Well, I'm very glad to see the responses this thread is getting. Too few of us pay attention to the knives we use every day, day in and day out. I'm also glad to see the number of folks that incidate having found happiness with Chicago Cutlery, Forschners, and Spydercos, since one of my missions is to get folks to really compare some of these highly affordable knives to some more hyped far pricer knives. So far, I'd say roughly 60% of the folks that we know that have seriously compared Henckels to Victorinox/Forschner have reported a growing fondness for the lighter weight, much cheaper Victorinox. There are some professional chef's and some yuppy friends that detest any thin, light knife, but they appear to be somewhat the exception in our admittedly limited data pool. I also think that as some of them get older and start having hand troubles that they'll likely see the bennefits of lighter tools, but perhaps not.
Out of a kitchen with literally over a hundred knives from many pricepoints, here's what see's daily or weekly use:
1. Spyderco Santoku
2. Victorinox/Forschner #40570 (6" Chef's knife
3. Victorinox/Forschner 4" parer
4. Forschner large Chinese Cleaver
5. Connestoga Knives Ulu (cuts pizza and bread dough GREAT!)
6. Rapala/Normark filet knife
7. Wenger 8.5" Bread Knife (the only fully serrated blade that I own)
8. Chicago Cutlery Classic Collection #404 boner/butcher
That last one is the limited Chicago brand line that few seem to have heard of. Everybody is familiar with the regular Walmart ones, but they used to make some of thicker stock with polished rosewood handles, and I think perhaps better steel. They used to be available at Target stores, but I don't know if they still are.
With judicious shopping one could pick between either the Santoku or the cleaver and wind up with a set of 7 great kitchen knives for somewhere around the $100US mark total. If I were to pick 3, they'd be the Santoku, the parer and the filet knife.
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At one point or another, like many of you, I've used most all of my knives for food prep in the kitchen, or camping or at work. Some that strike me as particualarly good all around cutting, camping, fishing, kitchen knives are the inexpensive Frost's of Sweden and KJ Erikson Mora fixed blades. $8-$15 and they'll do great on beast or butcher block from venison to veggies, etc. Not my first choice in a dedicated kitchen knife but far better than many at all around utility. One particularly good one is the KJ Erikson Mora 2000.
It's got quite different edge geometry than the regular Scandinavian knives. It doesn't hold an edge forever, but considering how easy it is to resharpen, and at $20-$25, who cares?
One other thing, for those of you waiting with baited breath for a set of ATS-34 kitchen knives........
A while back, AG Russell sent me some prototype 7.5" x 2mm stock lightweight Chef's knives to try. One was in ATS-34 and the other in a special blend like a proprietary "one-off" of 440A or AUS8A. They weren't labeled as to which was which, and my role was to use them daily for several months to see what I could find out about them. To make a long story somewhat shorter, there was so little difference in edge holding longterm that it's hardly worth talking about. I did indeed figure out which one was ATS-34 and which was the "blend" but that was primarily through paying "very" close attention to edge qualities at sharpening. The difference was miniscule and most definitely not something that I'd pay extra for. What keeps these guys cutting so long and so well is outstanding geometry.
In the kitchen knife world, paying more simply means you paid more.
It can, at times mean getting exactly what one wants, but that's certainly not always the case since too few cooks, chefs really know what they want to start with.
mps
