a lot better than I can. There's no question that they're harder to sharpen than traditional carbon knives, of course.
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