Who makes decent inexpensive or expensive paring knives?

Under $50 I'd say go Victorinox. Over $50 I'd say keep an eye out in the "Exchange" for something custom. I have some old Cold Steel and Case that were cheap and work good. They've been used hard for 20 years and still look fairly new. Recently I've been lucky enough to get a couple parers from Haburn and Harner (plus a Petty from Tendick and a Santuko from Patton) off this site and those are what I use now. It's a noticeable difference, and they look nicer too.
 
sounds like you're looking for a Bird & Trout. Basically a paring knife with a little more beef.
 
for a paring knife without the beef, thin and light, this Rada is my favorite....easy to get razor sharp, a super slicer, and the blade works better for me with this modified tip.
 
I use the Victorinox ($4), and carbon Opinel ($14 set of two). All I need.

I can use several Spyderco folders as paring knives...like the Delica, Cento, and Stretch.
 
Bird's beak mac knives are pretty tactical.

Although my favorite one is homemade:
MfsAAf0.jpg


Inspired by the old school french knives I trained on in my early kitchen days.
 
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I'd say victorinox. I'd also say don't buy a non-kitchen knife and try to use it as a kitchen knife because it won't work near as well as one specifically designed for the kitchen
 
Those little Rada knives are dirt cheap, thin and sharp and touch up with 3 strokes on the Sharpmaker. I have a lot of expensive knives but grab one of the little Rada parers more often than not.
 
I own a restaurant, so I use my knives daily. I have knives in the $200 range, which isn't much if you consider a Sashimi knife can hit $2000 easily. My recommendation is to drop the biggest share of your budget on a chefs knife in the 8-10" range. You will use it 90% of the time. The paring knife is probably second. My more expensive ones stay in the knife roll though, and I constantly reach for a set of four Opinels I found online for about $40. The set of four is the #1300 set I think, very good, but inexpensive enough to be considered disposable.

But my all-time favorite paring knife stays in my pocket everywhere, an Opinel No. 8 Garden Knife. Maybe $20.
 
B34NS said:
Those are basically unfunctional clam knives. The victorinox plastic handled little paring knives are a lot cheaper and much more versitle.
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I wonder if we aren't talking about different knives. The Mora paring knife I'm thinking of is the 4118PAM. It's blade thickness is listed at 0.08" (2mm).

The Victorinox paring may be nice (certainly an excellent value). I just wonder if the Mora might have a more substantial (thicker) handle that might be more suitable for other uses?

My answer to OP is to try to not ask your paring knife to do too many tasks, fearing that it might not be sharp enough come time to function in the kitchen (i fear that my kitchen knives will be used as a screwdriver or paint scraper one day, so I keep a couple box cutters and dollar store/throw-away knives in my utility drawer).

F4118PAM.jpg
 
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I have two custom made paring knives but my go to is the new Case little wooden handle clip point paring knife (at least that's what they call it on Case's website), it's nimble, will take a heck of an edge, it's great. When I travel with knives it's one the parers that go with me.
 
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I have some forschner/victorinox and am quite pleased with performance and how they hold up to my wifes lack of care towards cutlery. I will be buying more.
 
We use the Victorinox at our house. Inexpensive and very functional. Another non kitchen knife that I have used for a paring knife is the AG Russell Woodstalker.

Ric
 
tojiro-dp-paring-knife-90mm-46.png


Tojiro makes great knives for the money. The paring knives are between 45-100, depending on size, damascus, etc.
 
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