What's the HRC of dirt cheap, dollar store knives?

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AzHP

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Just curious, I know 56 HRC is around where decent European knives are and 59-60 is where quality Japanese knives start, but what's the HRC of knife sets you can get at Walmart or Target, or even worse, dollar store/grocery store knives? Or is it just the steel type that makes them suck?
 
Probably 52-56 combined with the cheapest steel and plastics availible.
 
I have to say... it looks like the bar is slowly getting raised. Although anything not out of Germany used to be mystery crap stainless, there is more and more stuff around in the 10-20 euro range consisting of drop-forged X50 steel (the same stuff you find in the German knives). I think cheap stainless is heading into that direction, where even 'cheap stainless' is slowly becoming standardized at levels that used to be beholden to French / German brands.
At least Zwilling is waking up to this and jumping on the Japanese bandwagon, innovating products and using newer steels. Wüsthof not so much it seems.
 
All knives i have seen that were <10 euro's each for non-discounted price and had the steel listed were X30Cr13, so my bet is below 20 euro's there's a lot of that going round. Also some X40 and X45. Haven't seen X50 for really cheap stuff yet. Don't really notice that much difference between 45 and 50 myself though. The X30 stuff i can remove substantial metal with a file without super quickly dulling the file, the others i can't so that's a real noticeable difference. A lot of the cheap knives with bolster or metal handle have the welded construction where the blade is welded to the handle. It can be seen as a thinner part right in front of the handle (e.g. Richardson Sheffield, IKEA) , but some cheap chinese knives coming from china don't appear to have the weak spot and look like they were properly drop-forged. The 2 lion Sabatier's were super cheap but they don't differ that much from more expensive european knives. At least that I can tell.
 
I think completely unsharpenable steels (probably just cast alloys?) have been reported on various forums from time to time...

420J2 is probably the one mainstay... or variants (Penguin Thai knives specify 1.4034 / X46Cr13, Kiwi might be just the same) thereof... also found in some not so cheap ones (A cut above)... Though I always think one could make that steel good (toughness, grain size...)

With IKEA 365+, mystery... my guess is still on AUS-6 or AUS-8, given what they have very evidently been copied from ;)
 
I don't know if they are all that bad: the Kai Komichi and Cuisinart advantage are made of X50, no? My guess is 55-56 for those. Similarly, some of the relatively cheap chinese cleavers I see at my local chinese groceries explicitly say X50 and seem to be about 55-56.
 
A lot of the cheap knives with bolster or metal handle have the welded construction where the blade is welded to the handle. It can be seen as a thinner part right in front of the handle (e.g. Richardson Sheffield, IKEA) , but some cheap chinese knives coming from china don't appear to have the weak spot and look like they were properly drop-forged.
Actually you can find clamped or welded bolsters on a lot of high quality blades. It's not necessarily a problem or sign of low quality.

With IKEA 365+, mystery... my guess is still on AUS-6 or AUS-8, given what they have very evidently been copied from ;)
I sent them an e-mail about it but never got an answer. Most of their 'higher' kitchen priced stiff tends to be really good though, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was at least half decent. They even had a line of vg-10 knives at one point.
 
Well I started out learning how to sharpen on such cheap X30 knives... this drove me mad, I thought I'd never learn it, because I worked for hours and the things just would not get sharp, lest keep an edge when I managed to create one. Then, suddenly, I got a VG10 knife, and that was sooo easy to sharpen in comparison :D And I hadn't even tried Carbon yet :)
 
Don't have any issue getting X30 sharp. Only most of the knives are so thick behind the edge your angle control must be really good to have any reasonable result. Once agressively thinned they sharpen like a breeze. Retention stays crappy of course.
 
Actually you can find clamped or welded bolsters on a lot of high quality blades. It's not necessarily a problem or sign of low quality.

Welding the bolsters to the tang is fine, welding the blade to the bolster seems to always lead to a thinner part right in front of the bolster where the welding material was ground off and the area refinished. Haven't seen one break on me yet but i always mistrust it when i see it. And it is just ugly.
 
Welding the bolsters to the tang is fine, welding the blade to the bolster seems to always lead to a thinner part right in front of the bolster where the welding material was ground off and the area refinished. Haven't seen one break on me yet but i always mistrust it when i see it. And it is just ugly.

Honestly, if it's done well I doubt you'll notice. I think very few (if any) of the Japanese blades with yo-handles are really drop-forged. Usually you only notice because the bolster doesn't discolor / patina in the same way the blade does.
 
Honestly, if it's done well I doubt you'll notice. I think very few (if any) of the Japanese blades with yo-handles are really drop-forged. Usually you only notice because the bolster doesn't discolor / patina in the same way the blade does.

You may well be right. Perhaps I just happen to see a lot of not so well done jobs sold around here then. If you start with a piece of metal thicker than the final spine thickness you can do a welding and stock removal knife without a thin 'neck' where the blade meets the bolster. Most budget manufacturers start with the final spine thickness and then weld it. It is then somewhat inivitable you end up thinner than the spine before the finish is acceptable.
 
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