What's a great way to store knives for me?

Question

My situation: I have accumulated high-quality purpose-made knives which are difficult to store due to several factors:

1. I have more than a few (23), and some (7) that I use quite often.
2. I want them to be handy and accessible.
3. Their size varies from small (16 cm) to large (40 cm).
4. I have no duplicates. (Well, there's an elderly one that I never use but keep for sentiment.)
5. Each one is for a different purpose, (i.e.: paring, bread, frozen foods, cook's knife, carving set, cake, etc.) so their proportions vary.
6. There are various wall racks and countertop containers available; but, I don't want them "out" and prefer to keep them in a drawer, somehow. (Edit: Drawer size is 30cm x 50cm x 10cm)
7. They are sharp and must be prevented from hitting each other or things that can dull or nick the blade edge.
8. I must store them safely.
9. Storage space is not unlimited.

The ideal solution would satisfy all my conditions. A great one will meet most of them.

Answer 1

My first thought comprises 3 elements:

• a dedicated kitchen drawer
• a non-skid mat
• 1 or 2 nylon hair combs

The first step is simple: Cut the non-skid mat to fit the drawer. Lay it in there.

The next step, involving the hair combs, is where it gets weird: Position the combs in the drawer, with the tines pointing at the ceiling, 6-8 inches from the front of the drawer, parallel with the front of the drawer. Then, place a knife in the drawer, pointing at the back of it, with its blade through the comb. The comb will keep it from falling over, left or right.

You can place other knives in parallel with the first knife, with all their handles aligned at the front of the drawer, and none of their blades touching each other. When you need to take a knife out, the weight of the other knives should keep the comb from lifting up.

If you want to keep the blades from touching the non-skid pad you've spread out in the drawer, you could use 2 combs: one closer to the handles, and one a few inches farther down the blades.

You may want to keep the comb(s) upright more securely, so you aren't just relying on the friction of the tines against the blades. Supports shouldn't be too hard to dream up:

• a couple of L-braces
• another comb perpendicular to the first comb, and you slide the first comb in between the teeth of the second comb
• just hot-glue it to the side of the drawer

This solution doesn't address the other gadgets you mention in point 5 of your question.

Answer 2

A knife block? - is there any reason why you don't want this option?

Answer 3

So I don't have that many knives, but I have a similar problem. I ended up making my own knife sheaths from old soda/cereal/cake flour/etc boxes. I used a different one for each knife so quickly locate the knife I am looking for in a drawer full of kitchen utensils.

I used the instructions I found here.

And created sheaths that look like this.

There is the downside that this leaves them loose in the drawer, but it protects them & makes it easy to find the one I am looking for. (Bread Knife? that's the one with the Mountain Dew logo. Santoku? Captain Crunch.) The upside is that these are made out of what would otherwise be garbage and they are super easy to replace.

If you wanted to take this a step further you could cut open the tops of these sheaths and then glue them together separated by some leftover packing styrofoam. However I did try that, and it didn't work as well as I wanted due to the fact that my knife lengths vary quite a bit. (5-12+ inches). And it ended up taking more drawer room than I wanted.

Answer 4

My suggestion to preserve the blade edge would be as follows:

• Just like the one shown below, try to make some CD cover for your knife set. It may take some time for you to rearrange them after your use but it will save your knife blades sharpness from clinging to each other as well your hand when you reach out to it in the drawer.
• Just like the one shown below, keep a beautiful pot of sand as an art in your kitchen work area. As you get time, you can beautifully arrange you knives by inserting them into the sand in it(It can be on the basis of their size). In times of urgency, you can easily take it out and easily put them inside without clinging to each other. Moreover, refined sand(very fine) is good for the knife as it can only increase your blades sharpness. Also, please take care that soil does not get wet at any cost as it can decay your blades too.

Answer 5

Buy a pack of toothpicks. Place them in a container something like this

Or if you are willing to work harder, try making this DIY wooden arrangement. Pretty safe and nice to look at!!

Answer 6

Have you thought about gluing a magnetic strip to the inside of your draw? It would keep the knives relatively still and therefore prevent them losing their sharp edges and won't take over the draw.

ANOTHER OPTION

Again this option uses a magnet.

You could have a strong magnet glued to a wall or something which your blades could stick too.