My HRC Testing Results of Various Production Blades
Apr 21, 2014 20:02:59 GMT
Post by Arwyn on Apr 21, 2014 20:02:59 GMT
Timo Nieminen wrote
Kitchen knives are a poor example - they are used to cut day in and day out, while a sword is used much, much, less often for cutting. (Especially in past times; today some people will cut things a lot more often (but usually still less often than kitchen knives are used).)
The hardness makes a big difference, and the differences between hard Western knives (like Wusthof, who aim for 57-58 RHC), softer (but still hard) Western knives of about 50 plus or minus 5, soft Western knives (e.g., 40), and Japanese knives (61-63) are very noticeable. Part of the difference is the more acute edges that the harder blades can have, and part of it is edge retention.
With the kitchen knife, the edge has to do all the work. You place the blade, and slice. With a sword, the blade is usually moving, and moving fast, on contact, and it cuts fine with an edge that would make for an extremely poor kitchen knife.
(Note that hard Japanese knives are harder than typical sharpening steels (usually 60-62); not that you steel them anyway, since the edges don't roll and all you'd do is either nothing or chip the edge.)
Student of Sword wrote
And if you would use the hardness file on your cheap kitchen knives (bought a Walmart or Target), you most likely will find fairly low HRC as well. But those kitchen knives continue to cut day in day out. So, it is no big deal.
And if you would use the hardness file on your cheap kitchen knives (bought a Walmart or Target), you most likely will find fairly low HRC as well. But those kitchen knives continue to cut day in day out. So, it is no big deal.
Kitchen knives are a poor example - they are used to cut day in and day out, while a sword is used much, much, less often for cutting. (Especially in past times; today some people will cut things a lot more often (but usually still less often than kitchen knives are used).)
The hardness makes a big difference, and the differences between hard Western knives (like Wusthof, who aim for 57-58 RHC), softer (but still hard) Western knives of about 50 plus or minus 5, soft Western knives (e.g., 40), and Japanese knives (61-63) are very noticeable. Part of the difference is the more acute edges that the harder blades can have, and part of it is edge retention.
With the kitchen knife, the edge has to do all the work. You place the blade, and slice. With a sword, the blade is usually moving, and moving fast, on contact, and it cuts fine with an edge that would make for an extremely poor kitchen knife.
(Note that hard Japanese knives are harder than typical sharpening steels (usually 60-62); not that you steel them anyway, since the edges don't roll and all you'd do is either nothing or chip the edge.)
Back in my knife shop days I HATED seeing some of the top end German and Japanese stuff come in. Wasnt often, but when those came in for a sharpening, I was going to have a rough afternoon!
Some of the Japanese knives have very thin cutting edges, and were so hard they ate up belts on the belt sander. They also were thin enough on the edge that you had to be very careful to not let them overheat. Total PITA to sharpen!
The better grades of JA Henckels were annoying as well, they ran roughly 58ish on the rockwell scale, and some (paring/boning knives) were rather thin as well.