Interesting (cheap) Korean knife I just bought

I have been looking at the very inexpensive Korean and Taiwanese knives on the bay and bought a couple of them to practice sharpening on and cause they often looked cool. There are, for example a lot of rustic knives that work like Western debas form Korea that I have grown fond of. But this Santakou knife is particularly interesting, claims to be a carbon core, stainless san mai construction for only $28 delivered. Length is a little shorter than I like, but much longer than the average santakou which is nice. Anywayl I couldn't resist. It really is a pretty good knife for the money. I thinned it a bit, changed the angles to about 10 degrees and then added a high angle, one sided microbevel as Jon's videos show.

Now cuts pretty darn well for an under $30 knife

Any gyutos available? From the picture above it looks quite nice especially considering its cost.

Not san mai currently but they have quite a few Molybdenum Vanadium Steel gyutos for sale at around $30-$40 as well

Alas, I just checked the specs (was in the original box and didn't notice) cladding is 410 stainless, interior steel is 440B @ (a claimed) 60 HRC, so it is not a carbon steel inside => the ebay description is wrong, would also explain why it was harder to sharpen than a carbon core. Still, not a bad knife for under $30 but not for carbon junkies.

(Of course, something doesn't quite make sense because 440B is not typically (never?) hardened to 60 HRC, can it be hardened to 60 HRC if surrounded by a softer steel like 410??)

Thanks for the update.

I think 440B would be too brittle is tempered to 60 HRC.

So I think there is probably a mistake on the HRC rating or the core steel type.

Yea that is what I am thinking or it is 440C which can go to 60, it doesn't seem brittle though

I would write to the ebay seller and complain about the misrepresentation. I bought a Warther chef knife which was supposed to be tool steel but it was 440C stainless. I would have not bought it if I knew that was the case.

How are Korean knives compared to Japanese and German knives? Any special?

Both they and the taiwanese knives are really cheap. The better taiwanese knives tend to be clad VG10 and a reasonable quality for about 2/3rds the price of Tojiro DP's.

Not sure what the stainless korean knives are made of, they seem well ground and are pretty cheap but I would suspect they are made of something like the german steel X50CrMo14 which is a sucky steel for high end knives but is fine for people who abuse their knives. The grinds ar efine and they sharpen up OK.

But I love the rustic (kurochi finish) carbon steel knives I got from Korea, grinds are "interesting" but the knives are great fun and ridiculously cheap on ebay...

I have one of those kurochi finish Korean knives, and it's one of my favorites. Typically made from old leaf spring (52100 steel, I think), quite hard, and takes a very fine and long-lived edge with minimal effort.

VERY rough, not so very good forging, woe betide someone using a pinch grip unless you spend a long time cleaning up the spine -- it still has saw marks on it! Grind is rather terrible too, but it's decently thin and only has a minor "hole" in the edge at the heel. Shape isn't really what I want, with too much belly, but it cuts better than my Tojiro DP.

Not bad at all for $10 plus shipping.

Peter