I was wondering about ceramic blades.

Them being super sharp and totally corrosion free seems like great bonuses.
Them being brittle and hard to sharpen seem like severe drawbacks.
I bought a ceramic paring knife to try out in the kitchen first.

The question here is if anybody has any experience using them, and what their opinions are about them.

No but I've read enough about them for kitchen use that I wouldn't trust them. Basically even if the blade doesn't break outright, you are likely to get microchips on the edge which you won't be able to sharpen.

-john

Not worth purchasing IMHO.

Making sushi? Great!!!
Working with anything else? Not so much.

If you are doing leather tooling, they are great in a swivel knife.

If you're looking for a general purpose EDC knife that's a good solid beater and completely corrosion-proof, check out the Spyderco Salt series, the H-1 steel they use uses Nitrogen instead of Carbon in the steel matrix, making the knife totally corrosion-proof, they do require more frequent touch-ups, but are dead easy to resharpen and quite easily get Scary Sharp

Until they chip, they rock.

Once they chip, they are a rock.

As I understand it most ceramic knives can be sharpened with diamond stones, grinding compounds, and wheels. The difference in hardness between the ceramic and diamond isn't very large so any serious sharpening, and particularly repairs that involve removing a lot of material, like grinding out nicks, is gong to take a lot more time and effort than working on normal knives.

IMHO ceramic knives are best used where their strong points are a real benefit and the conditions of use are controlled so their weaknesses can be avoided.

In the kitchen they are very useful. They slice, notice I say slice and not chop, through pretty much everything without getting dull. They can be a dream to cut with because they are so sharp. If you always use a cutting board, avoid scraping and chopping with them they can last a very long time with little or no maintenance. On the other hand if you tend to casually toss your knife into the sink or drop them on a tile floor a $300 knife might last thirty seconds.

I have used small ceramic blades in knives and scissors to cut Kevlar. Kevlar has a nasty habit of very rapidly dulling materials softer than ceramics. Ceramics hold up and give you clean and predictable cuts. But you don't use your precious ceramic edged knife or shears for general use. They are too delicate and expensive to use to cut out paper dolls.

IMHO ceramic blades are too delicate to use in a survival situation if other, tougher materials, will do the job about as well for less money and do the job more reliably.

I have never owned one but from reading reviews on a few kitchen knife forums and Alton Brown in his Gear book, they are not dependable or desirable. As already said if you drop them they will likely break or chip and are difficult to sharpen once they go dull.

Even the famous brand Kyocera I think says they are not a replacement for steel blades but an addition.


Save the money for a good steel blade and forgo them completely

I was given a Boker Infinity folding knife as a gift. A lovely knife and very sharp. I used it as EDC for about two months before it became too dull for everyday tasks. Boker will resharpen it for $13.95. That might be reasonable once a year or so, but not six times a year.

If there are no nicks or chunks out of the blade, you should be able to strop it yourself with little or no effort.

For the amount you mention, you could purchase the necessary materials and strop it as often as you like.