by Laura Everage

Several years ago I had the opportunity to learn a bit more about knives during a visit to both the Wusthof and the J.A. Henckels manufacturing facilities in Solingen, Germany. Some 15 years ago, knife manufacturing was just welcoming new technologies that would change the world of knife manufacturing. I was able to see both the old and the new side by side. Specifically in the Wusthof factory, Wolfgang Wusthof proudly displayed the age-old tradition of hand-forging the cutlery, where skilled artisans worked under high heat conditions to hand-forge each knife. Mr. Wusthof was also proud to display the company’s foray into more computerized laser technology that would cut each blade from a large steel sheet to perfection. 

A few years later, I visited Maniago, Italy where knife-making has been a tradition for centuries. There in the cutlery capital town in Italy, I learned of the tradition of manufacturing knives, scissors and other cutting tools spacing from the highest technology to the ancient tradition for more than 400 years. 

Clearly my education was in steel knives, yet it wasn’t until a business colleague took the time to visit me in my home to tell me a bit about another age-old cutlery tradition - ceramic knives. She was from Kyocera, and was there to give me a bit more education on cutlery. 

She explained to me what makes ceramic knives so great to use. First, they are much harder than steel. Made from Ceramic Zirconia, which is second in hardness only to diamond. It is processed into either Zirconium Oxide (white) or Zirconium Carbide (black), Zirconia, with the black blades being subjected to an extended final firing process. The black blades can be up to twice as hard as the white blades, however both are at least 7 to 10 times as hard as the common steel knife blade.