Random Thought Thread

jmgruber said:
www.wired.com

This Guy Attached 21 Chef’s Knives to a Slicing Robot Arm to Determine Which One Is Best

Certified kitchen knife nerd Scott Heimendinger used a robot arm on multiple chef’s knives to collect 100,000 data points about which blades cut most efficiently. He’s ranked them from best to worst.
www.wired.com www.wired.com

Thoughts?!
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You should take a look at his website: https://seattleultrasonics.com/pages/knife-database

Interesting but a bit too arbitrary to be useful. The knives he tested vary too much in edge angle, sharpness, steel, geometry, etc. And who uses a kitchen knife to slice bread? It seems like he is setting this up mainly as a baseline to compare to the "ultrasonic knife" he's developing. Theoretically that should minimize the amount of manual energy to slice through things, including bread, which is why he's not so concerned about the comfortability of the handle and natural slicing movements.

Maybe I will do a statistical analysis of the data later.
 
Last edited:
jmgruber said:
www.wired.com

This Guy Attached 21 Chef’s Knives to a Slicing Robot Arm to Determine Which One Is Best

Certified kitchen knife nerd Scott Heimendinger used a robot arm on multiple chef’s knives to collect 100,000 data points about which blades cut most efficiently. He’s ranked them from best to worst.
www.wired.com www.wired.com

Thoughts?!
Click to expand...
2 things:

1. While I get using them straight out of the box, think he should also sharpen them all and run it again to see how that might change things.
2. While somewhat subjective, I don't see how you can just ignore something as important as handle comfort.
 
Synov said:
You should take a look at his website: https://seattleultrasonics.com/pages/knife-database

Interesting but a bit too arbitrary to be useful. The knives he tested vary too much in edge angle, sharpness, steel, geometry, etc. And who uses a kitchen knife to slice bread? Maybe I will do a statistical analysis of the data later.
Click to expand...
Yeah.

Data is cool, but WHAT data, and how to collect it, makes a difference between useful, and less useful.

As Nate’s mentioned with his own development for D3V, the CATRA test is only one metric, and not the primary factor for a knife that isn’t solely for slicing through softer, abrasive material.

- Anyone who’s actually cut tomatoes with a knife, knows to slice them, if you want to avoid squashing them, so THAT test is kind of useless (unless the test is specifically intended as a “best tomato knife for someone who’s equally as clueless about USING a knife to slice tomatoes as I am”).

- there’s a reason bread knives are serrated.

As already pointed out, the test is also testing the factory sharpness, so it isn’t actually a knife performance test, as one of the knives might perform better than others that wound up ranking higher, if they were all sharpened similarly prior to the test.

The BESS test has been shown by numerous folks to easily be improved on, simply by a little touchup vs most factory edges.

- yep. No mention of handle ergonomics.

- a thin blade, sharpened to a fine edge properly, would score higher on all those tests. Small wonder that the top performers were thinner Japanese knives (which are some of the reasons I prefer them. Thinner blades, higher hardness. Very thin behind the edge. And I prefer the Gyutos with a flatter, more gently curved edge, than the deeper belly/curve of Western Chef’s knives, but that’s a preference based on how I use the knife).

Someone who prefers ‘rocking’ will tend to prefer a more pronounced curve. Conversely, I’ve watched Chinese chefs use a single Chinese cleaver for everything, and that has a straighter edge.
 
Conversely, I’ve watched Chinese chefs use a single Chinese cleaver for everything,, and that has a single, pretty much, straight edge.

B bluemax_1 , how so very true. I’ve seen cleavers used in so many different ways, and to equal effect of what we would call modern ways ( (18 years of natural born Asian experience), and I still cant do it. But I’m in awe of what it can produce.

Its like watching the Elders use the Ulu, I can’t do it, but for them there is no substitute, and I totally respect and admire that, and wish I could.

I can use a Butcher or Fillet knife with my eyes closed, but I am adapted to what I'm
used to.

That test IMO, has so many different flaws, it’s non applicable. There are just too many different variables and scenarios that took place, and need to be considered, to draw a conclusion, and it’s not there (IMHO).

It had no applicable meaning, other than a number, which in itself had no real meaning.
 
bluemax_1 said:
Random thought;

Merely breathing in super humid air, makes me feel like I’m Aquaman 😂😝
Click to expand...
Absolutely!!!!

When it's this humid, my booth is usually in the mid 90s.... and my respirator fills with sweat.... move to quick looking up it heads towards your mouth.... look down and break the seal on the mask... the sweat will dump onto the paint job

Eeeeew
 
bluemax_1 said:
Random thought;

Merely breathing in super humid air, makes me feel like I’m Aquaman 😂😝
Click to expand...

A good friend I used to rock climb with when I lived in Cali (in my 20’s and we climbed all over the west coast - from Washington down through SoCal) came to visit me when I moved back to Ohio.
We had a climbing trip planned that started down in North Carolina (may have even been a stop in Northern Georgia), then ending in Kentucky, Red River gorge.
He was younger than me. Non-smoker, fitness buff type (still is).
I smoked two packs a day along with anything else I could burn and inhale.
Some of the climbs required 5-7 mile hikes to get to and climbing gear can make for a pretty heavy pack.
In Kentucky the humidity was 90%+ and he was having some trouble on the hikes.
He asked that we stop for a minute. We dropped our packs, got out our water and I lit a cigarette.
He said, “ How can you smoke? This air is like breathing under water.”
I shrugged and said, “I grew up in this shit. You get used to it.”
He just shook his head.
I had a blast on that trip. Some really great climbs, especially in the Red River Gorge area.
He remembers it differently.
 
Thanks for the thoughts on the Wired article. I had much of the same reaction. It seems like the tester has this cool gizmo for science but isn’t connecting his experiments to the real world. One of you should send him a CPK chopper to test with his machine 🔪🗡️
 
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