05-22-2018, 11:25 AM
There's been a discussion going on over in KG's EDGE STABILITY IN BUTCHER’S AND KITCHEN KNIVES concerning ceramic knives and edge rolling etc. We borrowed a couple of inexpensive Kitchen Aid from an unsuspecting wife's knife drawer and brought them to the office for test in the SET instrument. Here are the two ceramic paring knives:
The long one measured 335 and the short 382. There was a fair amount of edge sharpness disparity along both edges but that is what they measured at the two test points. We don't think that these edges had seen much, if any, previous use.
We performed our standard Phase I test procedure (5 up and back passes over the edge) and then measured again.
Our 335 now measured 326 and our 382 now measured 376. There is no obvious reason why the measurements would go down other than to chalk it up to the vagaries of this particular test. One thing appears obvious though and that is that ceramic edge don't roll. Here's a picture of one of the edges after the test:
We tried sharpening one of the ceramic blades with a ceramic belt just to illustrate a point and we were successful in that regard because we were unsuccessful in doing so. It simply demonstrates how hard these blades really are relative to steel. We've got a couple of better quality ceramic knives headed our way and we're going to order some belts that will conquer ceramic. Then we'll test how sharper ceramic edges fair in the SET. We don't think that they'll roll but perhaps the standard SET piston design will damage (chip) the edge.
In the meantime, KG is going to put some ceramic knives to test in a meat processing facility and that is going to be where the rubber meets the road.
The long one measured 335 and the short 382. There was a fair amount of edge sharpness disparity along both edges but that is what they measured at the two test points. We don't think that these edges had seen much, if any, previous use.
We performed our standard Phase I test procedure (5 up and back passes over the edge) and then measured again.
Our 335 now measured 326 and our 382 now measured 376. There is no obvious reason why the measurements would go down other than to chalk it up to the vagaries of this particular test. One thing appears obvious though and that is that ceramic edge don't roll. Here's a picture of one of the edges after the test:
We tried sharpening one of the ceramic blades with a ceramic belt just to illustrate a point and we were successful in that regard because we were unsuccessful in doing so. It simply demonstrates how hard these blades really are relative to steel. We've got a couple of better quality ceramic knives headed our way and we're going to order some belts that will conquer ceramic. Then we'll test how sharper ceramic edges fair in the SET. We don't think that they'll roll but perhaps the standard SET piston design will damage (chip) the edge.
In the meantime, KG is going to put some ceramic knives to test in a meat processing facility and that is going to be where the rubber meets the road.