Why aren't more of you guys selling in the kitchen knife forum here?

My first completed kitchen knife was darn close to spot on according to the guy who bought it. What was my "secret"? Watching how the real pros did it for over 6 months, asking hundreds of annoying questions, reading what they wrote over and over again,and extrapolating from there, listening to what "pro" users thought was important, etc. It didn't hurt that I had been making others types of knives for 6 or 7 years so I understood SOME the language. That second blade was a 280 mm suji with an "S" grind. Of course, the first one was a petty made from CruForge V that exploded in the quench so yes, there is a learning curve, but when you have a disaster like that you learn QUICKLY. :D
elementfe said:
^^^ What Butch says.
Until you have more than a few working cooks using your knives day in and day out, you're making something that looks like a cooking knife, not the real thing...and like the man says, it's not the same from year to year or cook to cook- you either find the people who like your type of knife, or make the knives that the people around you will buy and use.
That's where it gets to be a job, which is a good thing and a bad thing, depending.
I like kitchen knives because they're not so much about being wildly artistically expressive (though those sell too) but about fine tuning them like a performance bike. Every detail is the way it is for a reason.
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I don't know that a kitchen knife is harder to make, but it is time consuming. The grinding and finishing process alone is similar to that for a really large bowie. Forging makes a bit longer if you don't have a good power hammer or a rolling mill. With a press, you will end up either with a lot of foie scale or grinder dust getting that stuff forged out to 2 inches plus and down to .100 for a 1 inch round bar. I would say that it is somewhere between forging a bowie and making simple damascus. If you are doing stock removal, I would say that it is about a time consuming as dong a regular knife of similar size. You do have to be moe careful not overheating the heat treated balde, but guys like Nathan have made that easier with his platen cooler. If you want to hand sand, it is a pain because even an "easy' steel like AEB-L or W2 can be resistant to your efforts to remove that last scratch as 61-63 Rc. :eek:
 
The one thing about kitchen knives is that if you don't have a really prominent sharp 90 degree plunge cut, you can to the "poor man's surface grinder" trick on your platen aka riding lengthwise, much deeper into the process. With a regular knife, you can really only do that to flatten the stock unless you are going for a sweeping plunge of some type.
Maelstrom78 said:
Yep, because of kitchen knives I have both of those things :) And a disc grinder as well.
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A thought from a user who frequents the kitchen knife forum and buys some occasionally for his foodie high end home cook wife. (and lives in Canada so every thing costs 35% more right now).

The knives offered are spectacular, stunning and overkill for 99% of users. The finish and materials are out of the practical range for a typical high end user. As opposed to a knife knut who happens to cook.

Carbon steel, not so good for the bulk of users, I tried with my wife, she knows not to jumble them together, she knows to hand wash them, but she's not interested in having to wipe them off immediately after cutting before proceeding to the next step in cooking, she wants to be able to set them down and carry on with the cooking for 15 or 20 minutes without a stain appearing , and if the doorbell rings and she get called away for an hour its not a knife altering event.

Similarly high end finishes, like hand rubbed and all that, lost on most people because its going to be screwed up the first time they scrub it. A nice belt finish makes more sense and is better value for the maker and the buyer.

Handle material has to be able to take a soaking in water and other nasty kitchen ooze and not be the worse for it. Some wood is not going to be suitable, unless carefully and professionally stabilized. At least that's the perception so things like G10 while less beautiful is more functional. If Wusthoff and henckels can sell $250 -$350 kitche knives with injection molded handles, then G10 or micarta should be fine here... :)

Anyways so I look at lots of the stunning kitchen knives made available here and would rather have the same design in AEBL at Rc 61 or better instead of 1095 or 52100, with a belt finish and a simple G10 handle for slightly less money. I would and have bought knives that meet that description. I can't afford to buy a set, all at once but over time I'm doing it. All with Toxic green handles and black pins. ( She likes the green. :) )

And once a user tries such a knife, then they will soon realize that its order of magnitude better than their "expensive" Wustohoffs and start to look at investing more in such knives. Consider the "cheaper" ones like a dealer giving a new customer the first hit for free... you can charge them more once they're hooked... LOL

Right now I'm in the market for a simple parer with a hooked blade around 2.5" in length and about .5" deep at the base. This design is not super common and my wife's current one is as far as I can tell cheap un-hardened stainless, cutting mostly because its .04 thick at the spine, because you can barely put an edge on it let lone have it keep it. If someone (Nathan? lol) were to produce a bunch of these in the sub $200 range there would be demand here for sure. ....

And I love my wife having good knives, because then I don't have to sharpen them daily... Not to mention they're a joy to use. when helping out.
 
Thanks, Rapt!
Matches what I've seen at local markets to a T, though most of the folks that buy from me prefer wood, as long as it's fairly water resistant.
 
Rapt, some of the woods that we really like, like certain members of the rosewood family, don't absolutely requiring stabilizing and don't always take to it as well as other woods. Of course, the good news is that there are a goodly variety of very pretty stabilized woods out there now if you are willing to pay a little premium for your knife. I am not sure what advantage G10 has over say linen Micarta other than perhaps more color options. As for the finish, I had a guy show me how to get a pretty good looking "machine" finish using a sequence of 400 grit belt, Scotchbrite flap wheel and a stitched buff with white compound that didn't take a year and a day to do it. He did the demonstration on a kitchen knife that I had made out of 115W8 at like 62+ RC so it will work on hard, abrasion resistant steel as long as you get that belt part right before you go to the Scotchbrite. As for AEB-L. we have a tread discussing how that steel is now salable in pretty much every size you need for kitchen knife work. :D
 
birds beak pares are nitch in a nich market i might make 2 per year
that said tpeople that want them need them thats why custom orders are key
i also fall into the "drug dealer" style caus i sure dont make much on pares or steak knives. i tell all first time buyes be careful "once you know how fun it can be to cut things in the kitchen youll be hooked"
 
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