The kitchen knife
- Thread starter rich59
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Between a kitchen knife and a wood-carving RM style bushcraft knife the differences are mostly grind and thickness (bushcrafter is typically scandi not flat grind and 4mm not 2mm thick)
The type of knife recommended mainly for camp chores and skinning (in addition to axe and folder) by Kephart and Nessmuk is in many ways very very similar to a kitchen knife.
The type of knife recommended mainly for camp chores and skinning (in addition to axe and folder) by Kephart and Nessmuk is in many ways very very similar to a kitchen knife.
The average 'bushcraft'knife has a rockwell hardness between 57 and 62 and is between 3mm and 5mm thick.The hardness is required for cutting wood without loosing its edge too fast.
Most kitchen knives average the low 50's on the rockwell scale so they can be easily touched up on a butchers steel and are usually between 1 and 2.5mm thick so they slice veggies with little effort.
Try neatly slicing a carrot with a 5mm wide bushcraft knife and you will realise what I mean. Or try battoning your fire wood with a 4" sabatier.
Horses for courses.
Most kitchen knives average the low 50's on the rockwell scale so they can be easily touched up on a butchers steel and are usually between 1 and 2.5mm thick so they slice veggies with little effort.
Try neatly slicing a carrot with a 5mm wide bushcraft knife and you will realise what I mean. Or try battoning your fire wood with a 4" sabatier.
Horses for courses.
I think the kitchen knife deserves strong consideration for use in the bush. Having grown up in the Amazon bush, we (the Indians and us white folks) used kitchen knives for everything from fileting fish to carving bows and arrows. It was the only type of knife we had. They performed admirably. Here's a kitchen knife I made recently. Todd
We might be talking about different things here 
My favourite kitchen knife is a little 7cm long blade, 'kitchen devil', and it gets used for everything from salads to spuds to cheese to cutting rhubarb in the garden. Out of a drawer full of knives it's the first one I look for, for virtually everything except meat and bread. It's the one I mean when I ask, "Where's the knife?"
Thick bladed bushcraft knives are intended to be robust.....most of the time I reckon that's overkill.
I do take a little food-prep knife with me if I'm out long enough to be cooking but most of my knives are fairly small anyway.
Cheers,
Toddy
My favourite kitchen knife is a little 7cm long blade, 'kitchen devil', and it gets used for everything from salads to spuds to cheese to cutting rhubarb in the garden. Out of a drawer full of knives it's the first one I look for, for virtually everything except meat and bread. It's the one I mean when I ask, "Where's the knife?"
Thick bladed bushcraft knives are intended to be robust.....most of the time I reckon that's overkill.
I do take a little food-prep knife with me if I'm out long enough to be cooking but most of my knives are fairly small anyway.
Cheers,
Toddy
I think part of the hardness difference is down to cost more then anything else, most people spend a lot more on a bushcraft knife then their kitchen knives, my main kitchen knife is 57, if the kitchen knife uses VG10 I doubt it's any softer then a F1bushwacker bob said:
I think most kitchen knives are 2-3mm so not any thinner then a mora.
Kitchen knives are designed with the idea that you will have a range of knives at hand, a small thin one for detail work and a larger thicker one for chopping, this will be a lot deeper then a typical bushcraft knife as it means you wont hit your knuckes on the chopping board.
Bushcraft knives will have more metal behind the edge, be less deep (normaly) and tend to have more chunky handles which can be used in a range of grips
A lot of people who use Mora's, use them as kitchen knives. Frost themselves actual sell Mora's as kitchen knives(They do butchers, fish, and straight Kitchen knives). As soon as I re-handle them, I will be using my Mora's as Kitchen knifes for everything, everywhere. A knife that size is my first choice for every job but bread cutting.
I think the original concept from that part of the world is one knife, all uses.
I think the original concept from that part of the world is one knife, all uses.
I just went through all my sabatiers and none are thicker than 1.8mm!Most cost more than £10, 20 years ago and MOST bushcrafters use the lovely Moras for less than £10!Andy said:
maver said:You don't want my Kitchen knives then?, professional jobs cost me £300.00 for four knives 5 years ago
And your never in the bloody country to use them
How thick are they? and how thick is your Bushcrafter?
It could be I'm calling a spade, a spade when its actually a shovel!
It could be I'm calling a spade, a spade when its actually a shovel!
Then your not most people. I have sold kitchen knife sets costing that much and more but that is not the main customer base (I'm assuming people on here know I sell kitchen knives and made my own)maver said:You don't want my Kitchen knives then?, professional jobs cost me £300.00 for four knives 5 years ago
A damacus/ZDP-189 set of kicthen knives or indeed most of the knives discussed on knife forums will be harder and thinner then the knives I've sold a lot of, they will also be hrader then any bushcraft knife I've used (william Henry run ZDP-189 at Rc). Victorinox knives are 425m steel which is very rust resistant but rather soft at about 53 and most of their knives are 2 or 3mm stock, the same goes for JAdams
The plastic handled knives sell for about 1/2 the price of my Mora and many people wont spend that much on their kitchen knives. Also they seem to be thinner then a lot of the knives around
A 2mm thick mora is 2mm for most of the depth though while a 2mm stock kitchen knife normaly has a full flat grind with a very small secondardy edge, most between 20-25degrees per side, this doesn't cause a problem with cutting soft stuff like meat as the meat will move while a 50degree total edge on a mora would make it a lot harder to cut wood but the rapidly increasing thickness of a mora means it wont slice as well as a victorinox kitchen knife
Global kitchen knives on the other hand use harder steel (AUS118 if you really care) and have a full convex grind with the edge about 13dgrees per side, some japanese knives are chisel ground at 15-20 while been much harder then a bushcraft knife costing similar money
My mistake then mate.
I thought the question was about AVERAGE kitchen knives compared to bushcrafters.
I didn't realise most people chose their kitchen knives cos they were made from VG10 or ZDP-189 or aus118 supersteels.
I just use sabatiers cos they're quite good for the job and I do all the cooking in our house.I have no idea what steel they are made from.
I'd better go get me some damascus kitchen knives too.
A nessmuk knife is a kitchen knife of sorts so there is no reason not to use one in the woods.I doubt mr Sears used his for woodwork tho'.
I was comparing the average 4" paring knife to an average bushcrafter.ie Like for like.
I'm not skilled enough to make my own kitchen knives but I have re-handled a few of them.
How thick are the blades you made Andy? :You_Rock_
I thought the question was about AVERAGE kitchen knives compared to bushcrafters.
I didn't realise most people chose their kitchen knives cos they were made from VG10 or ZDP-189 or aus118 supersteels.
I just use sabatiers cos they're quite good for the job and I do all the cooking in our house.I have no idea what steel they are made from.
I'd better go get me some damascus kitchen knives too.
A nessmuk knife is a kitchen knife of sorts so there is no reason not to use one in the woods.I doubt mr Sears used his for woodwork tho'.
I was comparing the average 4" paring knife to an average bushcrafter.ie Like for like.
I'm not skilled enough to make my own kitchen knives but I have re-handled a few of them.
How thick are the blades you made Andy? :You_Rock_
what I'm saying is that very few people buy supersteel kitchen knives, most cost a lot less then a mora
I regrind factory made blades
I regrind factory made blades
But then again of course Andy, very few people buy supersteel belt knives either. I'm sure there are far more Moras and actualy far more junk steel cheep belt knives made than very high quality bushcraft knives.
Of course theres a load of people on here that spend more on bushcraft knives than chefs knives - its a bushcraft forum. Ask in a chefs forum I'm sure you will get a different answer
Red
Of course theres a load of people on here that spend more on bushcraft knives than chefs knives - its a bushcraft forum. Ask in a chefs forum I'm sure you will get a different answer
Red
this whole cost thing seems to have got way more attention given to it then I intended. I origonaly said that the reason bushcraft knives are a little harder is that the ones's we come into contact with are made from better steel then the cheap kitchen knives bought at tesco/argos etc and not a result of the work they are designed to do. If you ask in a chef forum (such as the kitchen knives section on knife forums) they talk about really hard knives with low edge angles.British Red said:
The large knives will still be deeper to stop your knuckles hitting the board and the smaller knives will still have handles that are more suited to a single way of holding them and designed to give the greatest control under comparitively light pressure rather than a chunky handle you can hold whilst cuting through wood all day
on the kicthen knives I handle and regrind the blades I leave the rear section relitively flat tostop the knife rolling in the hand whilst the top section is rounded to spread the forces over a greater area and the front section is fairly round for control and allows the index finger and thumb to grip round the handle or to be placed on the sides of the (40mm deep) blade. The bottom of the handle is shaped so that the longer fingers in the midlde have more handle to wrap round. It works very well (for me at least) for chopping and slicing but would be a nightmare for bushcraft work if you had a mora shaped blade on the end. A boning knife on the other had has a similar thickness blade about the same depth as a bushcrafter and a big chunky handle. A 5inch butchers boning knife wont work as well cutting wood as a mora but I have used one for long periods of time and is IMO better for food prep
my kicthen knife
I'm a waiter (server) and I often get to witness the amazing things that professional chefs are able to do with kitchen knives. And by that I mean rapid fire precision slicing. However, in the restaurants that I've worked at in the past and the present I rarely see chefs, even ones with decades of experience using "supersteel knives" and I think it's for two reasons:
1) Cost. Chefs are busy. Really busy. And they tend to abuse their knives. And I mean drop (throw) them into sinks.
2) Ease of sharpening. All good chefs keep a ridged steel close at hand for a quick touch up on their blades every so often.
But hey, that's only an opinion.
Adam
Post Script: Compared to bushcraft blades, there's simply no comparison. I believe that Andy made a point about most kitchen knives being made of slightly softer steel, such as 425modified. That's true, but the geometry of a good kitchen knife (it being incredibly thin) completely compensates for the low RC of the steel. I'd be willing to bet that a properly sharpened kitchen blade will outcut a super steel bushcraft knife when slicing cardboard by far. I just wouldn't want to try and slice shelter poles with one.
1) Cost. Chefs are busy. Really busy. And they tend to abuse their knives. And I mean drop (throw) them into sinks.
2) Ease of sharpening. All good chefs keep a ridged steel close at hand for a quick touch up on their blades every so often.
But hey, that's only an opinion.
Adam
Post Script: Compared to bushcraft blades, there's simply no comparison. I believe that Andy made a point about most kitchen knives being made of slightly softer steel, such as 425modified. That's true, but the geometry of a good kitchen knife (it being incredibly thin) completely compensates for the low RC of the steel. I'd be willing to bet that a properly sharpened kitchen blade will outcut a super steel bushcraft knife when slicing cardboard by far. I just wouldn't want to try and slice shelter poles with one.
