Any knife nuts here?

[highfigh]

I'm not what could be considered a 'knife nut', but I have a Gerber Crucial that I bought because I decided that I wanted a multi-tool, but not one of the "It has every possible tool, including a jackhammer" monstrosities.

The only things I would improve are the durability of the Phillips screwdriver and edge-holding ability of the blade. I'm also not sure the blade needs to be serrated and removing that would make sharpening/honing much easier.

My Crucial was confiscated at a Green Bay Packers pre-season game a few years ago and I couldn't believe how much I missed it- I don't think of it as a weapon, so I never thought they would take it in a search, even though the blade is less than 3" long. I hadn't carried a knife of any kind since I was a kid and I found myself reaching for it so often that I decided to look for a replacement but I didn't like the increased price, so I came to the conclusion that calling the PD in the area of the stadium might get it back. The woman who answered the phone said they don't keep them, they're stored at the stadium lost & found, so I called to leave a message with a good description. Next day, I got a call- the guy said it was in his hand and asked for my shipping address. It was sent, overnight. The Phillips blade had chipped before it was confiscated and I was told that it would be replaced/refurbed if I send it to Gerber but I really hate being without it.

I have watched a lot of YouTube videos of people making knives from various pieces of metal, including using a modern version of the Damascus process- it's pretty interesting, but I would like to see some followup, to find out how durable they are.

Crucial- they changed from a clip at the end to the belt cutter and added a belt hook. I bought the knife first, then decided that a multi-tool would be more useful.

 

[ryanosaur]

Victorinox does some very good stuff... they aren't super easy to sharpen unless you have a belt or grinder wheel. I tried working one on a stone back in my kitchen days... absolute PITA! But for the cost, you could usually just replace them once they lost their edge.
Most of the cat's were into getting Japanese knives where possible, especially the Western Style knives like Mizuno UX-10 and such. Mac was popular with many, too. Also Global.
I knew too many cooks that blew all their pay on too-fancy knives and alcohol.
My preferred knife in the kitchen was the 10" Messermeister San Moritz Elite:

https://www.amazon.com/Messermeister-Moritz-Elite-Chefs-8-Inch/dp/B000MF661K?th=1

Good steel, little harder than the other German knives. A pain to work on the stone, but once you get the edge on it, it holds for a long time!

For Fish work, I am still a big fan of the Dexter flexible filet knife:

Amazon.com: Sani-Safe S133-9-PCP 9" Narrow Fillet Knife with Polypropylene Handle : Home & Kitchen

Amazon.com: Sani-Safe S133-9-PCP 9" Narrow Fillet Knife with Polypropylene Handle : Home & Kitchen

www.amazon.com

When I was butchering poultry in one restaurant, I picked up one of these Glestain Garasukis, before they only sold with the hollow ground edge:

Glestain 420TK Garasuki 190mm (7.4 inch)

Glestain Garasuki knife has unique square shaped dimples and is well known and popular among professional chefs for finer cutting performance and quality.

japanesechefsknife.com

An absolute beast of a blade, it was very hard to learn to use well.

 

[Mr._Clark]

For what it's worth, I just bought a couple Bark River knives. One is a Cub CPM 3V:

Bark River Knives: Cub - CPM 3V

The Cub 3V fixed blade from Bark River Knives. Made in USA. KnivesShipFree is a premier BRK dealer with huge selection, fast free shipping, and friendly service.

www.knivesshipfree.com

The other is a Kalahari Sportsman CPM 154:

Bark River Knives: Kalahari Sportsman - CPM 154

IN STOCK - the Kalahari Sportsman CPM-154 fillet knife by Bark River Knives. These fine blades are made in the USA and come backed by a lifetime warranty.

www.knivesshipfree.com

So far, I really like both. The CUB is sharp enough to shave with out of the box, and the Kalahari Sportsman is close.

People seem to either love or hate Bark River knives. A lot of the haters seem to think they are not heavy/durable enough. As far as I can tell, this seems to come from people who are looking for a survival knife that can take a lot of really heavy abuse.

I have not had these very long but I think they will both be plenty durable for day-to-day real world use. I have a couple Ka-Bars in case there's a zombie apocalypse.

Also, some people say the Bark River knives have too many cosmetic flaws for the price. The two I have seem to be fine. Not quite perfect, but I'm not too worried about tiny imperfections.

I'm not a knife expert by any means, but the Bark Rivers seem like very good knives for real world use.

 

[Pogre]

Victorinox does some very good stuff... they aren't super easy to sharpen unless you have a belt or grinder wheel. I tried working one on a stone back in my kitchen days... absolute PITA! But for the cost, you could usually just replace them once they lost their edge.
Most of the cat's were into getting Japanese knives where possible, especially the Western Style knives like Mizuno UX-10 and such. Mac was popular with many, too. Also Global.
I knew too many cooks that blew all their pay on too-fancy knives and alcohol.
My preferred knife in the kitchen was the 10" Messermeister San Moritz Elite:

https://www.amazon.com/Messermeister-Moritz-Elite-Chefs-8-Inch/dp/B000MF661K?th=1

Good steel, little harder than the other German knives. A pain to work on the stone, but once you get the edge on it, it holds for a long time!

For Fish work, I am still a big fan of the Dexter flexible filet knife:

Amazon.com: Sani-Safe S133-9-PCP 9" Narrow Fillet Knife with Polypropylene Handle : Home & Kitchen

Amazon.com: Sani-Safe S133-9-PCP 9" Narrow Fillet Knife with Polypropylene Handle : Home & Kitchen

www.amazon.com

When I was butchering poultry in one restaurant, I picked up one of these Glestain Garasukis, before they only sold with the hollow ground edge:

Glestain 420TK Garasuki 190mm (7.4 inch)

Glestain Garasuki knife has unique square shaped dimples and is well known and popular among professional chefs for finer cutting performance and quality.

japanesechefsknife.com

An absolute beast of a blade, it was very hard to learn to use well.

I always used a stone too. I didn't have too much trouble keeping an edge. When I can dry shave a bald spot on my forearm that's when I know I have it.

I really like the Granton edge. Those dimples create little air pockets so there's less contact with the sides of the blade and helps it slide through the meat. It make a difference when your cutting meat all day.

 

[highfigh]

Also, some people say the Bark River knives have too many cosmetic flaws for the price. The two I have seem to be fine. Not quite perfect, but I'm not too worried about tiny imperfections.

I'm not a knife expert by any means, but the Bark Rivers seem like very good knives for real world use.

So, those people are more interested in putting their knives in some kind of display case and showing them off? OK, I guess that's OK, but.....

I think appearance is an area that's obviously personal, but the main things for me:

- fits the hand well enough to not be unsafe to handle (twisting and moving or causing pain)
- the ratio of blade to handle allows it to be useful and easy to control
- can be sharpened to a fine edge and hold it without being too brittle
- overall, needs to be durable. Thin scales made from bone are OK, but they can be fragile unless fixed with epoxy.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Victorinox does some very good stuff... they aren't super easy to sharpen unless you have a belt or grinder wheel. I tried working one on a stone back in my kitchen days... absolute PITA! But for the cost, you could usually just replace them once they lost their edge.

I have diamond stones, but sharpening my Kyocera ceramic blade is basically impossible at home. I've tried everything and no luck so far

 

[Pogre]

I have diamond stones, but sharpening my Kyocera ceramic blade is basically impossible at home. I've tried everything and no luck so far

I have never used a ceramic blade, let alone tried to sharpen one.

 

[highfigh]

I always used a stone too. I didn't have too much trouble keeping an edge. When I can dry shave a bald spot on my forearm that's when I know I have it.

View attachment 45608
View attachment 45609

I really like the Granton edge. Those dimples create little air pockets so there's less contact with the sides of the blade and helps it slide through the meat. It make a difference when your cutting meat all day.

The relief is to break the suction from the wet meat- hollow ground are similar, as you probably know.

Are you a woodworker? If so, you may be aware of the 'Scary Sharp' technique of using wet/dry sandpaper on a flat surface, starting at some grade like 400 grit and moving up as you go. I do this for my hand plane irons and go up to about 6000 grit, but could use 15,000 grit if needed. I can shave with woodworking tools that were never meant for that type of edge, but it sure makes planing wood easier and the surface is amazingly smooth. I bought a 15" square granite tile and use water to stick the paper to it.

 

[Pogre]

The relief is to break the suction from the wet meat- hollow ground are similar, as you probably know.

Are you a woodworker? If so, you may be aware of the 'Scary Sharp' technique of using wet/dry sandpaper on a flat surface, starting at some grade like 400 grit and moving up as you go. I do this for my hand plane irons and go up to about 6000 grit, but could use 15,000 grit if needed. I can shave with woodworking tools that were never meant for that type of edge, but it sure makes planing wood easier and the surface is amazingly smooth. I bought a 15" square granite tile and use water to stick the paper to it.

I have worked with wood, but wouldn't call myself a woodworker. I've never heard of the scary sharp technique but it sounds like it'd work similar to a stone. Your stone is the sandpaper. I can believe it works really well.

 

[Mr._Clark]

Victorinox does some very good stuff... they aren't super easy to sharpen unless you have a belt or grinder wheel. I tried working one on a stone back in my kitchen days... absolute PITA! But for the cost, you could usually just replace them once they lost their edge.

Interesting. Have you tried the Naniwa ceramic water stones?

I bought a 400 grit stone and a 1,000 grit stone and they seem to work pretty good but I have not tried sharpening the Victorinox yet.

https://www.amazon.com/Super-Ceramic-Water-Stone-Japan/dp/B001TPABDQ/ref=sr_1_2?

https://www.amazon.com/Chosera-000-Grit-Stone-Base/dp/B000CNOXGC/ref=sr_1_1?

The good news is that the Victorinox has not needed to be sharped for quite some time. The bad news is that this is mostly because I have not caught enough big fish recently to put much wear on the edge.

 

[Trell]

This is what I carry on my key chain, a very small Victorinox Classic Alox:

 

[Pogre]

Interesting. Have you tried the Naniwa ceramic water stones?

I bought a 400 grit stone and a 1,000 grit stone and they seem to work pretty good but I have not tried sharpening the Victorinox yet.

https://www.amazon.com/Super-Ceramic-Water-Stone-Japan/dp/B001TPABDQ/ref=sr_1_2?

https://www.amazon.com/Chosera-000-Grit-Stone-Base/dp/B000CNOXGC/ref=sr_1_1?

The good news is that the Victorinox has not needed to be sharped for quite some time. The bad news is that this is mostly because I have not caught enough big fish recently to put much wear on the edge.

The first few times you sharpen a Victorinox it's pretty easy to bring the edge back, but the more metal you grind off the harder it becomes as the blade gets thicker. I knew a guy who had a Foreschner breaking knife for 20 years and it was ground down more than any knife I'd seen. I used to call it his "pig sticker". Damned thing was almost an ice pick, lol. He was still able to get it surprisingly sharp tho.

 

[Mr._Clark]

Does anyone have any Bob Kramer kitchen knives?

For some reason the damascus knives just just speak to me (They say "Yes, we're overpriced, but we look super cool so buy us anyway, you know you want to!")

Bob Kramer Knives & Knife Sets | Sur La Table

Elevate your culinary skills with Bob Kramer knives at Sur La Table. Precision-crafted blades for exceptional performance. Dive into quality craftsmanship today.

www.surlatable.com

 

[highfigh]

I have worked with wood, but wouldn't call myself a woodworker. I've never heard of the scary sharp technique but it sounds like it'd work similar to a stone. Your stone is the sandpaper. I can believe it works really well.

The benefit of using the tile (or granite slab that costs more, but doesn't really do much that my tile won't) is that it shouldn't need to be flattened, which is something that the stones do require.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=scary+sharp

 

[ryanosaur]

The granton edge blades like that scimi are great for breaking large cuts, also very useful for slicing beef liver where the width and length of the blade helps keep a straight even slice, and the grantons prevent binding.
It became way more of a fad, though, being applied to every blade that could take it. That garasuki I linked earlier is a prime example: A poultry boning knife has absolutely no need for that treatment!
I had one Chef make fun of my hollow ground Santoku (Wustoff) way back when I was in culinary school, but that knife (style, designed primarily for vegetables but also multipurpose) was excellent at slicing mushrooms and large squash for the same reasons I mentioned above regarding the Beef Liver.
I ended up replacing that Santoku with the same brand I use now, the Messermeister San Moritz Elite, and it has the granton edge as well.

When I started in Culinary School, they had just changed over from Wustoff kits to Chef Cutlery. Pure cr@p, soft steel. You would roll the edge on that just chiffing basil.
Arguably, these were good knives for a production establishment because they were cheap and you could quickly run them on a diamond steel to keep them sharp. But that was a trap.
Diamond steels are like crack cocaine to your knives. Once you use it, you can't put it down. I've seen a lot of knives destroyed by diamond steels. I used to do that for my poultry breaking knife... that old Chef Cutlery 8" cooks knife. Over the years I probably stripped away about 1/4" of most of that blade, to the extent it was only really usable as a club.

On the other hand, those Forschner/Victorinox/Dexter knives seem to respond well to diamonds... but these are usually relatively inexpensive knives, too.

Going back to sharpening them, I used to have a set of Global branded stones (300/1000 combo, and King 10,000). I do not know the material. This is what I used when I tried putting an edge back on some of those knives. It was way more struggle than it was worth. Where I would put a polished edge on my better knives, these things just resisted any effort, so I stopped trying. Easier by far to replace them. That's just me, perhaps.

Anyway, I met one guy in Sonoma County that used to sharpen knives. Had a mobile trailer that had two walls done with countertops mounted with a series of low RPM belt grinders, each sporting a different grit. Depending on what was required, he started at one end and worked his way along the line of machines. When finished, somehow the edges looked better still than brand new. The winery I was Exec at, the owners brought me their knives... beat to hell and beyond; not an edge to be found anywhere.
This guy set to work on them and when he was finished, I checked a few. Rarely have I seen such a perfectly keen edge put on knives. This guy was a true craftsman. He closed up shop not too long after and I have yet to find a shop that can come anywhere close to matching his work.
If you ever see a grinding wheel in a knife shop... Walk away.

Recently, I picked this up from Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B088FCJWJW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

...along with a stone fixer.
(I used to use a tile with sandpaper to flatten my stones.)
My other set had gotten too thin, and a friend I lent them too cracked my 10,000 grit King.

The honey-do list is long, and sharpening the household knives is on that list. I keep telling the lady that I won't sharpen them unless she starts taking better care of them. Wash and dry after use, put away in the block... Instead I find dried up garlic superglued to the edge... all manner of things... just lying on the counter (at least I got her to stop laying them in the sink!). One time I went to put dishes away and I found the 8" Chef on edge resting against the business end of a box grater!
And she wonders why I won't sharpen them. SMH.

 

[highfigh]

The honey-do list is long, and sharpening the household knives is on that list. I keep telling the lady that I won't sharpen them unless she starts taking better care of them. Wash and dry after use, put away in the block... Instead I find dried up garlic superglued to the edge... all manner of things... just lying on the counter (at least I got her to stop laying them in the sink!). One time I went to put dishes away and I found the 8" Chef on edge resting against the business end of a box grater!
And she wonders why I won't sharpen them. SMH.

I was told the hole in knife handles is to allow running a cord through a bunch of them, then letting them drag on the pavement behind a bicycle- is that true?

Asking for a friend.

 

[Pogre]

I keep telling the lady that I won't sharpen them unless she starts taking better care of them. Wash and dry after use, put away in the block... Instead I find dried up garlic superglued to the edge... all manner of things... just lying on the counter (at least I got her to stop laying them in the sink!). One time I went to put dishes away and I found the 8" Chef on edge resting against the business end of a box grater!
And she wonders why I won't sharpen them. SMH

Omg. Are you secretly married to my wife?? I STILL can't get mine to respect my knives! Leaves them in the sink, the dried garlic chunks, the whole nine!

I keep the knives sharp because I have to use them, but I have gone on cooking strikes before. For real. She's frigging helpless for dinner if I don't cook it. That's our deal tho. I do all the cooking and she takes care of the dinner dishes. Which she does, except my knives! I won't let her put them in the dishwasher so she leaves them in the sink!

 

[Pogre]

I do have a set of kitchen knives too, in a butcher block. They're probably not as nice as yours, @ryanosaur, but they're decent and I use them a lot. On the rare occasion when she does put them away she can't even put them away in the right slots! They're even labeled!! Is it intentional? Like, do they look at the knife, then the block and think "Okay, the chef's knife goes in that slot, but that's what he prefers and helps keep him organized so I'll put it in the santoku slot, then I think I'll put this here slicer in the tomato/bagel knife slot. There, that should do it!"

That's pretty much my script for the occasions when I decide to say something about it. Oh it bugs me. You nailed that one Ryan, lol.

 

[ryanosaur]

I do have a set of kitchen knives too, in a butcher block. They're probably not as nice as yours, @ryanosaur, but they're decent and I use them a lot. On the rare occasion when she does put them away she can't even put them away in the right slots! They're even labeled!! Is it intentional? Like, do they look at the knife, then the block and think "Okay, the chef's knife goes in that slot, but that's what he prefers and helps keep him organized so I'll put it in the santoku slot, then I think I'll put this here slicer in the tomato/bagel knife slot. There, that should do it!"

That's pretty much my script for the occasions when I decide to say something about it. Oh it bugs me. You nailed that one Ryan, lol.

My home knives are a small set of Wustoffs my parents bought as a gift when I got married and moved out here to CA in '98. The Wustoff Santoku came a xmas or two later. The original set is still in service today with the Santoku having been co-opted into my kit for work and retired after getting about 1/2 way through the grantons through repeated sharpenings over the years.
My work knives are still packed in my kit and only come out if I have a special task.
Oh, I do have a "home" dexter fillet knife, too.

 

[TankTop5]

This is always in my pocket and gets a lot of work.

And this one goes hiking and camping. Their warranty is lifetime unconditional, if you cut it in half with a blowtorch they will replace it free.

Lifetime Warranty

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