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- Apr 20, 2018
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PREFACE: I reckon a lot of folks won't read this whole thing as it is long. And I reckon some folks will take all manner of issue with it if they do. I'm just sharing an observation of an old guy using knives to do knife stuff. Take from it what you will. That said, in general, I will always trumpet blade geometry and edge maintenance over steel and hardness.
Last year I got a wild hair up my...er...I decided to debone a full turkey for Thanksgiving. I'm not talking breaking it down into pieces and then deboning, I mean deboning the whole carcass and keeping it all intact and then rolled up.
This takes precision and toughness. You're not hacking on the bird with a clever. You have to trim close to the bones but also scrape along the bones and work into the joints and deal with those insane turkey leg tendons and all of that. There's a lot of cutting and it really is a workout for a knife.
Done correctly, it comes out something like this (this is a chicken but same idea - I didn't take pics of the turkey yesterday):
Chickens are pretty easy, but turkey's are a freakin' bi...um...harder than chickens. This year I did a 20lb bird and I will likely never do another one of that size again. The bird is cold so your fingers are cold and as said, there is a lot of work there. It took me just over an hour to have it dressed to the point of tying it up.
I've done a lot of chickens and a lot of smaller deboning jobs like legs and breasts and for many years I've used a Wusthof Gourmet 6" utility knife. For those not familiar, the gourmet line is their budget line and is...gasp...hand wring...STAMPED steel at...shudder...an advertised 55-57HRC. And, it isn't even a boning knife. But, I've found for poultry, a lot of the work is done by the belly and the tip so it is close enough to a traditional boning knife that it works.
Now, for the tendons on the turkey legs, I reached for the pairing knife. I wanted to keep the utility knife sharp but still have focused control. Remember, cold, slimy hands. I'd tuned the utility up on a black Arkansas before the task and it was plenty sharp but I hadn't touched the pairing knife in a while. It last saw a soft Arkansas stone and then light stropping since.
Getting through the joints, scraping down the bones and severing those tendons are no BS work. For the majority of home users, this is putting the blades and edges to the test.
And they held up beautifully! I just checked and both knives will still shave arm hair along their belly's and flats, although the pairing knife was pulling which is no surprise. There's no rolling or chipping and really "reasonable" dulling. I'd expect that if I was to do another bird without any touch-ups to the blades, they'd show signs of edge degradation.
Now, this is, as always, highly subjective and relevant to specific discussions, but for me, this is just an example of wonderfully thin edge geometry married to adequate steel production and introduced to proper edge treatment to excel at a given task.
Last year I got a wild hair up my...er...I decided to debone a full turkey for Thanksgiving. I'm not talking breaking it down into pieces and then deboning, I mean deboning the whole carcass and keeping it all intact and then rolled up.
This takes precision and toughness. You're not hacking on the bird with a clever. You have to trim close to the bones but also scrape along the bones and work into the joints and deal with those insane turkey leg tendons and all of that. There's a lot of cutting and it really is a workout for a knife.
Done correctly, it comes out something like this (this is a chicken but same idea - I didn't take pics of the turkey yesterday):
Chickens are pretty easy, but turkey's are a freakin' bi...um...harder than chickens. This year I did a 20lb bird and I will likely never do another one of that size again. The bird is cold so your fingers are cold and as said, there is a lot of work there. It took me just over an hour to have it dressed to the point of tying it up.
I've done a lot of chickens and a lot of smaller deboning jobs like legs and breasts and for many years I've used a Wusthof Gourmet 6" utility knife. For those not familiar, the gourmet line is their budget line and is...gasp...hand wring...STAMPED steel at...shudder...an advertised 55-57HRC. And, it isn't even a boning knife. But, I've found for poultry, a lot of the work is done by the belly and the tip so it is close enough to a traditional boning knife that it works.
Now, for the tendons on the turkey legs, I reached for the pairing knife. I wanted to keep the utility knife sharp but still have focused control. Remember, cold, slimy hands. I'd tuned the utility up on a black Arkansas before the task and it was plenty sharp but I hadn't touched the pairing knife in a while. It last saw a soft Arkansas stone and then light stropping since.
Getting through the joints, scraping down the bones and severing those tendons are no BS work. For the majority of home users, this is putting the blades and edges to the test.
And they held up beautifully! I just checked and both knives will still shave arm hair along their belly's and flats, although the pairing knife was pulling which is no surprise. There's no rolling or chipping and really "reasonable" dulling. I'd expect that if I was to do another bird without any touch-ups to the blades, they'd show signs of edge degradation.
Now, this is, as always, highly subjective and relevant to specific discussions, but for me, this is just an example of wonderfully thin edge geometry married to adequate steel production and introduced to proper edge treatment to excel at a given task.
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