diamond dogs
Active Member
And the lack knife knoladge in the general chef / kitchen community.
Ok this is a bit of a rant, I admit it. looking for a cheap but decent high carbon kitchen knife to teach sharpening with (started another thread about it, thanks for the good suggestions).
in my search I have become extremely frustrated with the term "stain free high carbon" or "high carbon stainless" as it floods my searches with cheap stainless crap. well I found that ebay actually has a blade steel search catagory (even though its only carbon steel and stainless steel) clicked on this filter excited to finally find what i was looking for, only to find out countless sellers of, you guessed it, "stain free carbon steel" knives are listing them as carbon steel.
this brings up something thats bothered me for a while. lets put it bluntly, allot of chefs and home cooks dont know anything about knives, present company excluded ofcourse. is this reflected in the fact that very few large kitchen knife manufacturesrs will even tell you what kind of "stain free high carbon steel" their knives are made of?
contrast this with the outdoor and folding knife markets, where you almost always get the actual steel in the knife description, possibly even an hrc number, and they dont seem to go around calling some .50% carbon 15% chromium steel "high carbon stainless".
I do remember when this trend and term started, i think. i believe, it was in the 80's or early 90's. the first time i heard it was in referance to ats-34, i think because they wanted to put it apart from other stainless steels we were used to at the time. then at some point it worked its way into kitchen knife descriptions and has stayed ever since, and now is totally meaningless.
Yes i know, alot more chefs and home cooks are becoming knoladgable about knives and sharpening, and thats great. and there are alot more choices for quality kitchen knives and stones than there used to be, and the vague descriptions are almost totally absent from high end knives and japanese knives. but i still see alot of ignorance in a community that should be all about the knife knoladge imo, and a frustrating lack of not only accurate descriptions from mainstreem manufacturers but their seeming lack of intrest in trying new steels and heat treatments.
Ok this is a bit of a rant, I admit it. looking for a cheap but decent high carbon kitchen knife to teach sharpening with (started another thread about it, thanks for the good suggestions).
in my search I have become extremely frustrated with the term "stain free high carbon" or "high carbon stainless" as it floods my searches with cheap stainless crap. well I found that ebay actually has a blade steel search catagory (even though its only carbon steel and stainless steel) clicked on this filter excited to finally find what i was looking for, only to find out countless sellers of, you guessed it, "stain free carbon steel" knives are listing them as carbon steel.
this brings up something thats bothered me for a while. lets put it bluntly, allot of chefs and home cooks dont know anything about knives, present company excluded ofcourse. is this reflected in the fact that very few large kitchen knife manufacturesrs will even tell you what kind of "stain free high carbon steel" their knives are made of?
contrast this with the outdoor and folding knife markets, where you almost always get the actual steel in the knife description, possibly even an hrc number, and they dont seem to go around calling some .50% carbon 15% chromium steel "high carbon stainless".
I do remember when this trend and term started, i think. i believe, it was in the 80's or early 90's. the first time i heard it was in referance to ats-34, i think because they wanted to put it apart from other stainless steels we were used to at the time. then at some point it worked its way into kitchen knife descriptions and has stayed ever since, and now is totally meaningless.
Yes i know, alot more chefs and home cooks are becoming knoladgable about knives and sharpening, and thats great. and there are alot more choices for quality kitchen knives and stones than there used to be, and the vague descriptions are almost totally absent from high end knives and japanese knives. but i still see alot of ignorance in a community that should be all about the knife knoladge imo, and a frustrating lack of not only accurate descriptions from mainstreem manufacturers but their seeming lack of intrest in trying new steels and heat treatments.