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Thread: Stainless Steel Cheese Spreader Knives

  1. #1
    Supporting Member Paul Jones's Avatar
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    Stainless Steel Cheese Spreader Knives

    This is another kitchen tool series. My wife asked me to modify a set of stainless steel 316 cheese spreader knives by replacing the square cross section handles with knurled stainless steel 303 handles. The new handles are 0.485” diameter by 2.5” long. Each handle has 21 pitch knurling with 0.050” wide shallow grooves spaced at 0.5” as a visual accent.

    Stainless Steel Cheese Spreader Knives-316-stainless-steel-spreader-knives-ss-303-knurled-handles.jpg

    The original knife handles were square with rounded corners and a diagonally cut end. The first step in the handle conversion was removing the slant cut end, turning the handle end flat and drilling a 60 degree pilot hole for a live center. This was accomplished with a 1.5” long split aluminum fixture bored 0.440” dia. for holding the knife handle in a 4-jaw lathe chuck. Another 1.5” long split aluminum fixture was created for holding the flat knife blade and approximately ¼” of the square knife handle while reducing the rest of the knife handle to 0.249” dia. by 2” long. The cheese spreader knives are made of a tough 316 stainless steel and the lathe turning tool used Kennametal DNMG431FW carbide KT315 grade inserts for turning the handles down to 0.249” diameters.

    Stainless Steel Cheese Spreader Knives-milling-knife-fixture-fit-knife-blades.jpg


    Stainless Steel Cheese Spreader Knives-custom-fixture-machining-knife-handle.jpg


    Stainless Steel Cheese Spreader Knives-custom-fixture-knives-machining-handle.jpg


    Stainless Steel Cheese Spreader Knives-setup-bore-offset-hole-knife-holding-fixture.jpg


    Stainless Steel Cheese Spreader Knives-spreader-knife-handles-being-reduced-0.249-inch-dia.jpg


    Next, the new knife handles were machined from 0.5” 303 stainless steel rod. The 21 pitch knurled handles turned down to 0.485” dia. for this size knurling and a NIKCOLE Mini-Systems™ tool holder and 0.050” grooving insert created the handle banding accents. The handles were drilled and reamed to 0.250” ID. Two of the eight knife handles were not exactly centered while the handles were reduced and required boring the knurled handles with a 0.030” offset but after assembly it is impossible to see the difference.


    Stainless Steel Cheese Spreader Knives-drilling-handle-before-reaming-0.250-inch.jpg


    Stainless Steel Cheese Spreader Knives-special-case-spreader-knife-handle-offset-fit-offset-blade.jpg

    The new knurled knife handles were attached with Loctite 620, a retaining compound good to 450 degree F, and making the knives dishwasher safe.

    Thank you for looking,

    Paul Jones

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  2. The Following 5 Users Say Thank You to Paul Jones For This Useful Post:

    C-Bag (Oct 26, 2016), Jon (Oct 27, 2016), olderdan (Oct 24, 2016), PJs (Oct 26, 2016), Tuomas (Oct 23, 2016)

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    Supporting Member Tuomas's Avatar
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    Good looking result!

    2000 Tool Plans

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    Paul Jones (Oct 23, 2016)

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    Nice job Paul
    Its given an idea as I hate my cutlery but like you I love my cheese.
    Regards
    Olderdan

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    Paul Jones (Oct 24, 2016)

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    Thank you Tomas and olderdan,

    It was not a difficult project except for finding a way to consistently hold an odd shape with the aluminum fixture. I prefer machining stainless steel 303 with machinability of 78% anytime over 304 or 316 with machinability of 45% but most kitchen stainless steel cutlery is either 18/8 or 18/10 (chromium and nickel) and a pain for machining small diameters.

    Thanks,

    Paul

  8. The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Paul Jones For This Useful Post:

    olderdan (Oct 28, 2016), PJs (Oct 26, 2016)

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    Thanks Paul Jones! We've added your Cheese Spreader Handles to our Culinary category,
    as well as to your builder page: Paul Jones's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:




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    Paul Jones (Oct 25, 2016)

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    PJs
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    Nice work Paul and the write up is excellent. Ton of work on figuring out and building those fixtures I imagine, getting the profiles right and figuring the offset needed. Truly well Done! Knurling looked perfect and uniform on all pieces...tough to do especially on 303 with a lot of chrome and a good amount of nickel in it. Free Machining doesn't always apply to Knurling! Thanks for the tip on the Nicole tool holders, hadn't heard of them before but look pretty well made and versatile. Nice looking set now and particularly like the transition from the knurled handle to the blade shank and the dishwasher safe is cream for the cheese.

    Thanks for sharing another great post with some tricky builds to get it done. ~PJ
    ‘‘Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.’’
    Mark Twain

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    Paul Jones (Oct 26, 2016)

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    Jon
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    Last edited by Jon; Sep 25, 2020 at 12:23 PM.

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    Paul Jones (Feb 14, 2018)

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    Jon,

    Thank you for the new cheese video.

    I have on the drawing board two different kinds of stainless steel cheese cutters that are on my future list for more kitchen tools. One is for a cheese drum taking a slice off the top of the cheese drum and the other for slicing a consistent thickness using a steel wire.

    Great inspiration video!

    Regards,
    Paul

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    PJs (Feb 15, 2018)

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    Interesting. There is also this unusual cheese scraping machine: Cheese scraping machine - GIF

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    Paul Jones (Feb 15, 2018)

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    Supporting Member Paul Jones's Avatar
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    Jon,

    The cheese scraping machine is similar to what I want to build. A neighbor has something similar but somewhat simpler for some of the 150 mm cheese rounds from Costco. It is a popular item and well used at her parties.

    Paul

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