Review Ceramic for Christmas...so now...

[roaduck]

I received a few cheapie Chinese ceramic knives for Christmas presents and in general I like them because they are reasonably sharp and low maintenance compared to my yellow, blue and white carbons.
However they require careful use to avoid chips etc.

I had a cheapie ceramic nakiri years ago and it was blunt as a butter knife so I attempted to sharpen it on 400, 600 and 1000 grit diamond whetstones.
After many hours persevering with it I got nowhere with it despite being gentle and using consistent angles eventually I just got exasperated and chucked it in the bin.
I couldn`t apex it at all and it was frustrating even after patient rough to smooth diamond plate progressions.

I have since discovered that ceramic knives don`t apex like steel knives and I read the other day that this guy bought a German ceramic EDC outdoor knife and it snapped in half trying to pry some sticky label off the wall - whoops.Call me stupid but I don`t see the point of ceramic everyday carry knives; too brittle! Also I`ve never seen any long ceramic knives over say six inches perhaps because they`re too fragile.

The expensive Kyocera ceramics have to go back to the factory to be resharpened which is a costly time-consuming drag.

My 3 budget black Chinese ceramics will be replaced free of charge if they go blunt which is brilliant.

The piccies are my rudimentary budget sharpening gear and other piccy shows a fabulous Chinese 11 inch yanagiba for my lady friend that was only $25 - total bargain - that is beautiful and came shaving sharp out of the box - I even made a 3mm felt knife pouch for it because she was worth pampering for Christmas.

A lot of my foodie friends and chefs bring me their budget stamped cutlery and a few softish Wusthofs , Victorinox, Sebatier and the occasional Shun, Global or low end Japanese knives and I do my best with them.
Most of them come to me too blunt to use as letter openers initially !

Last weekend I had a few bendy dollar knives to do and I couldn`t get them past a certain level of bluntness haha! although I have got reasonable results with dollar store knives sometimes but after a bag of onions or carrots they`re back to butter knives again!

With sharpening I use diamond plates exclusively now and strop on leather or a combo grit steel but I`m not after shaving sharp because the edge is so fragile it never lasts long.
I take my time and use the plates dry and keep a constant angle.Occasionally I finish with green aluminium oxide 1 micron honing compound for my straight cut throat razors.
Eventually I`ll get a low speed 10 inch horizontal water-cooled angle grinder which will be great for garden tools, axes, hatchets, edc knives, reprofiling etc and will saves tons of time.

I have a two budget Chinese fixed angle sharpeners and a Sheffield, England Catrahone three grit electric diamond/ceramic sharpener and for some die hard friends I have two budget pull-through sharpeners which are dire.

I am trying to coax and show my girlfriend how to use the new 2022 Ruixin Pro 009 fixed angle sharpener I got her for Christmas so she can help me to do my mates` Dullsville, Arizona knives but she hasn`t took it out of the box yet! She wants more low maintenance stainless steel Japanese specialist knives and I have no room in the kitch or dining room to store them.
Now I don`t use fancy Japanese artisan knives nor the sharpening rigs because I am used to free hand sharpening on walls and floors or rocks and concrete outside amongst other impromptu methods.

I love cooking and knives and I`m learning every day but it`s a useful, productive hobby especially now because I`m older and hopefully more pragmatic and not OCD because that can waste your life by over thinking etc.

 

[roaduck]

You guys know better than I !!!

I`ve radically revised my opinion of ceramic knives.
After only weeks and perhaps 20 light, careful uses of 4 cheap Chinese ceramic knives all of them developed tiny and medium sized chips in all the blades.
You can`t feel them with a fingernail or see them with a naked eye but they are definitely there.
I inspected them all with a 60x microscope and was horrified to see the damage !
I am not using any ceramics for food use again ; they`re dangerously brittle.
I thought they`d last longer than that; a mere few weeks !

It`s steel only knives for me now - I`m not eating super hard glass.

Well - you live and learn - I had no experience of ceramic knives - Now I Have !
Obviously the technology is not that mature yet.

That`s why the armed forces, preppers, butchers and chefs etc don`t use ceramic knives.
I am not even going to bother with the Swiss-made Hic - ( High Impact Ceramic ) Rahven knives - more broken glass in your dinner ! So that`s a No from me.

I would show you pictures but my phone macro setting is not good enough to show the chips but believe me - I saw lots of little chips in all four blades so they are being used as utility knives then eventually they`ll all go in the bin.

 

[roaduck]

I got my cheapie Chinese ceramics for Christmas but even so I expected them not to chip so much with gentle, careful use a handful of times.

The Hic-Rahven knives look interesting but the`re a pig to sharpen that takes ages apparently with diamond film on a mouse-mat or something I saw in a video.
So no fast easy maintenance, little chips still come off in normal use and they need to go back to the factory for decent long-term performance like Kyocera ceramics.
They have mega edge retention but too many cons for not enough pros for me.

Good luck with Spyderco trying Elastic Ceramic mule knives but they`re not for the kitchen.

I was looking at Japanese Hokiyama Sakon+ titanium carbide knives but they`re very expensive and have to go back to the factory for maintenance and they`re really an unknown quantity.

Perhaps elastic ceramics will go mainstream with more development refinement and testing but I don`t think they`re going to be as good as balanced and super P.M. steels for the huge majority and variety of cutting applications.

Apparently the Slice scissors and their utility / EDC knives still chip a lot and are fragile like most ceramics.