Ti in the kitchen

T

thegeek574

Joined
Sep 3, 2010
Messages
2,460
Everyone,
I haven't really been giving christmas presents to family, and I would like to one of these years. what I was thinking was 2 paring knives and a santoku for each of the different families, all in G10. I was going to go with AEB-L, but then I started thinking about titanium and was thinking that it would be really nice because of the fact that it would not rust. I would have it carbidized. So, I have a couple of questions

Is titanium practical in the kitchen? I would think it would be, but I am pretty sure that there is a reason for the fact that I don't see it very much.
Will the carbidized edge hold up as well as some other steels?
How high maintenance is it? only one of these families will have any sort of sharpening equipment, and they use a pull through.
Is there anything I need to watch out for when grinding it?
how do I go about HT?
The first thing I thought of when I thought about carbidizing the edges was if the carbides would come off in the food. will this happen, and, if not, how can I explain that?
I saw the answers to some of these questions, but I am not sure if they are the same in this situation.

Thanks,
Steven
 
The kitchen is a pretty harsh when you think about it. Would be interesting to see how the hold up under acidic conditions, hitting bone, or vegis with dirt not fully washed off. I'd mostly be worried about non-knife people cutting frozen food and what that might do both to the edge and if pieces could get in to the food. Don't the carbide edges need a special sharpening treatment/system?
 
Ti kitchen knives are a novelty gift item. People don't buy them , they get them as gifts...and sell them at yard sales for $1.

They don't work well at all.

Carbidizing is also a novelty ,IMHO. I certainly wouldn't want it on a kitchen knife.

Use CPM-S35VN and they won't rust .AEB-L will also make a fine knife.
 
I use Tai (Goo) in the kitchen and it works really well. Titanium, on the other hand, is too soft to support a thin edge regardless of carbides etc.
 
industrially carbidized ti blades do excel at certain cutting tasks, due to the micro-serrated and self sharpening nature of the edge, but none of those tasks its good at are kitchen tasks. They aren't even remotely capable of any food prep, as mentioned, where you primarily be performing push cutting, chopping, and delicate slicing. The one exception where a carbide impregnated ti blade would be highly effective is tomato slicing.

FWIW this topic is very dear to me, I've been extensively testing spark deposited ti knives for the past year, and have drawn some pretty firm conclusions as to what they're great at and what they're horrible at, and its pretty black and white. They don't do anything "medium well", its either highly effective (cutting cardboard, rope, etc) or totally ineffective (push cutting, shaving, impact/chopping), and don't really directly compare to steel. You have to think of it as a highly specialized tool, which makes sense as titanium has always been a highly specific material.
 
OK. In that case, I will stick with AEB-L. The reason I was asking was becuase I see that both Daniel Fairly and Ban make a lot of large kitchen knives in carbidized titanium and I figured there had to be something there. I guess not much.

What steels have the highest rust resistance? I am not sure about the knife care habits of the families I will be giving these to.
 
440 c stainless is what I make all my knives out of, I made a butcher knife for my grandmother last year out of 440 and it sees alot of use. No rust issues and she knows nothing about knife care.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top