I got a couple of ceramic kitchen knives from Fasttech, and noticed how light they are. I often consider weight when I have to wear a heavy pack for multi day backcountry trips. So I was curious about the folding ceramic knives. I bought one who’s form-factor seems to be the most ubiquitous in eBay to satisfy my curiosity. My logic behind that decision was, “ceramic is lighter than metal”. It arrived today, so here are my thoughts on this. And while I doubt most will have zero interest in my unskilled first impressions of this knife, I would like some suggestions as to the second reason for this post: finding a viable light weight sheath for the FT ceramic kitchen knife.
When I unpacked the ceramic folding knife the blade looked like it was metal. And the weight of the knife also felt like it. I placed it onto the also recently aquired Fasttech scale and it weighs 112.7g, about 3g heavier than my Enlan Bee. So out of curiosity I put the FT ceramic kitchen knife on the scale, and it comes in at 41g. So I tell my spouse that we’re going to carry the latter knife next week on our multi day trip, and of course she asks me what I’m going to carry it in?
Back to that folding ceramic knife, the quality seems to be on par with the Enlan or Ganzo knives that I have so far. The blade seems sharper than the FT ceramic kitchen knives. (Here is the metric): Last week at work I stropped my Enlan on the felt wheel mounted on a bench grinder in the necropsy room. While I am no expert at knives, I persisted until I noticed a definite gain in edge improvement. Today I did a paper cut test between the folding ceramic and the week ago stropped Enlan and the ceramic won. A highly unscientific test.
So I’m not really sure where I can use my new knife. As a backcountry knife, the fragility of the ceramic blade means you cannot use it to ream larger a hole into leather, kevlar or plastic, cut some pesky willow branches, create some feather sticks, or carve that tree stump near your tent into an exact likeness of your diaphanous companion after you have the tent up - to prove you love them. And it does not have a slot for more most used knife born item: the Swiss Army toothpick. But it is a decent knife withal, and may serve some of your purposes.
So then, can anyone suggest a viable light weight sheath or carry method for that Fasttech kitchen knife?
U.S.A. Knifemaker has some on this page.
so does KnifeKits . you might be better making one.
The ceramic knives are easily damaged by sideways pressure on the blade as I’m sure you know.
I have a few myself
The camo one is a Blackdog, the one above it is a Zayka, the top two are kitchen knives that came with their own blade guards.
The Blackdog weighs next to nothing but the Zayka is built like the Enlan/Bee EL-01 so a very substantial knife.
Be careful with ceramic kitchen knives, especially the low quality ones.
They tend to chip and it could cause a lot of problems if gone unnoticed when preparing food, all it takes is a speck of dirt on the chopping board or plate for it to chip.
I don’t own any but read a few pretty bad stories about it of people that is has happened to.
Yikes! Losing mine too. Think I will remove my ceramic kitchen knives from the drawer and make them special use only then.
Steve, those look a lot nicer than mine.You’re right, I could probably adapt one of my many and growing collection of various pouches and cases, etc.
While the ceramic knife may be lighter, I still cannot see any way you could not take a steel knife along on a backcountry trip, there are simply too many things you’d still need to do that ceramic could not. Maybe it would have a place as the second knife for preparing food in camp only, but freeze dried food and the like does not require a lot of cutting.
Thanks for the suggestion. Titanium folding knives knives I found so far are mainly coated and heavy. Found some in the $200.00 price range that looked nice, no weights listed for them.
Did find more options in the kitchen knife category, and from Japan.
