Cutco knives

M

munk

Joined
Mar 22, 2002
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My Mother In Law announced several months ago after a home demonstration, (like tupperware) that she'd located the finest knives in the world and they were Cutco. I recieved a cutco fishing knife for Christmas. It appears to be a nice knife. I was surprised, expecting an elaborate Ginso....

I visited their website but could not learn any technical data on the steels used.
Does anyone know about these knives?

munk
 
They are fairly expensive. My family has all cutco kitchen knives and they have worked well. Their serrations are kind of unique as well. I have a small serrated Cutco lockback that works very well on oranges.
 
The knives are guarenteed for life. The guarentee is valid apparently after the owner dies and leaves the knives to heirs. They will sharpen all non serrated edges for free for the life of the knife as well.

munk
 
To have some fun, find a CUTCO rep and ask them what steel their knvies are, and at whay Rockwell they are at!

I think they are 440-A, but I am not sure. Good luck finding your answer. A Search for CUTCO here on the forums should yeild the result.
 
My mom (sigh, without consulting me for advice) paid about $100 for a CUTCO regular sized butcher's cleaver.

It seems decent --good heft, sort of a stick tang under plastic-esque handles, takes a nice edge easily. Especially with the unlimited lifetime guarantee, but rather expensive, given that you can get some pretty decent steel for $100 these days.

Mind you, she was duped (my poor mom!) by their claims that it "never needs sharpening!" -- and this was NOT a serrated knife. Wonder if the salesperson got mixed up.

All my trying to convince her that this made no sense could not put her right... oh well. At least she has a nice knife now.

She never used the Heckels 8" chef's I bought her, because it was "too sharp". She prefers the 10 year old Chef's Choice semi-serrated one she has... which is so dull it mashes vegetables instead of cutting them.

-Jon
 
Ditto. My Mother In Law found the best knives in the world and no logic could persuade her otherwise. She actually uses a cheap serrated blade from China most often. In the demonstration they cut a nail or two with the knives. I've no doubt they are good knives, but how good?
munk
 
How bout that? I looked up 'cutco' under search and it worked...Yes, it is 440A, heat treated to 2000 or so, quenched and dropped to 100 below zero if memory serves, and then roasted one more time to plus 300.

There was some discussino about kitchen knife steels and what would be the best. Many felt too good and hard an edge would be more than most chefs could deal with if they became dull. 440 was seen as a good compromise. Credit was given to cutco for their proprietary edge design which seems to last.
Cutco and Kabar are owned by the same company.

munk
 
I used a Cutco hunting knife last season, and it worked fine. I'll most likely use it again this year. I know the kitchen knives can be expensive, but a lifetime gurantee mean's alot these days. I have other knives that I like alot better than the Cutco, but the Cutco is all I need when I'm hunting. ;)
 
We have 2 cutcos. My wife had them before we were married. Interesting that the knife stayed sharp for a long time. Now after I've sharpened it a few times it gets dull pretty quickly and needs frequent touch ups. They are fine for the kitchen but I don't think I would buy another.

S.
 
Sidewinder, I have heard the same thing from people who sharpen them themselves. But, all the ones in our house we have sharpened by Cutco and they seem to stay sharp for a really long time.
 
I have a couple of the orange handled non-serrated blade hunting knives. They are 440 A and are good and comparatively inexpensive knives(Around $45). Good blade geometry. I especially like the handle and find it very comfortable to use in cold weather and slippery conditions. Also easy to find when you lay it in the grass while dressing out game or cleaning fish. I have "better" knives but one of these is usually in the pack.
 
45 doesn't sound too bad, but are there comparable knives for less? They do seem to think through their designs well. For 45 if you allowed them to sharpen them it seems OK.

munk
 
I actually used to sell Cutco knives. That was 11 years ago. Thankfully, I have moved on in life.

I still have my original demonstration set (kitchen) that has been used practically every day for the last 11 years. The large veggie knife could use a re-sharpening, but other than that they are still very sharp.

An old roommate put the 9" bread knife (w/ serrated edge) through his hand a while back trying to separate frozen hamburger patties... poor guy.

Anyway, pretty good steel, bad MLM.

Dan
 
When my nephew was in college,he was selling them .Soo you no had to help the kid out ,I got the 4 knife block .Big money for them in 1987.. But they have been very good knives,and I would never trade them. ;)
 
Overall, the impression is they cost too much but have utility and value for people who don't want to hassle knives in the kitchen. With the lifetime sharpening it is not a bad deal. But the old thread on this subject had a cutco salesperson who said the knives were stamped. So here we are in the age of 'value hunting', where cheap is considered stamped, plastic, or particle board, and quality is considered forged steel, yet these knives hold well. Makes me think.

I've been reading the hawk section and have come down with an acute desire for a throwing hatchet. I don't know how I've lived without one.

munk
 
Gentlemen,

I am ashamed to admit, I was a sucker. I am a former Cutco salesman. Well, not really. Like most people that become Cutco "salesmen," I gave up after a few humiliating attempts to sell their knives.

I have a big gripe with Cutco, and that is that they use a pyramid type marketing scheme to sell their knives, and although I can't prove this, I would guess that they sell a helluva lot more "demo kits" to young dumb kids than to actual end users.

Here's my experience:

You see the signs everywhere that read "Summer Employment, $14.00 an hour." At age 19, in 1996, this seemed like something worth checking out. About 15 people, all around my age showed up. A guy named Brett Semenski gave us a talk about how wonderful Cutco and their products were, and how much money we could make if we signed up to be "salesmen."

However, the $14.00 an hour figure was just an "average," I guess meaning a number some one had pulled out of their #4%. Our actual pay would be $40.00 an appointment, and we could collect that as soon as we could send in a form stating the names of the first ten of our appointments. We'd also make a small commission on anything we sold. The second big however was that we had to buy our own "demo kit' from Cutco. Of course this was explained to be a "steal," only $140.00 for a fake leather bag of knives, and a strand of 1" hemp to demonstrate the sharpness of these fine cutting instruments. The plan we were encouraged to follow was to write down a list of all our family members and friends of family, sign them up for appointments and start raking in the money.

What they don't tell you is that people are busy and don't normally want to take an hour to learn the benefits of something they know they don't need or want. They also don't tell you how embarassing it is to try to explain to a guy why a kitchen knife should cost $35 to $100 when you can buy a whole set at Wal Mart for well under the cost of one Cutco.

You eventually realize that the only way to be "successful" at this enterprise (racket) is to get good at subtly convincing people, working class people in my case, that they just aren't respectable/don't have class/haven't "arrived" unless they own a "quality" set of kitchen knives.
It is necessary to make a "good set of knives," something most people haven't ever thought about buying, seem like an absolute neccessity. And you know it's not. So you quit after two or three appointments, and try to return your "demo kit" and get your hard earned $140.00 back. Fat chance.

In the years since then, and coming to college I've had opportunity to meet a lot of people that have had the same experience with Cutco, and so far I haven't met anyone that actually became a "successful" Cutco salesman. Now when I see the signs, I rip em' down.

Trent
 
Originally posted by Trent54
Gentlemen,
I am ashamed to admit, I was a sucker. I am a former Cutco salesman. Well, not really. Like most people that become Cutco "salesmen," I gave up after a few humiliating attempts to sell their knives. Trent
Click to expand...

Trent,

Been there, done that.

Except that the year was 1990, the "hourly rate" was $9.50 and they sold me a $300 stack of knives. I've since tossed the bag and lost a steak knife. I kept, however, the little polishing cloth - it still works great on my silverware (actual silver). I also still have the round-tipped white steak knife in its pouch - it still works great.

Oh yeah, the scissors still work great and can still cut a penny...
Remember using that sales pitch?

Reading your post brought back all the same awful feelings I had too. I always hated making the first sales pitch. Back then we were supposed to start out with the Deluxe set which was about $1400. Then you would "back down" to the other sets. Problem was, most people's mortgage payments were only $400-600 in my neck of the woods. Some may call it "self-defeating", but I knew they'd never be able to afford it.

The worst part of it was trying to sell the knives to family members. My grandfather actually bought about $150 worth of knives and a sharpener. (and he gave me 28 referrals - remember the referral "contests"?) He still bugs me about the sharpener not working and one of his knives not being sharp enough - 12 years later!

At least I got a decent set of knives out of it. I just contacted Cutco and they said they'd sharpen any knife I send them for the cost of return postage ($5 in my case). So, maybe it's not too bad.

Like I said before: decent knives, bad MLM.

I did actually run into someone a few years back who had been selling Cutco knives for a long time. He was a real salesman, though; not some punk kid trying to make a fast buck (gotta admit, that was me ;) )

Dan
 
munk said:
My Mother In Law announced several months ago after a home demonstration, (like tupperware) that she'd located the finest knives in the world and they were Cutco. I recieved a cutco fishing knife for Christmas. It appears to be a nice knife. I was surprised, expecting an elaborate Ginso....

I visited their website but could not learn any technical data on the steels used.
Does anyone know about these knives?

munk
Click to expand...

they use 440 A surgical Stainless steel
 
Surgical steel means nothing. Many different steels are used in many different tools for many different surgeries. They can all be called surgical steel.

And still mean nothing.

Phil
 
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