what steel does Wusthof use?

C

csp20108

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Sep 9, 2002
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Does anyone have any idea what steel the german maker Wusthof uses in its Classic and Grand Prix kitchen knives? Is it typical for kitchen knives? How hard is it to sharpen?

Thanks.
 
Wusthof uses X50CrMo14 at 56 HRC. X50CrMo14 is very similar to 425M, so it is easy to sharpen. Most european kitchen knives use similar steels.





- Frank
 
There is enough chrome and moly in the alloy that it is not real fun to sharpen if the edge is too thick. I like the thinnest profile knives, particularly if they are made from an alloy like this.

Knives that are very easy to sharpen are MAC Original Series or Spyderco kitchen knives. These are Japanese made and have thinner edges. They are at least a couple RC points harder than the Wusthofs and yet are easier to sharpen.
 
Jeff Clark :

There is enough chrome and moly in the alloy that it is not real fun to sharpen if the edge is too thick.
Click to expand...

Just hog it off with a large bastard file (or belt sander or dremel) to add a relief and then hone in a secondary bevel. You only have to do the first step once, it makes a huge difference to repeat sharpening times. I do it on all such kitchen knives I sharpen for friends and family, the knives of course cut better as well.

-Cliff
 
Cliff, I've got a belt sander that I bought for sharpening knives for the local soup kitchen. I routinely thin the bevel on kitchen knives for higher performance and easier maintenance. I only get to work on the soup kitchen knives every 2 to 4 months. Every time I work on them I have to repeat the full reprofiling process. They really get beaten to death and most of them are pretty cheap knives. When I am sharpening 50 knives in one morning I can tell which knives are made with the harder chrome-moly japanese alloys. It takes an extra 2 or 3 minutes work on the belt sander for each one. That cuts into the 2.5 hours I have to work in significantly.

My suggestion to look at thinner japanese style blades assumed that someone doesn't want to reprofile his kitchen knives before he uses them the first time and periodically thereafter. Most people don't have the equipment to do it efficiently or the patience to do it manually. When I visit relatives in California and have to sharpen their knives using a variety pack of Wet Or Dry paper I sure wish they had MAC knives rather than Wusthof.
 
That is a bit extreme for regular people though. I have never done it after the first time for the knives I sharpen for friends. The only reason you need to do it is to thin out the secondary bevel, assuming the edge doesn't see major damage. It takes more than 100 sharpenings on a ceramic rod to make the edge thicken even a minor amount (1 mm wide), which is practially a lifetime for most people in the kitchen.

-Cliff
 
The soup kitchen is a pretty interesting knife testing lab. They feed around 500 people a day, seven days a week yielding about 1000 meals a day. They prepare salads, soups, and casseroles mainly which requires a lot of peeling, dicing, and boning. If 40 knives see the majority of the work they each prepare 25 meals from scratch a day. In two months each knife will have prepared around 1500 meals (from scratch). They typically have received no sharpening whatsoever during that interval. They are totally dull and need to be hit with the belt sander.
 
There is nothing like that close to here, it sounds like an ideal testing ground for *rapid* feedback on kitchen knives. It would be interesting to see the results of some customs vs various productions in such a high end use senario.

-Cliff
 
I'm kind of surprised that there is no soup kitchen in your part of the world. This one is a branch of Marion House, which is a Catholic charity. I believe the kitchens are all over north america. They see a lot of customers who like it as a place to connect with people as well as get food. They might be able to get sustenance from government sources, but they get more heart through Marion House. At least locally they accept all kinds of volunteers. My church for instance is one of many protestant churches that take turns in the kitchen.

The kitchen is staffed with rotating groups of volunteers. Our church gets a turn every two months. Some of the "volunteers" are people doing "community service" as part of a criminal sentence for drug offenses. I wouldn't leave any customs in that environment.

I usually bring about 50 knives with me when our church is working. We use those knives while I sharpen the soup kitchen supply. I contribute knives occasionally (sometimes intentionally, and sometimes accidentally). The larger knives get really scratched up as well as dulled by the process. Good knives with 4 inch blade length or less typically get stolen.

I may get more intentional about my contributions. I will inject some contrasting knives into the system and check on them 2 months later. The results will not be quite as simple to judge as you might think. People tend to gravitate towards particular designs. Often this is due to familiarity and sometimes it will be due to experience. The "favored" knives see more wear than "neglected" knives, regardless of intrinsic wear characteristics. I'll have to use pairs of knives with equivalent designs (two 8" chef's knives for instance).

On our church team many of the volunteers have developed favorites due to performance. There are very definite MAC fans who complain if they have to use anything else. I have another group who like the Gold 3 (this is my guess as to the brand name) offset blade knives. Most of my european design knives see very little use except for some of the large chef's knives. My experimental control is hard to achieve in the soup kitchen.
 
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