Realistic Kitchen Knives :(

wintermute

wintermute

Joined
Oct 18, 2007
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I've posted a few times on this subject - my wife's a great cook, cooks all of the time, and our Henckels 4 Stars dull like crazy or at least get rolled edges and become useless. She needs knives that won't crap out on her all of the time. I had asked recommendations here a few times for good kitchen knives. I've drooled over Hattori and Shun and Tojiro knives.

I've finally faced reality and come to the realization that my wife will destroy any finely made piece of Japanese craftsmanship. This enlightenment has calmed me. I can accept this. Now the question is, what constitutes a good cheap kitchen knife? Forschner? A.G. Russell? Something else? will these out-perform the Henckels?
 
Try Old Hickory by Ontario knives. Wonderful 1095 carbon steel. Takes an edge, holds it, and is easy to resharpen. Inexpensive to try as well.
 
felixXJ said:
Try Old Hickory by Ontario knives. Wonderful 1095 carbon steel. Takes an edge, holds it, and is easy to resharpen. Inexpensive to try as well.
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But will rust easy....and if she leaves em layin in the sink covered in water you'll get some rusty pitted knives.
 
Forschner fibrox. Cook's Illustrated recently did a comparison test with all the major kitchen knife manufacturers and this line came out on top. You can look at this review on their website if you sign up for a free trial period. I have the Forschner set in rosewood and have been very pleased with it, including ease of sharpening.

One more thing, if you do not do these already, make sure the wife has (and uses) a wooden cutting board. Cutting on Corian or any hard plastic board will roll/destroy the edge of any kitchen knife. And, even if she goes to a cheaper line, NEVER put them in the dishwasher.
 
felixXJ said:
FWIW, she'll learn how to take care of them though....
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Probably not. Plus once she sees rust on them, it will compute as "broken".


But, let me brag about my 10 year old daughter. I recently handed my old Old Timer middleman jack down to her. She has annoyed her mother to no end with that thing (in a good way). When I first gave it to her, she kept practicing safe opening and closing. She kept it safe in a old jewelry drawer thingy until it was time to re-do the kids' room and my wife threw the drawer out (empty) and put the knife on a bookcase shelf. To which, my daughter got mad at my wife for putting the knife in such a crappy spot, then moved it to a safe somewhat clean drawer in her night stand. The thing that drives my wife the most nuts is that after my daughter has used the knife heavily, she's straight to the cabinet under the sink to grab the mineral oil!
 
In the 20 to 50 dollar range - R.H. Forschner, without a doubt.
Worth way more.

(They're stainless and made in Switzerland, BTW.)
 
If you want japanese, try Kanetsune. 410 clad VG-10 and made in Seki City (like the Shuns). Their chefs knives and santokus go for around 60-80 bucks.
 
My mundane set of Chicago Cutlery has served me well. When I re-sharpen, I create a secondary bevel and convex it. This makes for a very durable edge. Try that on you Henckels. As has been said, a wood cutting board, especially end grain, will better preserve you edges. A quick lick on a convenient hanging strop does wonders.
 
Get a Boker Yadama. It's a light weight super sharp knife. Also, the knife is a cross between a Japanese santoku and the classic chef's knife. It's the best of both worlds.
 
My mundane set of Chicago Cutlery has served me well.
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I'm a fan of their knives as well - keep a couple in the shop for utility knives. Unfortunately Chicago Cutlery is made in China now, and by all accounts are not the same quality as they used to be.
 
Tojiros are hard to destroy. Despite their high highness, they're tough.

Wintermute,

How about get your wife a Shun Classic paring knife and slicer and rosewood-handled Forschner knives for the rest of the set? That way, the knives that need sharpness over toughness will have it and the knives that will get banged around will have toughness.

If you need to have both high hardness for edge retention and high shock resistance to avoid blowing to pieces, contact Bob Kramer for some 52100/bainite kitchen knives.
 
Bob W said:
I'm a fan of their knives as well - keep a couple in the shop for utility knives. Unfortunately Chicago Cutlery is made in China now, and by all accounts are not the same quality as they used to be.
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The new ones are absolutely AWFUL, :barf: IMHO. We have two old ones - an 8" chef and a butcher - from the 1980's, and they are amazing users. I wanted a couple more smaller utility knives and a bread knife, so I bought a small set of newly (China) made ones from Sears for $70, for my wife's birthday. The bread knife is ok, but other than that, none of them hold a edge, and I sharpened them many times & had them professionally sharpened as well. Nothing has worked.

So, I'm back to building a set around the good ones we have, one at a time. I ordered a 5" utility from Pampered Chef, we'll give that one it's day in court and see what happens. Zeasor - how do you do that "secondary bevel - concave edge" thing? I'd be interested to try it on our "new" Chicagos. If that doesn't work, my plan was to take the crappy ones, take the handles off, and experiment with heating/quenching just for the heck of it. They're useless anyway, so maybe I'll learn something.

thx - cpr

ps - we only use wood and plastic chopping blocks. No glass, Corian, etc. I may try that endgrain idea though.
 
Shun.
You get get what you pay for.
Perfection is worth it,with something you are using every day.
 
Both of us cook often and fairly well for those not trained at a culinary school. For whatever reason, I just don't get why a good cook/chef treats one of his/her primary tools like it is disposable. My wife has chipped and dulled my production Japanese knives numerous times and complains that sharpening them on a stone makes an irritating noise. Go figure.

I was going to get into the customs, and came to the realization that she will just 'break'/mistreat them. Else, I'll look like a child for saying 'Mine'/'Off limits' or hands off.

That said, I just don't like Western style knives much any more, so I buy relatively affordabel production Japanese knives instead. All one really needs is a chefs and/or santoku and 1-2 good parers. However, I really like the petty length and use this more often than any others.

Check out MACs. (good value per $)
 
My wife is a great cook but treats a knife like a hammer. It made no sense to buy her a set of super custom kitchen cutters so I buy her run of the mill Cuisinart and Calphalons and a Chef's choice electric knife sharpener.
I cringe every time I hear that sucker grind but can breathe easy knowing my Shuns are safe and sound and not being used by my edge slaying, knife ruining wife of mine!!!

every six Months I spend $12 and buy her a new knife.............
 
dang....y'all are making me very depressed! :( :o :confused:





Well...I too have one of those hard-using-kitchen-knife-veggie-slayin wives....and so I've had to tailor my custom knives to fit her usage.

At first she was crazy about the high carbon stuff - easy to sharpen, looks neat (aged with time). But lately, she has been so busy...just leaves 'em hangin out dirty and they get rusted quite easily.

Soo.......


I'm setting her up with a set of high-hardness japanese style (thin) knives in hopes that they'll be able to handle the abuse. I can't buy her production/factory knives...she won't take 'em. So, it's back to the drawing board for me. She loves the versatility of the santoku. I'll probably end up doing something thin and stainless like CPM154 with a fine finish (she handwashes the knives - no danger of the dishwasher).

I did make her a pikal paring knife in S30V that she absolutely loves - gets constant use. I'm just concerned about resharpening...


I don't really get the rolled edges at my place...our daily-use stuff has been high hardness 1095 for a long time.


If you want to avoid the rolled edges, you'll need to avoid low/med-carbon (%) steels like 420, etc.

Give me a hard keen edge, ground not-too-thin, but just enough...and I'll be happy. :thumbup:
 
i bought my girlfriend a set of kershaw shun's for her birthday and they are AWESOME. the palm swell is really comfortable and vg-10 is a great steal. really easy to resharpen and holds an edge. have it on my al-mar shrike so it really compelled me to choose shun. i wasnt dissapointed. as far as destroying... we just wipe them down with paper towels and throw them back on the magnetic strip and there clean. cant recommend them highly enough.
 
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