Cutco kitchen knives

[tcmeyer]

I happened to get a set of old Cutco kitchen knives to sharpen for a good friend. Model no.’s 21 thru 25. The knives were in pretty bad shape. Looked like they hadn’t been used in 20 years and that the previous owner had freehand ground the primary bevels back to thin the edges. A few were badly dinged and all the handles were rough. Probably had been soaked in a dishwasher. Cutco currently uses a thermoplastic handle material. These seemed to be a dense hardwood – maybe rosewood. Clearly not plastic.

The knives were in bad enough condition that I decided they needed a complete going over. I took to the buffing wheel with 240, 300 & 400 grit compound wheels to clean up the very rough grind marks and stains. I mangled one of the handles by slipping against the 240 wheel. Rats. Spent about twenty minutes trying to make that look normal, but it looks pretty good now. I polished up the handles using “Scratchless” white compound. Not bad.

I then took to the Wicked Edge, deciding to hit each knife with an 18 dps main bevel polished down to 3 micron film. I then put on a 1000-grit microbevel for a toothy edge. The 4-3/4″ boning knife got an 800-grit microbevel.

Interesting tidbits… My friend’s uncle had modified each of the knives by thinning the blades behind the bevel lines. As crude as it looked, he was pretty accurate and my 18-dps bevels only exceeded 1mm in width at a very few points. Each of the five blades showed evidence of having been sharpened with a steel. No sign of ever having touched a stone or belt. I’ll have to ask if the gent was a meat cutter.

So I went online looking for info regarding these knives and came across a youtube Cutco video where they teach their reps how to sharpen their straight knives and serrated knives. Basically, they have a copy of a Spyderco SharpMaker, but add a feature to their triangle stones to handle their “Double D” serrations. One side of the triangles is grooved to match the serrations. Pretty crude, highly unsophisticated teaching session. Here’s the video link. Jump forward to about 12:30 to find the serration demo. Apparently they use only one type of serration.

Imagine what you would be thinking if you were in this guy’s audience. Gaak!!

[tuffy braithwaite]

the one fair i work on saturday morning is in a nice neighborhood called East Beach and i see many shuns, globals, wushofs, henckels and a good amount of cutcos…………THE QUESTION IS: “Oh, can u sharpen Cutco Knives?” a few are the older ones like u described, but most are the newer ones with black and pearl handles.

i find the steel very soft like most of the chicago cutlery knives and using the WE generally 3 to 4 passes i have a big burr. so that leads me to think the steel is not very high quality, but again i know little about knife steels. i just go by sight and sound on cutcos. i like to see them since now i know i can sharpen them fast and will probably see them again in several months.

i know most are sold by college kids around here and are probably expensive to buy, but that is all i know, most customers tell me they have send them back to cutco for sharpening…….. :dry:

i do like the older wooden handle ones, but see only a meager few.

so i would like some input on the steel and thoughts on these knives also.

several months back i bought a new set of triangle rods from bob…………med and fine just for certain serrated knives and they do a great job, especially the med. rods. a burr can be formed fast with them, but i do not use the block as pictured in the vid., i just use one med. rod by hand, both up and down and back and forth……………now where i have power, i tend to use the kally and med grit belt on the edge to get the burr and polish out with leather belt and compounds. same for most 50/50 pocket knives.

i carry my small varitable speed sears bench grinder almost everywhere i go now and use a nice nylon wheel and one med. sisal for all clean up on lopers, hedge trimmers, pruners, etc and i buff all the ruff looking knives before sharpening now days………dealing with a company called: caswell plating in lyons, ny. they sell lots of buffing accessories and i added shaft extenders to my little buffer, boy it is nice now.

sorry for the rant.

thanks TC
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[Gib Curry]

I happened to get a set of old Cutco kitchen knives to sharpen for a good friend. …..
So I went online looking for info regarding these knives and came across a youtube Cutco video where they teach their reps how to sharpen their straight knives and serrated knives.

Imagine what you would be thinking if you were in this guy’s audience. Gaak!!

OMG 😆 That was brilliant. I’d love to see what Monty Python could do with it!! And, it reminded me just a bit of Dan Aykroyd doing his Julia Child character!!

I just got some Cutco’s to sharpen, was going to begin my research this morning by checking in on the Forum and watch this video and to read anything else members have written in the past about Cutco.

Love the timing of your post (for me!) and thanks for the kick off. Very interested in your experience. (Photos?)

I got sidetracked though…. Cutco’s use of the word cantle….. I’m no cowboy but I knew what the cantle of a saddle was. I had to spend some time before I found an antiquated Celtic-French reference having anything to do with something other than a saddle and then it means corner not edge!??!

Anyone else heard of cantle?

Thanks for posting, tc…

~~~~
For Now,

Gib

Φ

"Everyday edge for the bevel headed"

"Things work out best for those who make the best out of the way things work out."

[tcmeyer]

Thanks much for the replies, Gents. Tomorrow the Cutco’s go home, so late tonight I took a few pics.

I had the feeling that these were very close to the same steel as are the Chicago Cutlery’s. Maybe slightly harder. The 18-degree bevels looked really nice, but when I went to 20-degrees to put in the microbevel, there wasn’t a whole lot of the polished bevel left, even with only five light strokes of the 1000-grit stones. Maybe I have to use angles that are further apart.

Not mentioned is a Lewis Rose carving knife (Sheffield Steel) (pic #3) which was in pretty good shape. The blade was still pristine and took an edge right away.

First pic is of the butcher knife, the carving knife and the boning knife:

The second pic is of the Chef’s knife and the Salmon knife:

Third pic is of the Lewis Rose antler-handled carving knife:

Here’s a view to see the maunfacturer’s etched label:

Here’s a view to show you what remains of the previous owner’s rough grinding:

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[tuffy braithwaite]

tc

that is a nice set of old cutcos for sure.

in last picture, i see paper knife sleeve similar to the ones i get from safety products. where did u get those nice sleeves?

m

[tcmeyer]

I think I got the source from you or one of the other fellows here on the forum:

https://usaknifemaker.com

Search for “sleeve”

The first sleeve I tried came apart. Rather alarming, as I’ve got about $80 worth still in the box. They use a PSA adhesive, which stands for “pressure sensitive adhesive.” I put the sleeve in my 12″ wide woodworker’s vise and crunched down on it, after which the seal held and there were no problems. I’ll be watching to see if this is an on-going problem, but I think they just didn’t apply enough pressure after folding it.

[Josh]

Tom,

how did it go on the long thin salmon knife? I find long flexible knives like that to be troubling on the WEPS. I need to get the mod that several others here have that stabilizes it in the rear and not in the front of the sharpener.

[tcmeyer]

I just centered the knife in the vise, but had to clamp it very high to avoid the top screw sticking out of the right side jaw. I use the”brute force” method. While stoning with one side (I normally do one side at a time), I apply opposite direction force with my other hand, trying to negate any movement. It works quite well. Certainly there’s some degree of angular error introduced with the slight side-to-side movement of the blade, but since I’m still using long, sweeping strokes, you can’t see any obvious errors.

I probably do two of these (I call ’em jerky knives) each year, but occasionally I have to use the same method with other blades which are very flexible. It works for me.

[tuffy braithwaite]

I think I got the source from you or one of the other fellows here on the forum:

https://usaknifemaker.com

Search for “sleeve”

The first sleeve I tried came apart. Rather alarming, as I’ve got about $80 worth still in the box. They use a PSA adhesive, which stands for “pressure sensitive adhesive.” I put the sleeve in my 12″ wide woodworker’s vise and crunched down on it, after which the seal held and there were no problems. I’ll be watching to see if this is an on-going problem, but I think they just didn’t apply enough pressure after folding it.

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nice, they are about 5.00 bucks less than the same package here.
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http://www.knifesleeves.com/pages/ourproducts.html#

$75.00 – 50ea. size. x 4

[Eating Pie]

We have several Cutcos that we use regularly, and we like them. After Cutco called and said they now do in-home sharpening, I did my research and caught the cited video then found this thread.

About the Knives.

Cutco claims to make their own steel in the USA. We have older knives that show rust, but we “store” them in the drying rack (yes, I hear the groans), so it’s not super soft stainless stainless, and surely has some carbon. Their serrated knives use a patented Double-D patterned edge, very square-ish, and aptly named. Works great IMHO, but I don’t know chef knives.

The knives use a sort of high-flat + chisel-like grind. First, both sides have the same high-flat grind. But one side has no bevel — like a chisel — while the other (what the video refers to as the Double-D side) contains the bevel and serrations. The image shows the serrated Double-D side (didn’t notice the poor choice of background until too late, sorry 🙁 ).

The serrations are all exactly the same pattern on every knife! I lined up three different models, whose bevels all matched perfectly; same as the bevel in the above photograph.. And that’s really the trick for the sharpener.

The Sharpener.

I owned a Spyderco Sharpmaker for a bit, and while Cutco’s base is custom, those ceramics look exactly the same — triangle shaped, dark for course, light for fine — but with one major exception. The ceramics have multiple grooves on one side that exactly match the shape and pattern of their Double-D serration. Since all their knife serrations match, and probably all have the same bevel angle, they simply make sure the ceramics’ grooves match the Double-D, and the ceramics slide into the base at the correct angle.

I’ve heard that Clay gets his ceramics from the same people that Spyderco uses, so it makes sense that Cutco either hit up Spyderco directly, or went to the source.

Wicked Edge

Now heres the big quesiton… Can this be done with the WE? A grooved ceramic stone matching the Double-D should be something do-able. Probably would also need the low angle adapter to hit the bevel-less “flat” side just right.

One deal-killer may be the WE’s natural angular change while progressing forward toward the point or back toward the heel. IE As you sharpen parallel to the WE mounting bracket, you fit the Double-D serrations exactly. But as you progress forward or backward, the stone angle changes, and you no longer sharpen directly in-line with the serrations.

That said, I’d sure love to be able to sharpen our Cutcos with the WE!

-Pie

Attachments:

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[tcmeyer]

I have a theoretically workable way to adapt the Double-D grooved Spyderco stone to the WEPS, but I don’t know if they’ll sell the stones separately.

[tcmeyer]

OK, I’ve made this statement several times now, so it’s time to SOGOTP. I’ll order the parts this week. Maybe I’ll have something to show early next week.

[Author]

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