Vintage Tandy Head Knife.

[StrigaMort]

The instruction sheet is well written and illustrated.

Blade is thin and tapers nicely, although I feel like the primary bevel could be more acute, that all depends on how stable the steel is though.

Poor quality pic, but it's the best I could do with my phone.

[StrigaMort]

It just occurred to me. Was craft tool its own and separate company from Tandy? I'm not well versed on this stuff, but I seem to remember seeing that somewhere. If they were, and aren't now, did they make quality stuff?

[Trox]

Hi Strigamort, yours look much better than the one I have. Perhaps its a much better knife, it hard to tell from the pictures alone. Does it have a micro bevel? It looked like that to me. It typical Tandy to put the "professional" on it to add value. No professional bought their knifes from them, when you could have a CS Osborn for the same price. I am afraid the steel cant take a normal bevel without breaking off the tips, you are officially warn about that now. I would keep it in the box as a collector item, it looks very good. In some years collectors will want it.

[StrigaMort]

I appreciate the advice. It does have a micro (small primary) bevel. Do you think that the tips are prone to breaking because the steel is over hardened?

A funny thing about knives in general... High carbon and tool steels are cheap. I can buy a 4' length of 1095/o1 for much less than I can any normal stainless cutlery steel. Not only that,but the heat treat for any stainless alloy is vastly more complex than the heat treat of any normal carbon or tool steel. That's why I'll never understand why the new inexpensive knives are made from a crappy alloy. The junk stainless may be super cheap (I have no idea), but dealing with it is gonna take a lot longer and be a lot more trouble than if the company just used a high carbon steel to begin with. Maybe a poor ht regimen is so automated and cheap that it offsets the cost of a low grade of steel, again,I don't know, but they aren't doing their customers or reputation any good by doing so.

Is the end user (customer) so corrosion stupid that a stainless is mandatory? Maybe a superior steel that has the possibility of rusting is too much a warranty liability.

Anyway,I'll just use this sucker until it's unusable. I can appreciate the idea of keeping it for fun, but I bought it to cut with.

I made a quick sheath for it last night.

Hopefully the sheath doesn't out live the knife!

[billybopp]

There's only one way to find out if it will work well and hold an edge .....

Stainless kitchen cutlery tends to be more in demand for home use .. and for people that don't take care of their knives. Most kitchen pros that I know prefer to use carbon steel knives, and they take care of them.

Bill

[StrigaMort]

That's exactly right. Most Japanese kitchen knives, even when they are clad in stainless have a high carbon core.

I don't mean to put down stainless. I have a Santoku made with powder stainless (cts xhp) at 64hrc and it's a beast. Lots and lots of great chromium containing alloys. Just seems like a lot of tools are made unnecessarily with low grade ss when carbon makes more sense.