Does anyone offer good quality kitchen knife blades. My daughter is expressing interest in making her own handles to fit her hand for her use.

Here is one of several sources. I haven't used these but this guy has been in business a long time.

http://www.texasknife.com/vcom...hp?cPath=119_299_315

and another....

http://www.knifemaking.com/category-s/21.htm

Alternatively you/she could go to some "estate" sales and possibly pick up a decent kitchen knife like she wants reasonably priced and then take the handles off and go from there.

FWIW kitchen knives are more science than art. It's all about technique ie the blade design- thickness, shape and material. The handle is more for balance than anything else.

Boils down to are you a slicer or a rocker.

Handle is irrelevant if you are a serious cook. For most prepping you pinch the knife between the first 2 fingers on the spine, not the handle (carvers are the exception but also the least used knives). I have both western and Japanese handles and don't notice any difference.

Then you have the rocker vs slicer technique and with rockers: the amount of curve, which translates into heel height/table height, efficiency of movement etc. The more curve, the greater the height (Germans are known for that. The French have a more Japanese (less curve) and are more slicers. And we haven't even begun the carbon white, blue and No1, No2, stainless, powdered, semi-stainless debate.

I've gone from European to Japanese stainless and semi-stainless for prep work and haven't looked back. I prefer the lasers and stainless (I still catch myself rocking every now and then). Only drawback is you must use stones on them, you cannot use steel. I still have my heavy germans for rough/hacking work (and lending them to "helpers").

Best thing for her would be to go to an estate sale, etc get some cheap knives, play with them and then have them professionally ground to your arc. Good luck, sounds like fun.

She/we, have already done re-grinding/handling some estate knives. That's what got her interested in this.

quote:

Originally posted by theback40:
She/we, have already done re-grinding/handling some estate knives. That's what got her interested in this.

Cool!!!!

Really interesting stuff out there. Glad you're having fun!

FMC
what started it was a couple old carbon steel blades that I showed her were easy to sharpen and got very sharp. Handles were some African blackwood, with a little of the white sapwood in them, pinned and ground to her hand as she holds them. Then she jeweled the blade ala rem 700 bolts.
It looked very nice, and has set in motion more father/daughter time in the shop!

The AUS8 Cryo quenched chefs blades from texasknife are very good, I have been using them for a number of years.
recommend the 8" Chefs Knife,
the 5" Santuko ( very popular & excellent balance in the hand )
The clip point paring blade is very good, I personally prefer it to the more conventional paring blade shape ( also carried at texasknife)
The bread knife blade is pretty good too
Cryo quenched AUS8 is a fine grained , quite hard blade that holds an edge well.
As stated above , they perform best touching the edge up occasionally with a ceramic stick rather than a steel ( the medium Lansky crockstick that Texasknife carries is good value ).
Jim Lemke heads up Texasknife............ & gives excellent service

Thanks Dennis for the hands on info, that steers me in the right direction.