"DougC" wrote in message
...
I have seen these during the last few visits I've made to a HF store. Today
I went to buy a couple other things and decided to get a knife too (the
medium-size, $11 one).

I've been aware of ceramic kitchen knives for years, but when they first
came out they cost a fortune and I didn't care enough about kitchen knives
to want one. The idea of a ceramic being tough enough to make into a thin
knife blade is fascinating though, and the HF knives are so cheap that
they're only ~2X what a decent steel one would have cost--so I decided why
not. It is odd how you can see the shadows of your fingers on it when you
hold it up to a light.

I have already heard that one requirement of these knives is that they
cannot be stored where they will rattle around with anything else (that
is, in the drawer with most of the other knives) since the edge will chip
easily. Also you can't pry with them or strike anything hard.

After getting home and getting it out of the package, I noticed it doesn't
seem very sharp. I haven't tried cutting actual food with it yet, my
assessment of "not very sharp" is just scraping my finger on the edge, and
slicing a couple pieces of paper. The plain steel knives I normally use
can be honed sharper in 15 seconds, and a new razor blade is WAY sharper.
Is this normal for ceramic knives, or just for a Harbor Freight knife?

Second, do you sharpen these things? I have a couple diamond knife
sharpeners around but I would assume even the finest of them to be too
coarse. ...Since you're not raising a burr, the grinding would have to be
a very fine texture. I would guess the best way would be some
mirror-finish/optical diamond polishing compound and a sheet of paper or
similar. I don't have any diamond compound around and a tube would cost
$16 from Enco, so I would be spending $16 to sharpen a $11 knife. :P

Lastly, is there any kind of food that ceramic knives are especially good
for cutting?


I bought a Kyocera many years ago and it was very sharp at first, but you
are right that they are nearly impossible to sharpen. I had no luck with
fine diamond polishing film.

Kyocera will re-sharpen their own brand for free if you pay shipping.

Here is how they do it. It is not clear to me what they are using for their
final buffing wheel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqn7vcByIgo