Steel Options and Mangetic Knife Blocks

[ElChoppy]

Hi All!

General question: for stainless and powder steels, what options are/aren't compatible with knife blocks? VG10, R2, SLD, SKD, etc? Will stainless clad knives with carbon steel cores present any difficulty on magnetic knife blocks?

Specific question: Looking at gifting my parents a Takamura R2 santoku/gyuto with 'low carbon stainless' cladding (the red handled line not the 'pro' line). Will this work with a magnetic knife block reliably? I'm not finding much clarity on this from the distributors web pages, unfortunately.

 

[Blumbo]

Even though these knives can have “high carbon” cores, they are still alloys with mostly iron (magnetic), and different levels of carbon and other elements. So unless you’re buying ceramic knives or something, almost all steels/cladding (including the ones you named) will work with knife blocks.

 

[Heckel7302]

Yeah, all the steels you mention stick to magnets. Never saw one that didn’t.

 

[ElChoppy]

I suppose this hasn't been a topic here as it isn't an issue. Thanks for the perspective!

 

[Troopah_Knives]

I have had some stainless-clad knives with particularly thin cores and heavy handles that struggle to stick to magnetic strips. Something else to consider is that clad knives can pick up a lot more scratches on magnetic knife blocks due to the soft cladding.

 

[Transmaster]

There is Austenitic Stainless Steels, non-ferromagnetic. I have never heard of this type of SS used in knives. When I was in the building trades you got in the habit of testing SS sinks with a small magnets. non-magnetic Grade 304 stainless steel is what you want to use for kitchen sinks, Grade 316 is even better. You would check with a magnet to see if the supplier was trying to rip you off with cheaper magnetic SS.

 

[mengwong]

@bill_zeng is innovating with SS304!