Martha Stewart Everyday Full Tang 8" Chef's knife

[Cliff Stamp]

This is very similar in design to the Henckels international line. The blade stock is very thin, only 0.07" thick at the spine and since it has a full flat grind the knife is very light, only ~60 g. The edge geometry is also very thin and acute. The blade is only 0.008" thick behind the edge which is ground at ~14 degrees per side.

However the NIB sharpness is fairly low. The blade can slice photocopy paper well, but has no ability to push cut it. On light thread it scores 267 +/- 33 g, and on 1/4" poly it takes 2.5 +/- 0.8 cm to cut the cord. Compare this to the OK-45 ceramic blade from Kyocera which took ~ 135 g and 0.75 cm. Thus the ceramic blade is about twice as sharp in regards to smooth push cutting, and about three times as aggressive on a slice. However because of the extreme nature of the edge geometry the blade still had impressive performance on 3/8" hemp taking 28 - 32 lbs on a rocking push cut and 23-25 lbs on a two inch draw cut.

Using it in the kitchen on some vegetables it was not as smooth as the Japanese utility knife I commented on awhile back, but it required less force than the Henckels international Chef's knife which I had reground to improve its cutting performance. However it did tend to stick a little on the thick vegetables dueo to its thin profile, not enough to give the Henckels the advantage overall though. However on tasks that required a high sharpness it fell short. It slipped a lot trying to trim the fat from meats and had no abliity to cut soft fruits like plums or tomatoes.

Checking the edge under magnification showed the reason. The edge was shaped with a rough belt and this was not refined but then just buffed, which can easily lead to a loss of aggression due to roll and/or carbide rounding. The edge was easily fixed however with just a few passes on a butchers steel. it would then slice the plums and trim the fat with no slippage. A 600 grit DMT rod would be preferred in general though as the steel is actually fairly hard and broke up under the steel.

The blade was then used for some moderate heavy work, disjointing some chicken legs by simply press cutting right through the bones, not cutting through the joints. This did not damage the edge in any visible way, which is decently impressive.

The handle is very similar to the Henckels internation line and will become slick easily if you hand gets exposed to fats or similar, it is decently rounded though so it is comfortable enough.

Corrosion resistance should be high, I left it wet during the cutting and there was no sign of any patina. After I work with some acidic fruits I should have a better idea. Given the decent hardness (based on how it felt on the steel and responded to the bone cutting), edge retention should be solid as well. I'll comment on that after a few weeks work and may do some stock testing on hemp as well.The steel is described as the normal "high carbon stainless" so it is probably something like 440A.

So in short it has a low NIB sharpness, but high overall cutting ability. The only real reservation I would have is that it is a very light knife, if you like some heft in your chef's knife this is really not the one for you.

I should point out though that I inspected several at the store and while this one had nice clean edge lines, many of them didn't. Some showed large variances in edge width and even the edge curvature looked a little off on some. However considering the price (~12$ CN), this isn't too severe a problem.

Ref :

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=218529

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=218499

-Cliff

 

[Eric_Draven]

THis is an example of thin blade stock being an essential component of a high performance low stress knife.

Personally I would vastly perfer the Victorinox line of kitchen knives, and would never own anything with Martha's name on it, it is illustrative of certian facts.

The mountainmen of yore used kitchen knives almost exclusively, and would laugh at today's notion of a thick survival knife.

Most of today's knives are overbuilt, both in stock thickness and grind (primary and edge).

Geometery, not steel, is the key to performance. Though the steel must be capable of supporting the geometery for a given use.

 

[frank k]

Cliff,


That blade is about as thick behind the edge as a Victorinox paring knife, so I am sure it will cut like crazy now that you have it sharp. I have not had a problem with durability of the Vict. parers, although, I have not used them to cut through chicken leg bones. I have used them on smaller chicken bones and frozen food without a problem.

Originally posted by Eric_Draven
Personally I would vastly perfer the Victorinox line of kitchen knives, and would never own anything with Martha's name on it,...

Not even if they threw in a free set of Rosie serving spoons?



-Frank

 

[Eric_Draven]

Originally posted by frank k


Not even if they threw in a free set of Rosie serving spoons?

-Frank

The only use I'd have for them is as a target in a pissing contest.

Although I suppose that having rosie spoons would be a great diet aid, ther is no way I could eat off a spoon with her fat, ugly wretched mug on it. I would quickly lose my appetite.

They would also make an efective laxative and libido control device.

 

[Jeff Clark]

I haven't run across these yet. It sounds like something from Walmart or Kmart. Is it made in China or Taiwan?

 

[frank k]

Originally posted by Eric_Draven
The only use I'd have for them is as a target in a pissing contest.

Although I suppose that having rosie spoons would be a great diet aid, ther is no way I could eat off a spoon with her fat, ugly wretched mug on it. I would quickly lose my appetite.

They would also make an efective laxative and libido control device.

I am glad to see someone has finally come up for some uses for rosie’s products. I had thought anything with rosie’s mug on it was not just repulsive:barf: :barf: :barf: but damn useless too.


-Frank

 

[Cliff Stamp]

Eric :

Geometery, not steel, is the key to performance.

In regards to cutting ability yes. Mike Swaim spoke out in this regard years ago on rec.knives, his influence on the internet knowledge of knife performance can't be overstated. It is more well known now than it was back then, but there are still those that correlate properties to steels that are determined to a far greater extent by other factors such as geometry and quality of sharpening and abrasives used.

Back to that aspect of performance, I would put this blade up against any custom western chef's knife (in regards to cutting ability). There was also a no-name set at another store that looked to have a similar edge, and you had a set of three blades for $6.99 CN (Chef, utility, paring). Assuming you stick to foods, and don't cut a lot of odd things like shark or lobster, I would expect edge retention to be a non-issue as well.

Now in general you do have to consider the effect of the inherent steel abilities as they come into play for lots of factors such as durability, strength, edge holding etc., however because the stress for kitchen knives is so low the steel can be very simple and basically be optimal. You really don't gain anything going beyond 420HC unless you have a very high requirement for sharpness and crisp edges or don't want to have to steel your knives.

Jeff I found them at Zellers. There were three types of blades under the Martha Stewart label. One had a nice ergonomic handle, but a horribly obtuse primary grind (1/2" deep). There was also a nice one piece steel set, like the Globals for only $23.99, but I was just interested in one blade to experiment with.

As a side note, I did find out why Phil Wilson uses full 1/8" stock on his kitchen knives. I got alone of the one I gave as a gift and it cut just as well as the above blade in regards to force required, but did not stick as bad, and was more comfortable for heavy cutting becuase of the rounded spine being much more friendly to your hand when you needed to lean on it to cut turnips and similar. It was though 10x the price.

-Cliff

 

[Eric_Draven]

Cliff,

., however because the stress for kitchen knives is so low the steel can be very simple and basically be optimal. You really don't gain anything going beyond 420HC unless you have a very high requirement for sharpness and crisp edges or don't want to have to steel your knives.

I think that stresses in the kitchen can be quite high at times. Glances off bones, nylon cutting boards that can dull edges, accidental impacts on stainless prep counters.

While the average housewife may not benifit from a better steel, I certainly would. A soft knife in 420J is simply not capable of being given the same geometery on the extreme end as a harder steel. There are issues with burr formation during sharpening, the effects of steeling are much different on softer steels (a grooved steel with even moderate pressure will remove soft metal quite easily or form a small burr, or even shift an edge further out of alignment.)

In addition softer steels have issues at very rough finishes, for example I sometimes sharpen kitchen knives on an 80 grit AO belt for certain slicing tasks. The really soft steels get misaligned real fast as the big "micro-serrations" grab on stuff and the soft steel is not strong enough to retain the serrations, instead they tear out. But this occurs during more utility work than strict kitchen stuff.

I have several cheap knives that I have reground (in fact they are the knives that I practiced with my belt grinder on intially) that will cut exceptionall well. There are still issues with handle comfort, and for some jobs that a heavier knife makes for less effort.

There is also the factor that owning anything with the Martha Stewart name has been shown to cause impotence and insanity.


For cheap, high performance cutlery I will go with Victorinox every time. I got a set of the Victorinox kitchen knives from SMKW for a very reasonable price.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

Eric :

I think that stresses in the kitchen can be quite high at times. Glances off bones, nylon cutting boards that can dull edges, accidental impacts on stainless prep counters.

Yes, this is one of the primary reasons I would use 420HC as it is one of the more ductile and tougher stainless steels and thus can stand this type of sloppy use very well. The high corrosion resistance means it can also stay wet or even dirty for extended periods of time without pitting another example of less than ideal usage. In regards to low stress I was mainly talking about cutting hard or abrasive material which could be more demanding on the edge and require a higher hardness and wear resistance to prevent excessive wear or rolling.

A soft knife in 420J is simply not capable of being given the same geometery on the extreme end as a harder steel.

I would agree in general which is why I listed 420HC which can get to 56/58 RC, which is about the maximum I would go because of the issues you note regarding edge impacts. However even 420 is just as hard for example as Talonite so I would not rule it out as useless, though I would prefer 420HC for the extra hardness to raise the edge resitance to deformation. 420 is really only needed for extensive salt water work or if you really want to beat on it with hard objects (in which case I would go with a simplr steel anyway). If you eliminate the above hard edge contacts you would benefit from harder steels and probably enjoy a decent Japanese blade if you don't mind the care, or even a Kyocera ceramic.

... the effects of steeling are much different on softer steels

Again, another area where 420HC will stand out strongly. It will be filed by a butcher steel and thus can be kept sharp this way for quite some time. I only hone the Henckels I have a few times a year, they are kept sharp with regular steeling on a simple grooved steel.

The really soft steels get misaligned real fast as the big "micro-serrations" grab on stuff and the soft steel is not strong enough to retain the serrations, instead they tear out.

Yes, when I did some edge retention work on Ti awhile ago (Misson) I found that I could not get an enhancement in edge retention by lowering the finish as the edge would wear down very quickly as the RC is only in the high fourties. I never tried this with AISI 420, but it seems logical that similar behavior would be seen. I'll have to try out some hemp cutting and see how it behaves.

Frank :

... I have not used them to cut through chicken leg bones.

This was done as about the limit of use which a decent knife can do without taking damage. I am thinking I should go a little further after using the above blade to do it, because even that really cheap knife with the very acute and thin bevel didn't get damaged. Some red meat bones seem the obvious choice, but these are usually handled with other blades, so maybe some loose banging around would be more sensible, to simulate dropping the blade in the sink with dishes and the like.


-Cliff

 

[Eric_Draven]

Cliff,

I agree that 420HC is a near ideal kitchen steel. I misread what you were writing and thought you were refering to 420J. The corrosion resistance is another bonus. Though I have many Ontario "old hickory" carbon steel knives as well, and they have developed a formidable patina which keeps rust at bay. One aspect that I do not see mentioned enough is the effects of chemical dulling of knives, as oxidation can cause rapid degradation of a knife's edge. It is the dulling in the sheath or drawer phenomenon.

For the vast majority of my kitchen use I end up using the various field knives that I am evaluating (about 10 right now). When I use kitchen knives I have a Wustoff set and a Victorinox set. THey work well. Eventually I would like to buy a set of Murray Carter knives as they seem ideal for my uses.

I agree that Japanese kitchen knives are on another level of performance compared to western knives. There is a huge cultural difference in the respect given to these tools by serious users as well, and it is reflected in the product.

As well, I have found that some knives not designated as "kitchen" knives work exceptionally well for food prep, knives like the Grohmann line, the Benchmade Nimravus, Eric Chang's hunter, my CS Master Hunter, and even my customized BAIII.

For the very lightest work however, the only knives that compare to my victorinox paring knives are Opinel folders, SAKS and Rappala fillet knives.

One knife that I am very interested in is the Microtech Fillet knife in S30V.

 

[frank k]

Cliff,


I have also been impressed with the durability of thin edged kitchen knives, I generally try to take it easy on them, but the always seem to hold up better than expected when I put them to harder use.

With regard to cutting bone, uncooked bone is not too hard and can be cut much easier than cooked bone.

There is not a lot of difference in toughness of most stainless cutlery steels when run at similar hardness, so 440C at Rc58 should be about as durable as 420HC at the same hardness.



Eric,

Dulling by rust is something that is often overlooked, I have had carbon steel knives noticeably dull in a few hours, even though there were no visible signs of rust. The fine edge is the part of the knife which is most vulnerable to rusting because it is so thin and is not covered by any blade coatings.

S30V seems like it would make an ideal fillet or kitchen knife steel.



-Frank

 

[Will York]

I never thought I'd see the day.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

Eric :

One aspect that I do not see mentioned enough is the effects of chemical dulling of knives ...

This is the primary reason that I don't use the Japanese utlity knife that much in the kitchen. While it does have very high performance, I usually use the ceramic from Kyocera as I don't need to be concerned about oiling it after the cutting, nor keeping it dry while preparing a meal. However Lee Valley just put out a new set of Japanese style kitchen knives out of 420HC. You get a three piece set of $40 US. If they have the same edge profile as the utility knife they should be simply excellent. They are definately on my to buy list.

frank :

S30V seems like it would make an ideal fillet or kitchen knife steel.

Yes. Wilson has been using it for that and getting real high performance, his personal preference is for 420HC though with the viewpoint of ease of sharpening in the kitchen removing any requirement for high edge holding, so the higher cost isn't that attractive, if you have the money though.

WILL :

Cliff Stamp on Martha Stewart... I never thought I'd see the day.

She probably didn't either.

-Cliff

 

[Will York]

Cliff--

I'm impressed with the results of your testing of 420HC over time, in terms of toughness and rust resistance. For those who maintain their edges as a matter of course, and don't count on using up an edge until it gets truly dull, seems that 420HC has quite a lot to offer.

I find when I check inexpensive blades for steel type, most are not marked. Do you know what steels are commonly being used in kitchen knives and other garden variety inexpensive stainless steel knives? I'm asking out of curiosity as to whether there are a myriad of such steels or only a couple--or if one can count on getting 420HC in most of these knives? Can you think of an easy way (whether ultimately destructive or not) to test a cheap blade to see if it's 420HC, rather than another steel? Have you seen examples of significant divergence in performance by 420HC blades attributable to differences in heat treat?

How does 420HC stack up against the other common 400 series stainless steels?

Thanks as always,
Will

 

[Cliff Stamp]

Will :

For those who maintain their edges as a matter of course, and don't count on using up an edge until it gets truly dull, seems that 420HC has quite a lot to offer.

While I don't disagree with this, I will make a comment about the functional effect of edge holding on the lifetime of the cutting ability. When I started a few years ago looking at edge retention all I was interested in was how long the blade stayed sharp and not how long it actually cut well. These are not the same thing at all though they are constantly equated. It was only after working with knives from Boye, Schott, Wilson and the like that it became obvious that I was missing a large part of the picture. How well a knife cuts is strongly dependent on its sharpness, but as well on its geometry and the latter effect can in fact be far greater than the former.

For a regular utility knife I would not want AISI 420 grade stainless because the edge rolls quickly on hard materials and thus for example if you do any whittling on hard woods or cut into plastics or similar, when you take the blade and try to slice through a sheet of paper or do any other fine work the sharpness will be lost and the blade won't cut well. This is why AISI 420 gets a low reputation for poor edge holding, and why edge holding tends to dominate commentary on blade cutting functionality for long term use. You can go quite a bit beyond 420 and still have the same problem, for example the SAK blades go blunt quite fast in the same manner, the main problem with these steels is that the RC is low.

Goddard was the first one I have read to experiment and show this in a detailed manner. He saw that even small changes in RC of 1-2 points made a significant difference in how long the edge stayed sharp and thus hardness became quite important. Phil Wilson learned this from Goddard which is why his blades are always on the upper end of the scale. At the same time he also learned from Boye that sharpness isn't everything. He runs his edges the same way Boye does, very thin and decently acute , and doesn't polish them very high, but leaves them rougher to enhance the slicing ability.

What was the point of all this? Well quite simply if you take one of Phils 420HC kitchen knives I would put it to out cut many knives of much higher grade steels and stay out cutting it for a very long time as even though the steel has inherently lower edge retention, the lifetime of the cutting ability is very high due to the geometry and edge finish. What does all this have to do with this kitchen knife, well I ran some edge testing on 3/8" hemp in the normal fashion last night, here are the average results of three trials. For reference I also added a third col showing the result of using a SOG SEAL 2000 for the same work :

Cuts Kitchen knife SOG
0002 14.2 +/- 0.7 41 +/- 1
0006 15.5 +/- 0.7 46 +/- 2
0014 18.7 +/- 0.7 51 +/- 1
0030 20.1 +/- 1.0
0062 22.0 +/- 0.6
0126 25.5 +/- 0.7
0254 30.0 +/- 2.8

Now the SOG should be of higher quality steel than this made in china blade and you would assume has a more careful heat treating process, however even after the "junk" blade has made 254 cuts it is able to cut through the rope *far* easier than the SOG blade can when it is freshly sharpened [600 DMT for both blades]. Thus the lifetime of the cutting ability of the kitchen knife is far in excess of the SOG due to the geometry of the edge. This can be extended to cutting soft materials in general which shows you that you don't need much at all from a steel to be able to cut this type of material for a very long time. Essentially since the demands of the material are very low, almost anything can be used and crafted to an optimal geometry.

Now of course this rope test isn't everything, for chopping blades for example these steels are not functional. I used a tramontina bowie awhile back, it was basically a 1/4" trailmaster with a sabre grind. The edge took dents about the size of a quarter whenever it hit a knot, the steel was not hard enough to have enough strength to hold the profile even with the sabre grind. But of course for kitchen knives you don't need to be able to chop up knots.

How does 420HC stack up against the other common 400 series stainless steels?

I would assume most of the cheap knives are a version of AISI 420 simply because that is a very low cost steel to blank, the critial point would be how high is the carbon content and how hard are the blades. The biggest difference in performance is going to come from the RC. You can get them very soft, down to about 45 RC, but most will fall at 50-52 RC, though they are usually claimed much higher. 420HC can gain a few points on this on optimal and end up at ~ 56 RC which will give a noticable difference in holding a crisp edge on hard materials. But as noted in the above, for soft materials, you are just looking at geometry.

The only drawback to such steels for kitchen knives is that there is a limit to how sharp they can get. As you lower the edge angle to under 10 degrees included you start to get breakouts in the edge which limits the push cutting ability. However we are talking about a level of sharpness which is roughly twice that of the best production knife (Sypderco, Cold Steel) and a level of cutting ability that is many times to one over the better cutting blades in the industry. The only people I have seen complain about this are those with exceptionally high standards. It is only a functional factor if you want to prepare food using transparent slices of food and such.

-Cliff

 

[Eric_Draven]

Again showing that the effects of geometery vastly swamp out any characterstics of steel.

Having a high grade steel will only be helpful to lend high durability, or when you need extra strength so that you can hone the edge exceptionally thin.

A very fine grained steel (like 52100) sharpened at 150 grit will readily outslice a heavily carbided steel (like D2) that has been polished on a 4000 grit waterstone

 

[Will York]

Cliff--

Thank you for that synopsis. Those are common themes runnning through your research conclusions of the past couple years, but it's always nice to get a fresh view from a little different angle. The comparison with the SOG, while not surprising, is appreciated as a vividly graphic demonstration.

Thanks,
Will

 

[Cliff Stamp]

Eric :

A very fine grained steel (like 52100) sharpened at 150 grit will readily outslice a heavily carbided steel (like D2) that has been polished on a 4000 grit waterstone

Yes, a lot has been made of the cutting ability of various steels, and for the most part this is vastly overshadowed by other factors. Boye for example was known for making very aggressive slicers, and this was promoted due to the "dendritic" nature of the steel. The high slicing ability however comes from the very thin edges (0.005"- 0.01" thick) and the edges which are not overly polished. Working with Will's blades from Boye several years ago was an enlightening experience in that regard.

Note however that there is a large difference in edge holding and overall durability between the above blades. Since the D2 one is inherently more aggresive, it can retain a higher slicing ablity at a slightly higher polish. Then the D2 blade will be more durable overall (due to the finer micro-teeth) and have greater edge retention and greater push cutting ability.

I keep meaning to look at this in detail ever since it came up in a conversation with Will a couple of years ago. Of course if you go really coarse with the 52100 you have to go pretty much that coarse with D2 as you are not at the point that the carbide structure is pretty much masked out, but with intermediate grits like 1000 waterstone you can notice some advantage. The self-sharpening effect is also stronger with steels like D2.

The point could be made though is that all you would have to do is carry one knife highly coarse and one highly polished out of 1095 or whatever and get the best of both worlds, but you can always do better with more knives. Ever since I started carrying a Leatherman on a regular basis I could refine the bevel on my SAK significantly, specialization is always positive as long as you can cope with the extra tools.

Will, as is rethinking it.

-Cliff

 

[Eric_Draven]

Cliff,

I agree 100% with everything you just wrote.

It is interesting that you mention Boye knives, as I have been carrying one of his folders in Dendritic steel the last few days. It offers suprisingly strong perfromance.

I totally agree the way to go is to carry more knives. Specialized tools are the way to go. Some knives are great, though, in that they offer a very high level of performance over a wide range tasks. My Blademan modifed knives are an example.

Take care,
Chad

 

[Will York]

Originally posted by Eric_Draven
It is interesting that you mention Boye knives, as I have been carrying one of his folders in Dendritic steel the last few days. It offers suprisingly strong perfromance.

Chad--

If you get the chance, try one of David's hunter-style fixed blades. Flat ground from the spine to an edge thickness of as little as .005". That's the geometry Cliff was referring to--even thinner at the edge than the folder grind, although I've had three of his "eagle wing" folders and agree they are good performers.

Will