Knife Rack for 50 in commercial kitchen

Greetings,

The kitchen I work in has about 50 knives used for different things. When stored, they currently go into either a metal gallon coffee can or a rack made of metal with slots cut in it. The sharpenings of the knives do not last long because of these storage methods.

Does anyone have any plans for a 50 knife storage rack that can fit under a wall cabinet, handles different lengths and widths of knives, allows quick storage of damp knives from the dishwasher, without special efforts to sort them (i.e. any slot can hold any knife)?

Sincerely, Bill Thomas

Reply to
Bill Thomas
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Why not get one of those magnetic holders?

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Reply to
musials

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Greetings,

Because of lack of room for 50 knives that we really do not want to touch each other. We have a lack of vertical wall space, so I would like to find something with 50 positions we could just stick any size knife into any position.

Thanks for the reply. Please keep thing of ideas.

Sincerely, Bill Thomas

Reply to
Bill Thomas

A shop that does plexiglass (acrylic) might be able to make an oversize version of the knife block at the bottom of the page below. Make it to hang under cabinet, rather than stand on counter. Size the slots for the biggest knife, and make the layers slide out for cleaning. Another choice for material might be food grade HDPE (high density Polyethelene).

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Reply to
cerskine

A wooden knife rack would probably not meet health codes in a commercial kitchen. The wood would tend to harbor bacteria if it gets dirty.

There is a reasonable that commercial kitchens have so much stainless steel and other washable surfaces.

Brian Elfert

Reply to
Brian Elfert

Not hard to make but it will require some room...minimum of 1 1/4" center to center for each knife - 1 1/2" is better - which means it is going to be close to six feet long. Gotta have enough room for the handles PLUS sufficient space on each side to grab the handle.

That said, here's a way to do it.

  1. Start with a piece of wood (ply is OK) at least 1/2" thick X as wide as the longest knife is long X as long as necessary to accomodate all 50 plus the finger space necessary on each side.
  2. To that, glue another piece of wood...same length but only as wide as the longest knife *blade*. It needs to be as thick as the widest blade is wide plus about 3/8".
  3. Rip slots in the second piece (after glued to #1) the full depth as piece #2. The slot spacing should be not less than 1 1/4", more is better.
  4. Make a bunch of splines the thickness of the rip kerfs and 1/4" wide. Glue them into the kerfs so they are flush. They don't have to be quite as long as the kerf - easier to insert knives if they aren't - but they need to be long enough to retain the shortest knife if the rack is not mounted horizontally.

All finished. The #1 piece supports the knives. It can be cut a bit narrower so that the knife handles project a bit; however, not *too* much narrower else knives with narrow blades will tip to the point that the splines won't keep them from falling. Not a lot of depth under wall cabinets but the rack can be mounted at an angle (knife tips down) without the knives falling as the splines keep them from doing so.

If you could segregate short, narrow bladed knives from the longer, wider ones you would be able to condense the overall width of the rack considerably by using the space between the long, wide blades for smaller knives (two tiers). I have a rack like that in a kitchen drawer...it is 15" wide and holds 22 knives including two cleavers.

-- dadiOH ____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06... ...a help file of info about MP3s, recording from LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that. Get it at

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Reply to
dadiOH

Greetings,

Thanks Dadio. This design solves the problem that has vexed me, "How to keep the narrow blade knives from tipping out of their slots." I think I might make the rack multiple tiers to reduce the length. Any reason to not glue a 1/4 inch board across the kerf side of the of #2 rather than individual splines for each slot?

Sincerely, Bill Thoms

Reply to
Bill Thomas

Since the object of this exercise is to come up with a storage system to prevent the knives from becoming prematurely dull, you may want to consider constructing a block with the slots oriented horizontally rather than vertically as most knife storage blocks tend to be. This way the knives would be stored on their flat sides, rather than with their sharpened edges always in contact with the wood, not to mention that the edges would also be less likely to make contact with the block every time the knives are slid into or drown out of their storage slots.

Lee

Reply to
Lee Gordon

I've seen very nice knife racks made of a box filled with long pieces of plastic/nylon bristle. The ones that are used in street brooms. The knives fit everywhere in every angle, don't get dull and it is easy to clean by just taking the bristles out and soaking them in a soapy solution or desinfectant of choice.

But I've no idea where to get them, and my Google-fu is also lacking.

Reply to
mare

No, not really. Just not as pretty :)

-- dadiOH ____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06... ...a help file of info about MP3s, recording from LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that. Get it at

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Reply to
dadiOH

Hey, that's a dandy idea!!

Reply to
dadiOH

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