Time to get a new knife - suggestions? - Page 2

You don't need to lap the 1.2K.  You can flatten it with 120# -- IIRC that's what I was using -- and just leave it at that.  80# might leave the surface a little coarse, or maybe not. 

Try not to make too big a deal about screen.  It's cheap enough that if your first choices don't work just as you hoped, you can buy your way into something better for less than the cost of a hot dog, soda and bag of chips from the stand outside the store.

BDL

Quote:

Originally Posted by vas38 

I'm glad to see others are making use of my thread as well, especially since I have been learning from the answers :).

 

I am about ready to pull the trigger on my first stone and the Mac knife. The problem is CKTG is sold out of the 1.2k and doesn't know when the shipment will arrive. Is the 1k (which is in stock) comparable or should I hold out on a stone until I can get the 1.2k?

 

I guess I could look elsewhere, but Mark has been very helpful and his prices are great.

Vas,

Glad to help :)

Hope you did not think I was hijacking your thread or anything, but it seems we have very similar questions, and like we both have found (and hopefully others who read this in the future) the answers are helpful to a wide audience.

I am also very curious what think and find after receiving and using the stones you decide on. I promise to do the same lol.

Maybe there will be some residual value to comparing results though I may end up going a slightly different route as I am now leaning towards keeping my 2K GS and ordering the 6K Arashiyama soon as funds allow.

I think there's a couple of us having similar questions.

I'm one of them :)

Been following this thread and a lot of different ones.

I find it quite interesting to see how everyone is getting fairly different knives and stones, based on fairly similar information!!!

All my stuff has been ordered and should have arrived yesterday at my dad's(but I ain't at there for another month)

Think it is a good plan if we keep each other updated about our experiences with the knives, sharpening (mis)adventures etc etc

For the life of me I can't see people coming out of culinary school (in debt) then going out and spending hundreds on knives. If your knife cost 25 or 125. if you use it correctly you will get same results. I have carbon steel knives with wood handles  which I got when I graduated cooking high school and thats over a half century ago , that I still use. I take care of them, don't loan them out, and keep each one in a separate sheath. Think the most expensive one cost me about 12.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chefedb 

For the life of me I can't see people coming out of culinary school (in debt) then going out and spending hundreds on knives. If your knife cost 25 or 125. if you use it correctly you will get same results. I have carbon steel knives with wood handles  which I got when I graduated cooking high school and thats over a half century ago , that I still use. I take care of them, don't loan them out, and keep each one in a separate sheath. Think the most expensive one cost me about 12.

Times and prices have changed.  Good luck finding high quality knives like the ones you bought so long ago for anywhere near those prices.

There's also a tremendous amount of "to each his own" in this.  I can only infer that since you're still using the same set after fifty years of professional use that you must not sharpen them very often and further infer that we have very different standards as to acceptable levels of sharpness.   No criticism intended, just saying we have different standards.

FWIW, I still have a couple or three thrity-five year old Sab carbons.  But, I've also had a lot of other knives or those particular Sabs would have been used up and thrown away years ago.

A Toyota Camry and a Mercedes E-550 convertible will both get you to the grocery store, but they are not the same cars.  Just so, there's no NEED to spend $250+ on a chef's to get a great knife.  For instance, you can still get T-I or K-Sab carbon for not much more than $100.  But it may be necessary to spend the big bucks to get the great knife you want.  And if you haven't used a really good, well sharpened, Japanese made knife (specifically excluding Shun and Global from "really good") you have no idea of what you're missing. 

At the end of the day, it's more about sharpness than anything else.  Good knives sharpen more easily, get sharper, stay sharper longer, and with less maintenance than crummy knives.  And good knives cost more.

BDL

I don't think that any of the people posting in this thread are straight out of culinary school......

As for me, I never attended one.....

My status says "i just like food" LennyD "at home cook" and Vas (the originater of this thread) "home cook"

Just a bunch of people that have used knives for a considerable time that have now decided they want to own better knives and do their own sharpening.

I've just bought some knives for myself. They are not going to be used in the lodge kitchen. They are my tools and toys!

I enjoy knives and especially sharp knives. Maybe weird, but that's the way it is.

And yes, I can still cook with an arbitrary knife. It doesn't influence my cooking skills, it just makes prepping a lot easier (and much more fun).

I must have been bitten by a weird bug. I'm actually looking forward to finding blunt knives in the lodge kitchen so I can go and sharpen them....

Hope it's not contagious

I have a few hobbies outside of cooking (music, golf, snowboarding...) and it's been my experience that when people are really passionate about things they can kind of get out there in left field a bit.  The comparison to music/high end audio, would probably be the best comparison.  I've seen people spend fortunes, buy ridiculously price wiring, rearrange their house and hang "wall treatments" all over the place, etc... to try to reach the pinnacle of perfect sound.  And I sense a little bit of that here when it comes to knives and sharpening.  And the arguments are the same:  "just because it's good enough for you doesn't mean it's good enough for me" - essentially.  I think the best thing folks can do is read & learn about the topics, get out and experience it, and then decide for yourself where you are comfortable with things like value, time and diminishing returns.  For me, I have zero interest in sharpening stones.  I don't have time, don't want to learn, don't see the need.  I do have a chef's choice with the "stropping disks" that I can pull out, plug in, and literally sharpen a knife in 10-15 seconds.  And it gets SHARP as far as I'm concerned.  This works for me, I like it.  Convienant and timely.

Oh- and with all hobbies, the most passionate people pretty much always hate the big box store and the big "name" stuff.  For example, I find the treatment of Global and Shun here almost identical to Bose and Polk for music folks.  Eerily similar.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by chefedb 

For the life of me I can't see people coming out of culinary school (in debt) then going out and spending hundreds on knives. If your knife cost 25 or 125. if you use it correctly you will get same results. I have carbon steel knives with wood handles  which I got when I graduated cooking high school and thats over a half century ago , that I still use. I take care of them, don't loan them out, and keep each one in a separate sheath. Think the most expensive one cost me about 12.

Welcome to CT, racineboxer- but don't you dare diss my tubes, cables or acoustic treatments!  Of course Bose richly deserves the bile heaped upon them.  Polk, not so much.  Shun is a special case- they bring really superb tech into a "ginsu level" mindset.  It's the same sort of cringe you get when your favorite "critic's darling" actress decides to take a $20 million paycheck to do a vampire flick...you're disappointed.  And of course you've settled into a forum dedicated to professional chefs.  We actually spend 60, 70, sometimes 100 hours a week with those knives in our hands.  So we're not really like the housewife that watches cable cooking shows and decide that we need RayRay's "Santooko".  Your tag says you're a "retired chef", so I'll regard you as if that's true (and you weren't just a team member at Chile's).  You're entitled to your opinion, and regrettably we don't have a forum geared for the "As Seen On TV" or "Samurai Shark" crowd.  Most of us here don't use our knives to unzip a bag of Sysco mashed potatoes or rip the lid off of a Stouffer's lasagne. And the sharpener on the back of your can opener doesn't cut it here.  Granted, a good chef can create good food and yet be ignorant of knives...but I've never seen a great chef that didn't understand the value of a quality blade.

This is probably sounding a little edgier than I mean it to, and for that I apologize.  But there are a few things I can easily tell you didn't do in you career just by your "Wal-Mart" idea of what sharp really is.

Phaedrus...  I'm kind of... put off by your last sentence.  But I'm going to get over it and not take it too personal.

First, I changed my tag for you.  I have 10 years cooking experience in a family restaurant and a hotel/restaurant.  Nothing too fancy, preparing meals from start to finish breakfast, lunch and dinner, but certainly much more than a "team member" at chile's.  I selected the tag I did, "retired chef", moreso based on the word "retired" rather than "chef".  Upon further consideration I'll just change it to "at home cook".  That said, I'm pretty passionate about cooking.

In general, I think your last comment about "wal-mart" sharp essentially proves my point in the comparison to audiophiles and their speakers.  At least to me it does :).

You think a chef's choice is comparable to some crappy Paula Dean "santooku" from wal-mart just like (this is a true story) some nutjob that I drove 2 hours to go to his house and listen to his speakers thinks a $500 pair of PSB speakers will give him a headache after 30 minutes.

But to play along, I'll ask, do you have much familiarity with chef's choice sharpeners?  I bought the XV model that sharpens to 15* and has the flexible polishing/stropping disk as the final stage.  I bought this based on BDL's recommendation from other threads.  While I'm sure it's not super sharp like right off your personal stone, I'm thinking it's pretty darn good for everyday use.  I believe that the stropping/polishing stage is roughly comparable to 3,000 JSI?  That's not too terrible is it?  Maybe not ideal for sushi but could get the average home cook around their kitchen well enough? 

One of the restaurants I worked at once had a Chef's Choice on the line for the house knives.  To be charitable it did make a completely dull knife sharper.  But it really scratches the bevel up, not that that makes a big difference.  I'm pretty dubious that if finishes to 3k grit, or at least that it finishes nicely at 3k.  Still, BDL is right- for someone who would otherwise not sharpen at all it's a decent tool.  Of course, I'm probably one of those "nutjobs" that gets a headache from the $500 PSBs.   Even at the computer I'm typing this from I've got Monitor Audio Gold Ref 10's connected (usb running to a Stereolink USB-DAC, Speltz Anti-Cable connecting that to an NAD C-320BEE integrated, feeding the speakers via DIY shotgun biwire cables).  I guess the point is I'm pretty rabid in regard to both hobbies.

At any rate, I apologize if I came off as an a$$.  Well, I am an a$$ most of the time but I try to keep it under wraps.  After a few glasses of wine I took your post the wrong way.  I'll play nice now.

I designed and manufactured high end audio cable (among other things) in the mid-eighties through mid-nineties.  My company was called Pure Logic.  Perhaps you've heard of it.

BDL

Wow, BDL- you've really lived a lot of different lives!

Great discussion. Phaedrus, I drive an old Mercedes but I wouldn't disparage the recent models, which I haven't tried, based on its shortcomings. After much research and introspection, I decided to buy the Chef's Choice XV too. My figuring went that I'd get 90% of the performance of the Edge Pro system with only 10% of the time (the $70 price difference was a minor issue); for a home cook, that just made more sense. Perhaps the ratio is off (80/20? seriously doubt it's 70/30) but there are no good comparisons anywhere that I can find. Don't have you guys experience but it seems like I'm getting more than WallyWorld performance from my knives. But the inner-geek in me wonders if I can improve performance with a high-quality honing rod or other apres-machine finishing. If somebody shows some detailed real world testing that the XV is significantly inferior to an Edge Pro system, I'll Ebay the unit and make the switch. From what I can tell, stones are more like the last 2-3% of performance that won't matter to folks like me.

BTW I'm not an audiophile but if you want to geek out we can talk photography ;-)

It's hard to put a precise ratio on the performance of the Chef's Choice vs an EP (or plain water stone sharpening by hand, done skillfully).  Pushed to assign a figure I'd say the Chef's Choice gets you to somewhere between 25% to 40% of what you'd be get on stones.  If you use an EP Apex with the OEM stones that come with the unit, and just follow the factory angles already on the knife, then maybe the Chef's Choice might get you 40% as sharp.  If you practice a lot with the Apex and learn to modify the geometry of the knife to suit your purpose, and add aftermarket stones like the Shaptons and the Choceras,well...the performance of that edge will be breathtaking, probably beyond anything you've ever experienced.  No preset electric wheel sharpener can even approximate that type of performance.  However, that presupposes you have a knife capable of taking that kind of an edge, and that knife will probably be Japanese, or maybe a high performance carbon steel blade like a vintage Sab.

I haven't used the very newest version of the Chef's Choice, but I suspect even ten versions from now it will still suffer from the same shortcomings.  In part it's because those shortcomings constitute the main advantage of the unit:  Simplicity.  Slot-type, wheel-powered disc sharpeners like that are made to be simple.  Generally there's only one sharpening angle or a very limited range of angles; this prevents confusion over the machine's correct use.  They will also by necessity have a very limited selection of abrasive media.  I think the new CC has 2 different materials, a ceramic or diamond disc and some type of stropping disc.  The designer of the machine compromised and selected an angle and style of cutting disc that would be acceptable to a broad range of steels and knife types.  Of course it stands to reason that by being adequate for most it may be ideal for none.  Would you put the same angle on a fillet knife as you would a meat cleaver?  Probably not.

The Edge Pro is a very interesting system in great part because it's barely a system at all.  It's really hand sharpening with an "edge", if you will.  All it does is maintains a consistent, unwaveringly accurate angle between a water stone and the edge of the knife.  Beyond that you're doing all the work.  For the most part, the "brain" of the Chef's Choice system is in the device itself.  The EP has no brain- you're required to use your own.  You must determine the correct angle, the proper stones to use, how much time is spent on each stone and when it's time to move to the next.  You must recognize the formation of the burr or, once you've reached the "Dark Lord of the Swarf" stage, the point where another stroke will create one.  The EP is like chess:  It's relatively simple to learn the rules to the point where you can play a game (get a good edge) but a lifetime could be spent adding to one's understanding of and mastery of it's nuances.  In that sense it truly is hand sharpening.  The Apex just steadies your hand.

For me the performance gulf between mediocre cutlery and edges and high end ones is a huge, yawning chasm.  Of course, I'm not only a culinary pro, I'm a knife geek.  Photography is a good analogy.  Back in HS I did photography for the yearbook, but I'm by no means an expert.  If I had more money I'd probably get a nicer camera than the higher end point-and-shoot I now use.  But I don't have enough use for one to drop a grand nor am I skilled enough with one to be able to fully utilize a $5k camera if you handed one to me.  The Chef's Choice is a Canon Powershot camera to the Edge Pro's Leica M3.  I know enough to know the Leica is much better but not enough to do anything about it.  The same may go with cooks who've never experienced higher performance knives sharpened on good quality water stones.  And like with photography the added performance will probably be trivialized by those who don't "get it" and overstated by those who live for wringing that last iota of performance out of their tools.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alpncook From what I can tell, stones are more like the last 2-3% of performance that won't matter to folks like me.

Just to clarify, it's a lot more than than 2-3%, but you're right- it may not matter to you.  And that's absolutely okay.  Just as I'm not into designer clothes or expensive cameras most normal people don't spend 20 hours a week reading about and discussing knives on the 'net.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phaedrus 

One of the restaurants I worked at once had a Chef's Choice on the line for the house knives.  To be charitable it did make a completely dull knife sharper.  But it really scratches the bevel up, not that that makes a big difference.  I'm pretty dubious that if finishes to 3k grit, or at least that it finishes nicely at 3k.  Still, BDL is right- for someone who would otherwise not sharpen at all it's a decent tool.  Of course, I'm probably one of those "nutjobs" that gets a headache from the $500 PSBs.   Even at the computer I'm typing this from I've got Monitor Audio Gold Ref 10's connected (usb running to a Stereolink USB-DAC, Speltz Anti-Cable connecting that to an NAD C-320BEE integrated, feeding the speakers via DIY shotgun biwire cables).  I guess the point is I'm pretty rabid in regard to both hobbies.

 

At any rate, I apologize if I came off as an a$$.  Well, I am an a$$ most of the time but I try to keep it under wraps.  After a few glasses of wine I took your post the wrong way.  I'll play nice now.

Ahhhh, fun stuff!!!

All's good.  I won't chew up more board space with audio geek talk, we could go to AVS for that (at least that's where I go).

All's good bro.

I'm a member of AVS but I don't go there a lot lately since I consider more of a video site and I'm pretty well set there.  My main audio hangouts are Audiocircle & Audioholics (I'm actually a moderator at both of them), although I'm also a member of several other boards including Audiokarma & AudioNervosa..

I'm a member at audiocircle and audioholics too.  I liked AVS the best because I ended up meeting and hanging out with about 6-7 guys from there on a bunch of occasions.  If you ever saw pictures or reviews from "SE Wisconsin" shootouts, subwoofer GTG's, etc... I was probably at those (from the past couple years anyways).  I've been slowing down on the A/V stuff lately though because I'm not in a shopping mode (for that stuff).

Another one?  What is with you Wisconsin guys!  You're everywhere!

Quote:

Originally Posted by chefedb 

For the life of me I can't see people coming out of culinary school (in debt) then going out and spending hundreds on knives. If your knife cost 25 or 125. if you use it correctly you will get same results. I have carbon steel knives with wood handles  which I got when I graduated cooking high school and thats over a half century ago , that I still use. I take care of them, don't loan them out, and keep each one in a separate sheath. Think the most expensive one cost me about 12.

I wanted to comment on this because I am a value driven type buyer, agree with much of what your saying, but also from just being observant of my surroundings during my time living I think your missing the value in many of these knives (the sub $300 range at least).

Please hear me out before thinking I am nuts (well actually may be a little anyhow, but that just helps to accept part of the point I am going to make. Also I apologize if this is too much or too political for anyone.

I feel a good quality knife from a country with above average living standards that actually pays their employees making their products enough to eat at a McDonalds here in the US for lunch everyday (sorry China, India, and all those many eastern countries I do not really know much of as your not included due to wages and conditions our felony level inmates do not have to endure) is a bargain under $200, and an extreme value under $100, but also less expensive after adjustments than those $12 knives you purchased in the 60's.

Just a quick comparison makes it obvious sine the Cadillac you could have purchased in the 60's brand new for approx $3,000 USD is now $50,000 USD and rising it is obvious that paying $80 for a quality Japanese made entry level knife is a sweet deal (just what I did) and getting an even higher end one between $100-$200 is just as sweet.

plus the sub $100 ones are a better bargain after adjustment than the $12 one purchased in the 60's compared to the Caddy.

Wont get into this too much because much as it is important to all of our futures most people just get all pissy with me when I bring this up. Cant say if it is cause it makes it harder to just continue on wearing the blinders of denial, but then who knows.

Where I am headed is that once this was a really wealthy country, or better said a country with a really wealthy working class. It was by most beliefs driven by desire to improve and excel but also by lots of hard work, long hours, and creative thinking. I think most would agree that many working class families prospered during the height of US based manufacturing as wealth increased.

This allowed a lot of luxury's that just are not valued the same today. Pick your poison but everything from stay at home moms being the norm to various employer paid benefits and retirement pensions. For our younger viewers Yes your employer at many if not most jobs offered some kind of a pension in the past, and it was not funded in majority by your money and not risked in some mutual fund in the stock market.

A younger friend just asked me the other day what ever happened to that (after discussing how people lived without all the tech items we have today) and I told her our politicians traded it for cheap poorly made products from third world nations that a much poorer working class can afford.

I know I do not explain this best and that makes it difficult to make my point here, but basically when we sent our manufacturing and better paying jobs overseas our wealth went with it, well that is not completely true as much of it comes back through profits to US based corporations, but it does not trickle down to the workers as the idea was to reduce the cost of paying them in the first place.

So why do we pay what seems to be big dollars to Japanese knife manufacturers? I think that we don't as we have seen already that with adjustments ChefDB favorite knives would cost much more than my $80 Fujiwara with adjustments, but what about $12 knives today that can be had from China and the sort? I think we have to consider that after WWII the US paid out countless millions in tax payer dollars to help rebuild the damage done etc (similar for Germany and others as well) but what few failed to notice was that it was not the taxpayer that saw any benefit from this, but rather it was the corporations (many US) that were able to take advantage of the influx of quality Japanese products (everything from electronics to autos etc) by using these items to replace products made in the US by higher paid workers.

Combine this with what many call the "30 corporate plan to overtake American markets" that various Japanese companies were involved with and was also backed by their government  (some believe that US corps were in it as well, but too long for here) was so successful in destroying our MFG and markets that it screwed up their economy as much if not more today than our very own. I know that is no comfort, but just think that this was so bad that the US Navy had to petition the DOD to make adjustments to procurement because many of the bearings and related industrial parts used to maintain our nuclear subs were no longer made in the US, and had to be sourced from Japan. Yes these pressures and purchases of our companies by foreign ones that pretty much put them out of business had left them unable to source parts domestically.

Now throw in China and how obvious our legislators are with discussing the problems they created there borrowing and what not, and not only are these knives a bargain at these prices, but were lucky we can still afford to buy anything outside of a third world nation anymore, and the future is not looking rosy.

Sorry for the rant, but I did manage to avoid getting too deep or discussing property taxes here going from a few hundred a year back then to an average of well over $10K.

Yes these knives are a bargain now arent they :)

PS. No I was not old enough to know all of that first hand, but it seems easy to find the information.

PSS I also agree it is the hand holding the knife that makes things happen, and I learned this during a short time spent as a cook in an Italian ristorante years back, but you can not ignore that no matter if your a top handler or someone who should order out it is still a better experience with a properly designed and sharpened knife.

Quote:

Originally Posted by boar_d_laze 

I designed and manufactured high end audio cable (among other things) in the mid-eighties through mid-nineties.  My company was called Pure Logic.  Perhaps you've heard of it.

 

BDL

I am being totally serious (well almost lol) maybe it would be easier if you just make a short list of the things you do not do :D

I agree with this, and understand 100%

One thing to add though is that some people no matter if they can actually afford a C230 even will not sleep without one or another car priced out of their needs, and I know plenty with the ability to pay cash for a 600AMG that refuse to even buy a new car.

It all gets you there, but what makes life so much fun or even interesting is all the different ways we seem to find our way there.

Then there are those like myself that specifically choose where to "go nuts" and where to "over shop" things.

I personally did not see the need to buy a $300 chefs knife anymore than a 100K mercedes, but have spent more than I have into J knives on a night out (by many times) there are some things you can not replace or go back and do again (good times, time with family etc), and others that you just need to get by with even if you do indulge a bit.

IMHO :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by vas38 

  

Also, I'm a DIY speaker builder ;).

 

 

 Usher DIY from parts express for the win!  :)

I love the way this thread has morphed into a high end audio tweak discussion!  Thanks for bringing back the memories, racineboxer!  In a former life I used to design and install high-end mobile systems and would spend countless hours with customers debating the differences between Focal silk dome tweeters and Canton metal dome tweeters.  Basically it all came down to the same thing expressed here.  To each his own.  (FWIW, the silk domes were smoother sounding, but the metal dome's brightness was more popular with older listeners who's high frequency hearing was deteriorated.)

I was planning on updating my collection of Wusties to something from Japan, but after reading this and many other threads, I'm going to hold off until I improve my sharpening skills.  I'd hate to invest in nice knives and never realize anything close to their full potential because I don't know how to maintain them.