Chef Knife Blades and Materials – Part 3
Posted By admin on October 15, 2010
Chef Knife Blades and Materials – Part 3
In the past two segments I talked about Carbon Steel Chef Knife and Stainless Steel Chef Knife, in this segment I will talk about Laminated Chef Knife and Ceramic Chef Knife.
Laminated Steel Chef Knife:
As you have seen, all the different types of steel used in the manufacturing of chef knife blades are somewhat of a compromise between tough blade steel and softer blade steel.
Laminated steel is a joint venture. The manufacturer will use two types of steel to form the chef knife blade.
Carbon steel can be used to make the cutting edge of the chef knife, and stainless steel for the backbone of the chef knife.
I personally don’t much care for these knives because they are not here nor there when it comes to using them.
I believe that you should decide on a type of material you like for your knife and care for your chef knife according that.
Ceramic Chef Knife blade:
A ceramic Chef Knife is a knife made out of very hard ceramic, often zirconium oxide (ZrO2).
These knives are generally produced by compacting Zirconia powder using high pressure presses which apply a pressure of around 300 tons to produce blade shaped blanks.
These blanks are very brittle and fragile which can be shattered by a slight blow and special binders are used to retain the shape of the blank until the firing process. Like all ceramics these are consolidated into a dense and strong ceramic by solid state sintering at approximately 1400 degree Celsius for 5-12 hours in a high temperature furnace. The result is a very tough and blunt blade which needs to be sharpened to get the desired cutting edge. The blades are sharpened by grinding the edges with a diamond dust coated grinding wheel.
These blades are very sharp, and they will keep their edge for a long time.
There are some problems with these chef knives:
- You can not sharpen them at home with the usual sharpening tools, they will need special equipment to sharpen them.
- Ceramic Chef Knife blades may break if they fall on the floor tiles.
The advantages are that they are very sharp and waterproof, and rust proof, and stain proof, and so on.
The biggest company that makes ceramic chef knife blades is Kyocera, from Japan.
They are usually cheaper but you really have to be careful which chef knife you buy because there are a lot of copies and very poor grade ceramic chef knife blades that are sold. These will not hold the edge and will break very easily.
These were the main type of chef knife material for the blades.
On the next segment I will review the companies and differences between Japanese and European Chef Knife manufacturers.
Comments
Leave a Reply
Please note: Comment moderation is currently enabled so there will be a delay between when you post your comment and when it shows up. Patience is a virtue; there is no need to re-submit your comment.
You must be logged in to post a comment.