Krishna,
There's always room for good, lightweight, high quality knives with good, usable geometry and good looks.
I've used carbon steel forever, and have no complaints about off taste. Furthermore I appreciate the toughness/strength ratio that enables carbon at a given hardness to sharpen more easily, hold an edge better, and be more easily maintained with a "honing steel" than a stainless knife of the same Rockwell hardness. (IMO a Rockwell number is more hype than information when it comes to culinary knives.)
The extent that steel plays a role in ultimate sharpness is pretty much limited by the regularity and ultimate size limitations of the particles in the matrix. As a matter of fact, "sharpness" is nothing more than edge width -- so there's nothing magic about carbon there.
Does any carbon steel have a future? It may well be an idea whose time has passed. Many Japanese manufacturers market san-mai construction with tool steel cores -- and often as lower level lines. These knives just don't have the cachet of powder steels or other exotics like Hitachi Aogami Super. Your brother's company has, so far, actually been fairly conservative in terms of materials innovation. But, I'm not sure this is the way to go -- since presumably you're looking at something along the lines of SKD tool steel or something similar -- all of which have been around around for a long time.
One problem is that from a technical standpoint you may not do much more than duplicate the Tojiro DP line. This raises a marketing problem. What can you offer to convince me to pay $200 for your knife when I can buy a Tojiro for $60?
Referring to your brother Corey's current product line: He's great with blade geometries -- no question about it. But there are some shortcomings in what's offered. The most glaring is the lack of chef's knives in the real pro length range of around 10". Size matters. Another is the lack of a boning knife. What makes a boning knife special, whether desosser, or garasuke, is a tip geometry which allows the cook to use the knife nearly perpendicular to the meat. Yet another, which you may not realize, is that the kullenschiffs (dimples) on the Phoenix chef's make it pretty much of a right-handed knife. That means the longest chef's you offer for left-handed cooks is an 8" Fusion. That's unacceptable if you really want to appeal to pros. Also, there may be a niche market for left-handed kullens. As far as I know no one makes them yet -- of course there may be a reason.
As good as carbon is in modern san-mai culinary knives like the Hiromoto AS line for example, the future is probably in stainless. The VG-10 market is fairly well saturated. I'd be looking at high-end strip steels like Uddeholm AEB-L, Sandvik 14C28N and Sandvik 13C26. They're great steel and the Rockwell hardness can be pushed over 60 (as a marketing point). So far those steels are still relatively unexploited except for the disposable razor blades they were designed to make and high end customs.
One smallish Japanese maker, Takayuki, manufactures AEB-L knives and I've heard good things. What may interest you and your brother is that even hardened to the 60ish level, they supposedly take a great edge very easily on India and Arkansas stones or ceramic "hones." It's all very well and good to sell a knife as the "sharpest ever," but when keeping it sharp require enormous effort or a very expensive set of stones it's not much good to the customer. It would be nice if manufacturers, including you and Corey, would put realistic sharpening and maintenance instructions on your websites -- including bevel angles; and either sell or recommend effective products.
Luck,
BDL
Last edited by boar_d_laze; 07-03-2008 at 11:58 AM.
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