Stainless Steel Cheese Spreader Knives

[Paul Jones]

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.



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.
















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.







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