Ontario Knife Co. 5-Piece Old Hickory Knife Set 705

 (27 customer reviews)

Overall, these really are great knives. Before I go on, I do want to get a word of caution out right now to prospective buyers.

These knives are NOT your typical, lazy-daisy stainless steel easy-to-take-care-of knives. You can't just throw them into the dishwasher to clean. The blades on these knives are made out of high carbon, 1095 steel, which is NOT stainless steel. It is much harder, can get MUCH sharper, and retains its cutting edge for much longer. Once sharpened to taste, they are easily touched up to retain their edge when needed. If you DON'T HAND wash and then HAND DRY these knives, they will start to rust fairly quickly. If you throw them into a dishwasher, you'll only do so a couple of times before you see the handle become damaged from the machine...and you'll see that rust I'm talking about. These knives need to be taken care of; if you have the patience to do so, you'll love them, like I do.

Now, on to my review. As I said, these are...Read more

These are the same knives our grandmothers (and their mothers) used for so many years. My husband recently started cooking and decided our kitchen was not complete until we had at least the Old Hickory "butcher" knife. This is a complete set and all knives are useful. One word of warning, they may need to be sharpened when you first get them. Ours were shipped dull but were easy to sharpen. Going by their past history, these Old Hickory knives should last forever. I do recommend them as a useful addition to your kitchen tools.

Great knives. Not as heavy as the older ones but thinner blades cut better so its fine by me. They get razor sharp and keep that edge for a long time if you don't use them on fruits or let them rust badly. They are not stainless and they will rust. They do not come with a great factory edge but I knew all this and still love them to death for their high quality steel at low price. I don't need pretty fit and finish for my meat knives.

These knives will rust and if that's a problem for you then don't get them. They have to be cleaned immediately and lightly oiled if you don't use them at least once a week. Stainless with edge properties as good as this will cost around 100 dollars a knife so I can deal with high maintenance knives.