steels to stay away from?

J

Jake Dawson

Joined
Jul 19, 2020
Messages
21
I had a bad experience with 4116, it simply did not hold an edge. And all i did was cutting bread or cucumbers.
It could be a 1 off. But this was a 7$ knife. 4116 in 50$ knives might be different
 
I have a box of various cheapo kitchen knifes. No idea about the metal. Most are the block set knives from Wal-Mart. They stay sharp enough for the home cook. There is one older Ekco utility knife that chipped, trying to sharpen. 150 grit would take chunks out. 220 wasn't as bad but it still would chip.

Everything is just labeled, 'Stainless'. I'd guess some grade like 440A on the generic stuff. Or whatever the lower Chinese grade is.
 
Jake Dawson said:
I had a bad experience with 4116, it simply did not hold an edge. And all i did was cutting bread or cucumbers.
It could be a 1 off. But this was a 7$ knife. 4116 in 50$ knives might be different
Click to expand...
Could be bad heat treat, but usually the edge is burnt, the cutting board is bad, residual burr/wire edge, all of the above. The steel itself should be OK, for normal home use. Some really crusty bread can give knives a hard time though, cucumbers unless frozen solid not so much.
 
This should be titled "Knives to stay away from", not "steels".
Nearly all the German and French cooking knives are 4116 variants and
hold up fine. Losing an edge from cutting bread and cucumbers is without doubt
a heat treat (or non HT) issue. Or it's not really 4116.

What knife do you have that is the issue?
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top