Richardson Sheffield R01000K436K21 "Forme" Kitchen Knife Block Set, Silver, Set of 5

We manage a holiday let with a very nice kitchen, so a good set of knives seems important. The problem is that good quality knives really can't go through the dishwasher, and in a holiday let we can't stop people doing that. We've found that most knives that claim "dishwasher safe" fall apart after a year or two, especially those with the 3 rivets holding the handle on. These Forme knives are all one piece of metal so at least there's no handle to fall apart. After just over a year they're still in good shape. The steel is fairly soft (I'd guess not much more than HRC50) which means it's easy to sharpen up quickly on a ceramic or diamond rod, and put a pretty good edge on it.The downside is that they're made of an anonymous martensitic stainless steel, and they're a bit thin, so feel rather light and flimsy. Really can't complain for the price though - a single high quality chef knife from a brand such as Wusthof is going to set you back 50 or 100 pounds, so a set of 5 knives for this price is a bargain.A couple of complaints that people seem to have about these and similar knives:* That they're weren't sharp when they arrived. That's common even for professional knives, where it's expected that you'll sharpen them yourself. Even if a knife arrives sharp, it won't be after a few months. Of course it's nice if they arrive sharp, but the factory won't usually have spent more than a few seconds sharpening them, and you can do a lot better than that.* That they went a bit rusty in the dishwasher. "Stainless steel" doesn't mean it won't rust at all, just that it has some degree of corrosion resistance. There are dozens of stainless steel alloys used in knife making, with tradeoffs between corrosion resistance, edge holding, hardness, cost etc. If a manufacturer chose something like LC200N (used for diving knives) then a set like this would probably cost many hundreds of pounds.

Bought as a gift, look good on the kitchen side but can't comment on use of them as I've not used them myself.

Got this to replace previous Richardson set that had rubber on handles. This had degraded over time so got plain handles this time. Lovely set and block fits neatly into small space. Are very sharp so bit nervous as have habit of cutting self. Obviously do their job well though.

Loving these knives, was a bit unsure going by some of the reviews. But so far they are fab, very sharp and nice to handle. Definitely a great buy.

Very nice knifet set

Good knives, i end up using them all the time.Especially the small one. Easy to use, easy to clean, pretty to look at!

Good value for money. Invest in a modest diamond sharpening pad to keep the edges sharp.

on the website the forme knifes have different handles compared to what arrived,they look really nice but i was disapointed in how sharp they were or wernt,ive had to sharpen them before i could use them which for a brand new set of knifes i would not expect to do,tried contacting Richardson and had no responce from them what so ever very poor on that front,these knifes just go blunt all the time