Any of you guys with decent knife collections have total crap in the kitchen?

Yes me !!! But I have been planing on purchasing decent kitchen knife for 6 mo. now :-)
 
I have a full set of Spanish Henkels (a dozen or so not including 8 steak knives), and one big German 12" Henkel slicing knife. I also have some oddball German made all belly rolling knife i picked up on Woot one day for 30 bucks, Its on amazon for like $100 and i thought it was neat.
 
Unheard of!
My Kevin Wilkins Ryback rules the kitchen. It's the finest chef knife that I have ever used.
 
I use to have a cheap Faberware set for many years, now I have a nice set of David Loukides (Prayer Knives) pictured below. I don't think I can go back to the cheap ones after having these!!

DSC07961.jpg
 
sqchram said:
Ooh! I think i recognize some of those! Very fine pieces that i had come across on a chef/kitchen/cooking forum. That represents an ideal collection that i would love a few pieces of. Care to name them off and steel types?
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Sure. These are what I ended up with after buying and selling over twice as many over the years, as I've sold off my Takedas (aogami super), Devin Thomas ITK (AEB-L) and Yoshikane tamamoku (Takefu V2) among many others.

From left to right:
-300mm Konosuke suji (shirogami/white #2)
-300mm Masamoto KS yanagi (shirogami/white #2)
-270mm Konosuke gyuto (shirogami/white #2)
-270mm MAC bread (moly)
-270mm Konosuke HD suji (some awesome semi-stainless)
-240mm Yoshikane hammered gyuto (SKD-11)
-240mm JCK Carbonext gyuto (another great unknown semi-stainless)
-220mm JCK Kagayaki cleaver (unspecified carbon, feels like white#2)
-210mm Suisin Inox Honyaki petty (19c27)
-165mm Watanabe nakiri (unspecified carbon, feels like white#2)
-145mm Fujiwara FKM honesuki (moly)
 
Well... yes & no... My wife brought some of these cheap kitchen knives and I changed some of the setup. I bought some of the Vic knives for the meals and I bought here a big kitchen knife (drop-forged by Otter Messer) in Solingen.

The cheap ones are nearly unsharpable - but the Vics and the Otter get a hair whittling edge ... that´s the difference ;) (but who had a doubt about this? :D )
 
Cadillac J said:
Sure. These are what I ended up with after buying and selling over twice as many over the years, as I've sold off my Takedas (aogami super), Devin Thomas ITK (AEB-L) and Yoshikane tamamoku (Takefu V2) among many others.

From left to right:
-300mm Konosuke suji (shirogami/white #2)
-300mm Masamoto KS yanagi (shirogami/white #2)
-270mm Konosuke gyuto (shirogami/white #2)
-270mm MAC bread (moly)
-270mm Konosuke HD suji (some awesome semi-stainless)
-240mm Yoshikane hammered gyuto (SKD-11)
-240mm JCK Carbonext gyuto (another great unknown semi-stainless)
-220mm JCK Kagayaki cleaver (unspecified carbon, feels like white#2)
-210mm Suisin Inox Honyaki petty (19c27)
-165mm Watanabe nakiri (unspecified carbon, feels like white#2)
-145mm Fujiwara FKM honesuki (moly)
Click to expand...

I think I've heard about the Konosuke and Yoshikane. I'll take a guess and say they average $300-500, unless you get a premium handle finish or damascus. Whats your take on the semi stainless or carbon blades? Good edge retention and just wipe and oil pretty much? I'll have to do more reading up when i have better than my phone for net surfing. Thanks for listing those!
 
I have some junk, some Wistoff, some Gerber Balance Plus, and my fav thus far is some A.G. Russell stuff. I don't have anything really fancy though.


Ed J
 
the old mako knife set in so-called "sheflon" steel is still very workable. the large serrated fillet knife looks even more tactical than my military or endura. :lol:
 
My kitchen knives are a mixed bunch; a Beretta Loveless drop point I use for trimming meat, a Cold Steel paring knife, another paring knife I picked up last year in Salzburg, and this Loukides rehandled 100 year old French Sabatier.

DSC_0004-002.jpg
 
FES- That one is 9.5" blade. I just found a 12" one, but it needs some work before it can be used again. It's a beast.
 
Beautiful knife! ...I have an older 8 inch Sabatier (nowhere as nice as yours) thats part of my kit that i take when im working away from home...using a nice old Sabatier is a true knife experience in itself!.. FES
 
i really need to get a couple good kitchen knives but i am afraid my mom would ruin them by not using a cutting board or cutting on a plate like she normally does :mad:
 
scrteened porch said:
I've always bought kitchen knives at flea markets and estate sales. I have lots of them, and they are superb, though inexpensive.

Besides my old Gerbers that came mostly from SM, I've got a lot of black ones by Utica, Dexter, Robeson, Old Hickory etc; a block set of Henckels Zwillingswerk, probably a set and a half of Chicagos, and four or five stainless French Sabatiers.

The first stainless Sabatiers I tried wouldn't take an edge for me, but these are great. Chicago's broad 6" chef knife is very handy.

I paid $5 for the Henckels block set, my greatest kitchen-knife coup, and $15 for the Sabatiers, my most extravagant kitchen-knife purchase.

If I were buying new users, I would go for Dexter-Russell or Victorinox.
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+1

I was quite in to "knife rescue" with kitchen knives some years ago. I found bunches of great old carbon steel knives. If the handles were cracked I would fill the cracks with super glue and immediately sand with fine emery cloth, then follow up with stain and a tung oil concoction.

I also have a Green River steel where the steel itself is 24" long, $1 at a yard sale. Took the time to get the knives razor sharp, do 3 swipes per side on the steel after each use and have to touch up maybe once a year.

I have a yard sale block filled with yard sale knives which include two Henckel chef's knives, large and small, and a Japanese cleaver which has no name remaining on the blade but seems to be top quality. I didn't pay more than $3 for any of the items including the block.

I've given the surplus away to folks I knew appreciated an older carbon steel knife.

Thing is, the not-so-little woman won't touch them. I'm usually assigned to veggie duty as she cooks. I use my knives, she won't, "too sharp".

She has a set of Barclay Forge knives which kind of remind me of a 440A-ish kind of steel. As long as I put an obtuse secondary bevel on them they do OK. Women do a lot of cutting towards their thumb and hard dicing in to a board and she likes them better.

I have snuck in a couple Opinel paring knives and a Green River blade I put a handle on. She says "Oh, that dark steel, that's good". I've got her to where she'll sharpen them on the bottom of a cup instead of one knife against another, she's coming along. I'll still catch holy heck if I touch up one of her knives without telling her.
 
I use good kitchen knives most of the time (shun knives by bob kramer, sweet). But where I usually use cheap knives is paring knives of all things. I have a nice paring knife with the shuns, but it can't compare to some paring knives that my mother (I still live at home until college is over) got from William Sonoma, I think she paid like 10 bucks for 3. I use them a lot simply because they get the job done. I love my expensive and nice one. But these work very very well and as long a I can maintain an edge (I sharpen whenever I see they need it). They are great. I want to replace them with some old carbon steel knives though.

I go to other people's houses and it drives me nuts that their knives aren't sharp, not just cheap knives but good knives too, it shows me that reguardless of how much you pay for them, kitchen knives work well as long as they are kept sharp...I still like the nice ones better.....
 
I have different standards for my kitchen knives. I don't need great edge retention to dice a few onions, or cube some meat for a stew. A blade that is easy to sharpen is more desireable than the ultimate edge holding, super tough knife.
 
I fall into the "not any more" category as I still have my 2 cheap Henckels and even cheaper Victonrinox, but I also have one of those 240 Carbonext gyutos (great bang for the buck) and the Hattori forum sujihiki. I had a wa handled W2 suji of my own in the rack briefly, but I didn't really use it beyond testing because it was to be sold. That is the problem with being a knife maker. All of your best stuff is designed to be in someone else's display case, drawer or pocket.:D
Cadillac J said:
Sure. These are what I ended up with after buying and selling over twice as many over the years, as I've sold off my Takedas (aogami super), Devin Thomas ITK (AEB-L) and Yoshikane tamamoku (Takefu V2) among many others.

From left to right:
-300mm Konosuke suji (shirogami/white #2)
-300mm Masamoto KS yanagi (shirogami/white #2)
-270mm Konosuke gyuto (shirogami/white #2)
-270mm MAC bread (moly)
-270mm Konosuke HD suji (some awesome semi-stainless)
-240mm Yoshikane hammered gyuto (SKD-11)
-240mm JCK Carbonext gyuto (another great unknown semi-stainless)
-220mm JCK Kagayaki cleaver (unspecified carbon, feels like white#2)
-210mm Suisin Inox Honyaki petty (19c27)
-165mm Watanabe nakiri (unspecified carbon, feels like white#2)
-145mm Fujiwara FKM honesuki (moly)
Click to expand...
 
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