I am guessing he meant 15mm, right?

15cm is not a small knife. Infact a 15mm diamond knife is pretty massive. The longest diamond knife I'm finding with some lazy searching is about 4mm, and it's 2200$.

Yeah, we REALLY need to see pictures please. I have never heard of a diamond knife before and would love to see what it looks like.

Having made diamond cutting tools, Diamond is brittle. It will definitely flake and fracture. It sounds cooler than using cbn though I guess.

In the end if you want something usable you have to match application to material. There is nothing that is good for everything. I would not use diamond for knives except for fun.

I guess if you use it for very specific cuts where there is no bone or anything hard and nothing more, you can keep it cca safe.

To a layman, or expert pro chef layman, good steel is enough, durable, worry free, cheap.

And coated with Teflon.

I think that's just for comparison, and not an endorsement of its use.

Teflon is biologically inert. It's the stuff they use to make it stick to the knife/pan that you need to worry about.

Awesome! It's much easier to get into than people think. It's well worth learning how to make decent tongs, it's one of my favourite things to make, especially if you learn to punch the holes and rivet by hand.

I'm learning how to use a power hammer in work. It can save a lot of time but I love hand forging.

I haven't done much experimentation with handles. I've been rescuing bits from my firewood for handles so far :-) I also like curving the tang round to make a handle, which people call a "blacksmith knife".

I tried being self employed for 3 years but didn't make enough money to live on. Now I'm full time employed. I don't forge that much, lots more time doing cutting, welding, grinding. I love it.

Sorry, I've got a long way to go before they're sellable! I'm just setting up a forge at a friend's farm to do more forging at weekends. There are a few people who want to learn and I've got a list of techniques from Forged In Fire that I want to try out.

> Swiss Army Robinson

It might as well have been, but I think you meant to say "Family" :-)

~ omg, thank you for quantifying this for me, I hate what you describe as rocking motion slicing.

> One of my own pet peeves in Forged In Fire was that every contestant would submit Damascus (-style) blades for their final showdowns. It just wasn’t necessary and often just looked trashy.

Agreed. There was a much smaller emphasis on Damascus steel in early seasons. If you go back and rewatch you can see the frequency pick up as they praised and required Damascus more and more.

I took a class hosted by a group affiliated with my local renfest, which kind of kickstarted me to actually follow up on all the research I did. Having experienced instructors helped with the beginning learning curve, plus they pointed out early pitfalls to avoid (like gripping the hammer too tight). While useful, you definitely don't need to take a class to get started. There's dozens of tutorials on making a basic forge on Youtube - either coal-burning or propane - and you can get started with something as basic as a sledgehammer head for your anvil. Even a Harbor Freight cast iron anvil is enough for a beginner, although they're more likely to crack.

My starting costs were reduced by gifts, and my dad giving me an anvil he made with a piece of railroad several years ago. A basic gas forge from Vevor is around $75, but you can make your own small one from a coffee can, some refractory wool, and a handheld propane torch.

Right now, I just make tools and trinkets for myself. I'm _very_ amateur at the moment, I have more theoretical knowledge than practical experience. Once I get comfortable, I'll make more trinkets and tools for friends and family, then maybe one day make things to sell.

You’ll probably find that there is a forge near where you live that does one- or two-day courses on blade smithing. It’s a pretty good birthday gift.

Watch any episode of Forged In Fire to get a feel for what’s involved from a hobbyists perspective. The second half of each episode follows the finalists’ progress on the challenge in their own workshops - some have full-blown black smithing businesses, but others are (literally) backyard operations.

The issue with cheap knives isn't how sharp you can get them — you can _anything_ razor sharp relatively easily.

Making a knife that _keeps_ sharp; and that will not chip/shatter/handle won't disintegrate is the difficult part.

(You can also argue about blade geometries, how thin the blade is etc for hours; but "can this be made sharp" is not a problem with cheap/bad knives, generally.)

---

My (very limited!) understanding of knife steels is that "powdered steels" are not what you'll find in a random big box store; but rather more expensive, "fancy" lines.

You don't have to spend $450 on hand-forged, artisanal blade from Japan, but a $50 buck no-name is not going to be Buy-It-For-Life powdered steel knife either.

Same with 'Frosts of Mora' from Sweden. Cheap, and incredibly sharp when new. 100 of those, or a hipster damascas blade???

> A cheap knife from ikea will not.

IKEA BRILJERA knives are the mid-range not cheapest ones. But they are not expensive.

But they are made from (The Chinese version of) VG10 steel, which will hold an edge very well, and is still stainless.

There is also a tradeoff between ductility and hardness where going too far in the hardness direction results in a knife that chips easily and is really hard to sharpen. Softer German style steels are in a sweet spot for me in that regard, even though they require more frequent sharpening.

I'm going to provide some examples of what I'm criticizing here – it will likely double my downvotes, but I want to be specific as long as I'm dissenting. This is just honest and well-meaning criticism, and I'd appreciate similar criticism about my own writing. I originally replied to a comment that said simply "that is some fine writing" and I don't necessarily agree. There majority of it is well-done, but to me, the early prose made it difficult to read further.

> some of the things in this sprawling realm of clutter might have come from another galaxy, like the ballistic cartridge for the table saw. If you accidentally touch the blade, it senses electrical conductivity and retracts. It’s gone so fast that it can’t cut you. It’s all part of the magic of this place of transformations.

This is just a SawStop, but the author describes it as evidence of the otherworldliness of the subject. Why? There's a bill to make this mandatory in table saws. It's not otherworldly.

> The room lit up to an intensity such that Sam was cast as a silhouetted troupe of antic spiders dancing on the walls and floor and ceiling, sparks flying around him like a cracked nest of hornets and in his hands a burning blue hole at the center of things.

The author is describing aspects of welding with mixed arthropod metaphors. To me, it comes off as pretentious more than descriptive.

On the other hand, I like how this paragraph starts out:

> Sam is afraid of some of his machines in the way that the lion tamer is afraid of his cats. You are confident. You know your skills. You have been doing this a long time. But you know that wild animals are always wild animals, and a false gesture, perhaps an unexpected noise, could set in motion events that could not be stopped.

This metaphor is effective to me and is descriptive in the way the author intends. Maybe gets unnecessary towards the end. But right afterwards:

> Sam is harnessing powers that few of us ever encounter in our lives. He’s directing them in order to reach down inside of this deck of tarot cards and transform the very atomic nature of its being. He’s doing what sorcerers do: magic.

What? This isn't even referring to a particular skill or act. Just the use of shop machines. I don't doubt that Sam is exceptionally skilled, but using "magic" to "transform the very atomic nature" of the metal – especially when we're not talking about a particular act which sets him apart – is a strain for my imagination.

In my opinion, in a journalistic writing, this kind of fluff distracts from the subject and makes it difficult to read and/or take seriously. That's just my opinion – but I was replying to an opinion that it's "fine writing." If there's room for one, there's room for the other.

Right there with you, and I’m surprised I had to read this far down the thread to find somebody pointing it out. My high school English teacher, who was of the old school, would have written in the margin, “elves of fire? Give me a break!”

I've found that to be a liberating philosophy. But I also have a few areas where I'm quite the opposite: but I'm very deliberate in which things I choose to obsess over. I try to remind myself to be conscious of the diminishing returns there too - and try not to go _full audiophile_.

On the other hand, sometimes doing said research is half the fun.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4838109 ("The Worst (thoughtcrime.org)", 209 comments)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31402797 ("The Worst (moxie.org)", 65 comments)

Well, middle way, I guess. Or "We're not rich enough to buy crappy things", as the saying goes.

is Moxie actually sailing derelict sailboats "as far as he can take them"? While I'm admiring this, I'm also worried he's going to be marooned somewhere...

Most homes of people who are reasonably well-off - including most people on HN - go through three distinct stages.

The first stage is right after you spend an insane amount of money to buy the property. At that point, you want to validate the investment, so you spend more on making it look nice, but you're probably oblivious to many realities of homeownership. So yeah, this is when people splurge on matched kitchenware, beautiful cutting boards, "smart" kitchen appliances, sleek-looking but impractical veneer / plastic / glass furniture, etc.

The second stage is when you get kids or pets, and you start losing the battle. You eventually throw in the towel, accepting that there are going to be dings on the walls and on stainless steel appliances, holes in window screens, and veneer peeling off after the fifth juice spill accident.

The third stage is when the kids move out and you can actually make the space look nice. Except now, you know that there's some wisdom to old-fashioned solid wood furniture, that cutting boards are for cutting, and so on. So your home acquires more of an "old people" vibe.

The way to avoid this is to do a tiny bit of research and find a product line that is unlikely to change over time. Fiestaware for example is basically unchanged in look and feel and inexpensive so you can just buy their stuff and replace your broken plates without introducing a mismatched item.

Airstream is an amazing example of this in a premium product: their trailers get new features but built around existing designs. Parts from different decades just fit together. I wish cars worked like this.

Furniture is tougher as both styles change and there isn’t a lot of manufacturers that make the same thing over and over.

My personal favorite: socks. I standardized on exactly one style of socks that work for me for everything from fitness to everyday wear. I have two dozen of them, replace the oldest with a new six pack every year. I spend no time matching socks. Yes I have one pair of dress socks for when I wear a tux + two pairs of thick wool socks for when I am doing winter things. Outside of that it’s the same Under Armor Resistors every day.

You could buy a restaurant quality set of vitrified plates. They survive being dropped. They also weigh a ton.

I got mine second hand

If you buy IKEA then you can’t. But if you buy from independent specialists then you’ll often find their ranges will be available for decades.

But then you’re paying a minimum £120 for a set of cutlery rather than £12.

However the way I look at it is that good cutlery lasts a lifetime.

If you start with lots of spares, it works for a pretty good amount of time.

Let's say your family has 5 full time members and is timely at doing dishes. 15 sets of flatware would probably be plenty, but sometimes you have extra guests, so start with 20-25.

If you lose or break items and get down to 15, and the set is no longer available, get rid of what you have and get a new set of 20-25.

Don't care also works fine.

Maybe restaurant supply stores? Likely more durable than consumer stuff, and the manufacturer is likely to maintain a product line for years. Restaurants are not going to be ok with mismatched pieces.

You can often find replacements for whatever has broken via the aptly named Replacements, Ltd:

https://www.replacements.com/

My advice, prepare to be disappointed whatever you buy. The state of modern appliances is a dismal landscape of bare minimum functionality and corner cutting.

We tried to avoid the garbage tide by thinking "you get what you pay for" and paid a lot expecting a better outcome. Ha! The Miele dishwasher we got didn't last 5 years. Turns out the fancy German engineering does not help with reliability but with creating overcomplicated designs with more moving parts.

The d/w that the Miele replaced was a damaged floor model we got for $100 from the orange store. It was so bare the bottom had no cover (by design) and all the parts were exposed, buttressed by some styrofoam and glued to a unibody plastic tub. It literally looked like something out of an injection molding machine with a bunch of parts randomly stuck to it. And yet it lasted longer than the replacement. We're going back to absolute cheapest and expecting to just replace every few years and still come out ahead.

It's still chugging along. I suspect, but do not know, that it went the middle road of solid growth with reasonable return on investment as opposed to the pop-up monetization shit hole that is Medium.