So, I'm super into kitchen knives. Anyone else?
Left to Right: Bob Kramer Meiji 9", Bob Kramer Meiji bread knife, Shun Premiere paring knife, Shun classic 6" utility knife, Henckle paring knife, steel. I had a leather guy make the carrying case which folds up into a roll.
And in the kitchen with the addition of my Shun Fuji 8" Gyuto (far right)
Very pretty. Do you send them off to be sharpened professionally, or do you sharpen them yourself?
wow...I've never seen a knife hat has looks!
I couldn't imagine how one would sharpen these considering the pattern...
Easily, the pattern doesn't really effect the cutting edge, since it's all the same depth as the rest of the metal. The pattern is just the discoloration caused by exposure to acids, used to make the many folds within the metal more noticeable. Damascus-style steel is considered some of the best for knifemaking because it is considered by many to feature a good blend of the qualities of a hard and a soft steel, since those are what are layered together to make the pattern. In the end, steel is steel and can be sharpened the same way as it always is.
Mindless is right about the steel. I send my knives off once every 12 months for sharpening (I could invest hundreds of dollars and man hours on materials and rune a couple of knives before I become proficient). In the mean time I use a sharpening steel and leather straup to keep my knives hair-popping sharp.
Thanks for the interest. These are bush-league knives, I'll point out. They aren't even carbon steel and there are people whose geek runs deeper than this forum about knives.... find the forums. check out saltydog55252 's youtube for some real knife porn.
I'm just not a huge fan of the hollow grind that many companies put on the edges of knives. It's just something that I dislike on a kitchen knife. So I've taken to sharpening mine with sandpaper supported by a mousepad. It's a shockingly effective method for sharpening knives to produce a convex edge. It's not fantastic for producing blades that will shave your hair, but it does do a good job at producing blades that will cut your foodstuffs. Not to mention that you can but a couple multi-packs of sandpaper at an auto-parts store for about $12 and use any old mousepad that you've got lying about. Just make sure that you don't practice on any knives that you are particularly attached to, it does take some practice to figure out which method works best for you. I've, of course, got about $200-$300 worth of sharpening stones that I use on the knives that I want to have a flat grind on their edge, but those take a godly amount of patience to use, most of the time. The amount that you need to practice to be particularly good at sharpening knives is much higher when you decide to make the switch to stones. If you do decide to make the jump, consider some oil stones, at the very least. Oil stones don't degrade as readily as whetstones, and you don't have to continue to re-wet them. Unfortunately, as the fine-ness of the stone goes up, the size goes down. A 10,000 grit oil stone will cost you something along the lines of $40 for a 1" by 2" piece. Of course, there is always eBay for such things, but the size doesn't go up. You just can't readily find them in larger sizes. But once you've gotten fairly good at sharpening on a stone, the size of the stone doesn't strictly matter.
i'm happy with my Ka-bar and my leatherman
I have a mix of Wusthof and Henckels and sharpen them my self using a guide, water stones, and finally a 6 inch felt wheel charged with honing compound.
http://www.leevalley.com/en/Wood/page.aspx?p=32456&cat=1,43072
http://www.leevalley.com/en/Wood/page.aspx?p=33009&cat=1,43072,67175,67177&ap=1
There is the stone and guide, which helps to get it kitchen sharp. Then a little kiss on the charged felt wheel and you are shaving sharp. After several hours you will not need the guide any more.
Note the bull nose on the pairing knife don't let your kids carve a pumpkin with a 40$ knife. There is a few cheep ones in the mix for others to use.
I have had that Chefs knife(Wusthof) for almost 30 years. A good knife, taken care of well, will last a life time.
I just use Rada Cutlery stuff because they are cheap, reasonably sharp, and last quite a while. My house has a bunch of serrated steak knives from Rada that are probably close to 20 years old and they are still going strong.
We definitely have the same boning knife.
Yup.
I don't use a boning knife. I just have a paring knife that I keep as sharp as a brand new scalpel. It cuts through pork like it was warm butter.
My commonly used knives are two very old Japanese knives that I'm resurfacing due to age and pitting problems. One is a 9-10" sashimi knife, a yanagi ba. Unfortunately, I've only been able to work it up to about 1000 grit, and I need to spend more time on it. The other knife that I use is a peculiarity among Japanese knives. The profile looks like a standard deba, it has a drop point and a very low curve to the belly of the blade. The tang is surprisingly thin, but the high carbon content of the steel makes it quite heavy. The blade forms an almost continuous convex edge and will readily cut through just about anything you put in front of it. The only other knife that I use on a regular basis is my paring knife. It's just some cheap Kuhn Rikon paring knife that I've sharpened to death and back. It holds an edge fairly well and is impossibly easy to sharpen. I plan on eventually sharpening the hollow grind out and extending the edge all the way through the blade.
I'll post pictures when I finish my work on them.
you'd better.
well, i found an interesting arrangement for sandpaper, meant for sharpening woodworking tools, but should work for knives as well.
you put self-adheisive discs of sandpaper onto a marble blank, which keeps them perfectly flat, and doesn't bend at all.
http://primeshop.com/access/woodwork/scarysharp/
Heh, sure. I've got a bit of work still to go on all of them, so it may take a few days at least. The Japanese knives are about 40 years old, at least, and hand forged. They're proving resilient to my polishing, in part because I don't have enough variety in the grades of my sandpaper, so the deeper scratches and pitting are rather difficult to remove. The shape of the blade is incredibly classic, though, and the design allows it to perform exactly as expected: it cuts meat like it was warm butter. Although I do like how my yanagi ba actually has a hamon. It looks nice, and I suspect it is part of how it holds an edge so well.
Shun does make some of the most beautiful kitchen knives.
Fishy fishy FISH. I cook a lot of Salmon and I buy them whole that boning knife is well used. The flexible blade really helps
MMMM purdy.
