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01-16-2014, 06:00 PM
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Skilled
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Join Date: Sep 2013
Location: Leduc County, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 314
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W?sthof Factory Tour
I am thinking about the kitchen knife KITH and stumbled upon a factory tour video of W?sthof's plant in Solingen Germany. I am a bit of a fan as we have some of W?sthof knives in our kitchen and I find them to be exceptional tools.
The factory is about as far away from my workshop as humanly imaginable. Watching some of the the robots making these I knives and noticed they are programmed with fluid and human-like movements. Very clever engineering.
Yes, humans still have to sharpen them.
The hardening and tempering temperatures are mentioned as is the Rockwell hardness. Note some kind of automated plate (?) cooling operation.
Yes, this is probably something that only true knife nerds would watch.
Dan
__________________
"Don't believe everything you know." -- bumper sticker
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01-16-2014, 09:23 PM
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Steel Addict
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Join Date: Sep 2013
Location: Southwest GA
Posts: 275
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Guess I'm a knife nerd.............lol, amazing stuff! Not sure I would trust robots enough though. They are efficient; however, not infallable and only designed to do one or a few tasks. Nothing like the Frenchman Blaise Pascal...............lol (I saw your quote)
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01-16-2014, 10:28 PM
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Steel Addict
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Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: N.W. Indiana
Posts: 193
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You make it sound like a bad thing!!
www.shullhandforgedknives.com
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01-17-2014, 07:51 AM
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Member
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Join Date: Dec 2013
Posts: 23
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wustof tour
love these videos. increadible robots.--cranky72
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01-17-2014, 09:01 AM
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Founding Member / Moderator
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Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Wauconda, WA
Posts: 9,840
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Those robots are incredible, we definitely lag behind in that technology in this country. But, did you really notice the discussion of temperatures involved. Heated to 1850 F (means stainless steel), quenched at 390 F (means a soft stainless) resulting in Rc 58. Not bad, but as knife makers we can easily do better than that with a custom kitchen knife. Those processes - the drop forging and plate quenching - are the processes that are easy to automate but not necessarily the processes that result in the best possible knife. Good yes, best - not so much. Until a factory can match the processes and materials we can choose to use there will always be a good market for higher performance hand made knives ...
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01-17-2014, 03:05 PM
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Skilled
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Join Date: Sep 2013
Location: Leduc County, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 314
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Many regular citizens I have talked to about knife making had no idea that people still made knives. There is an understanding that machines make everything nowadays.
My Dad was a cabinet maker and my kids will probably design and program robots. My generation is somewhere in between. It's up to us to remind the folks that there are still people who make quality articles by hand; sometimes solely for the enjoyment of it. And yes, handcrafted still exists.
It's true that masterpieces are not mass produced. but hey, it's still fun to watch the robots.
Dan
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choose, custom, design, easy, forging, germany, hand, kitchen knife, knife, knife making, knives, made, make, making, materials, quenched, stainless, stainless steel, steel, tools, video |
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