[Avodah] Modern knives, and tevilas keilim

[Akiva Miller]

.
It seems that many of the kitchen knives that I see for sale these
days are labeled as being made of something called "ceramic". They
sure don't look like the ceramic coffee mugs we made in fourth grade.
Obviously some sort of new-fangled material. Today I saw one that
didn't really make any claim about its material, but it did have a QR
code marked "scan here to learn more about our resin cutlery." (The
code tried to bring me to a non-existent web page.) Resin? Isn't that
the plastic that they make cheap lawn chairs from?

Anyway, I strongly suspect that these knives are non-metallic and thus
exempt from Tevilas Keilim. But I'd love to hear more information if
we have a Materials Chemist in the chevreh. (Is that even a real job
title?)

To help insure that this thread stays on Avodah, I will add the
following: To my knowledge, plain unglazed earthenware is clearly
exempt from tevila, but many (most?) require tevila for *glazed*
earthenware, because the glaze is considered like glass. I suspect
that this point is irrelevant to these new knives, for two reasons.
These knives *are* coated, but it seems to be some kind of paint, not
a glassy glaze. Perhaps more important, although most of the knife is
coated, the very sharp edge of the blade is left uncoated. I would
think that our main - and perhaps only - concern is for the cuttting
edge itelf. Just like the handle is tafel to the knife, I would expect
the body of the knife to be tafel to the edge of the blade.

PS: I toveled our new knife without a bracha, just to be sure.

Akiva Miller