anyone have any experience with ken onions shun chef knife?

I have one. It sure is pretty and came pretty damn sharp from the factory.

However, if you're going to give it as a gift, BEWARE.

True story: I gave one as a gift to a friend of the family (an older lady). She was using the Shun, somehow cut her finger, got freaked out by the blood and fainted, hit her head on the floor when she fell, and was found by her son, unconscious on the floor, with blood everywhere, and a knife next to her body. Needless to say, he was pretty freaked out as well as it looked like a murder scene. In the end she ended up with a few stiches for her finger and a bump on her head. We all had a good laugh afterwards.
 
a few Q's first....Does your friend know how to take care of a GOOD chef's knife? Does he know how to sharpen them? Will he put them in a dishwasher? Will he try to sharpen them on an electric sharpener?

I own a shun block set and that knife to go along with it. They need to not be sharpened on electric sharpeners(I use spyderco). Should be handwashed, should be well taken care of. These are nice knives and until you hit WH, or BM I think they are about as nice as they come especially the wood handle laminated model that I have. Hopefully I am not coming off as and @$$ but more concerned. I have bought nice knives for folks before just to see flat tips, dull blades and dishawshed finishes.
 
not coming off as an a$$ at all, and i appreciate the info. should it be sharpened on a stone or with ceramic rods? the reason it cannot be sharpened by an electric sharpener, is it because it is layered steel?
 
I have Tojiro Pro knives myself, but, have been really wanting to get one of those Onion's.

First, please be sure to treat these Japanese kitchen knives with respect! They are very fine cutting tools. I got rid of all my high dollar European kitchen knives after trying the Japanese knives. There was just no comparison for me. The Japanese knives were just a far better product, IMO.

The reason for not using an electric sharpener on it is because electric knife sharpeners are extremly coarse, high abrasion sharpeners. Not too different than if you took a Sebenza and sharpened it on an 8" bench grinder. Massive overkill. Japanese kitchen knives have extremely thin, acute edge that average around Rc60 and above. It's a given that if you use an electric sharpener on them, you will destroy the edge and quite possibly the temper too. They sharpen up quite fast on fine and ultra-fine ceramic stones. Some people use the coarser grit stones(120 grit) to re-establish a bevel then go to consecutively finer grits ending somewhere between 1000-8000 grit.

You can use the Sharpmaker, but, I'd use only the white stones though unless you need to do some edge work like a nick or something along that line. Actually, I normally use a Norton combo stone of 4000/8000 grit. Japanese water stones are what is normally used on Japanese kitchen knives.
The lowest grit I've used thus far was 1000 grit.

Japanese kitchen knives are an outstanding product that should never be put in the dishwasher, or used to cut drywall or something along that line.:D

My only regret about these knives was not having them in my kitchen 10 years ago.
 
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