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July 04, 2012
Carbon Steel Utility Knives
From a website:
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Strong and tough high carbon steel is easy to sharpen and can take a very keen edge. Double bevel.
Why This Product:
These blades are made of high carbon steel, one of the hardest metals used to make tools. Because of its exceptionally fine grain, high carbon steel can be given a much sharper edge than other alloys. The blades are extra thick to provide better stability and precise handling and adjustment.
Use and Care:
The knives can be used for precision cutting, trimming, carving, and work in wood, paper, and other materials. Because of the double bevel, the blades are suitable for right- or left-handed use.
No handle means you can customize your own: wrap the shaft with tape, leather, string — and make a loop through the perforation at the base to hang from a nail or your belt (though in that case, you may want to keep the blade in a sheath).
High carbon steel is extremely hard and therefore brittle, so the blade must be stored carefully to keep the edge free of chips or nicks and to prevent it from going dull (loose in a drawer is not recommended). High carbon steel is not corrosion resistant — that's the price of having the sharpest edge — and the best way to keep it from rusting is constant use. As an additional precaution, you may want to coat the blade with WD-40 or camellia or mineral oil. Keep dry. For best performance and depending on frequency of use, you should sharpen and hone your blade regularly; the duller it gets, the more work will be required to bring the edge back.
Production and Design:
These blades were inspired and designed by a renowned luthier.
Shaping, beveling, and slotting of the blades are done by hand-grinding and precision machining.
Hock Tools, the company that makes these knives, is located in the center of northern California’s woodworking community and has been producing tools for craftsmen for over 30 years.
Specifications:
• ¾-inch knife: 3/32 inch x ¾ inch x 7 inches, tip: 25°, bevel: 25°
• ½-inch knife: 1/16 inch x ½ inch x 7 inches, tip: 25°, bevel: 20°
• ¼-inch knife: 1/16 inch x ¼ inch x 7 inches, tip: 10°, bevel: 35°
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Apiece, $29.
[via Alexis Shubin]
July 4, 2012 at 03:01 PM | Permalink
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Comments
Re: xoxoxoBruce & Stainless steel sharpening:
Joe could tell you about the sharp stainless steel DISPOSABLE items in use every day in every OR in the US. Scalpel blades are produced by stamping the blade from a sheet of the high Cr stainless and then the edge is formed by the removal process (originally done by grinding; today most are sharpened by laser vaporization) prior to cleaning packaging and sterilizing. Standard surgical scalpels are very sharp and very brittle. They aren't intended for reuse.
Absent disposable stainless steel edged tools you effectively have two classes of stainless: (1) Very hard (60+ Rockwell) high Cr steels that have serrated edges (far more like a saw's edge than a beveled edge) that are never intended to be sharpened (see, e.g. the ubiquitous "Ginsu" TM class of kitchen knives); and, (2) the higher quality stainless alloys that fall within the 56-60 Rockwell hardness scale such as Joe's German-made kitchen knives that can be sharpened, albeit by experts using sharpening tools that can deal with the hard edge without raising the temperature at the edge to the point that the knife's edge temper is "burned" (The tempering process is a heating and cooling cycle that produces a hard matrix of semi-crystalline "grain" in the knife blank. Localized overheating will change the grain and dramatically lower the hardness at that point on the knife's edge. Most professional sharpening services use paper sharpening wheels loaded with CrO sharpening compound and then use another paper wheel loaded with jeweler's rouge to polish the edge to that mirror finish so common on high-end stainless kitchen knives.).
Posted by: 6.02*10^23 | Jul 6, 2012 1:21:12 PM
(stainless steel, once it loses its edge, cant be resharpened at all).
Then tell me how it got it's edge in the first place?
Clue... someone sharpened it, and they can resharpen it.
Posted by: xoxoxoBruce | Jul 6, 2012 12:17:16 AM
Carbon steel knives vary in their ductility and brittleness depending on the actual alloy composition, the manufacturing technique (stamping v. forging v. grinding) and, most importantly the tempering process.
Carbon steels are well regarded but modern crucible steels such as S30v are nearly defect-free, can be tempered harder on the Rockwell scale than high carbon steels and are less prone to chipping than the HC steel.
Most tool steels in common use these days are crucible steels or laminated steels.
I own quite a few fine French high carbon steel knives and love their balance and ease of maintaining the edge. I also own a number of Damascus steel and crucible steel knives and tools. They hold their edges for a far longer period of time, under reasonable use, than the high carbon tools. They are easily honed, but a bear to sharpen. I use Japanese water stones to sharpen all of my tools and use a triple-wheel belt sander with a leather belt to hone them to the fine edge I prefer. I will set aside a Saturday afternoon every couple of months to resharpen / hone any of my tools requiring attention.
Posted by: 6.02*10^23 | Jul 4, 2012 6:51:58 PM
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