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Planning my next set of knives - advice wanted

post #1 of 5
5/7/11 at 5:03am
Thread Starter 

hey guys

 

first off i gotta say i'm really impressed at the amount of knowledge on here. i'm dead chuffed to have stumbled onto this website. so i hope you don't mind if i ask your collective advice.

 

about me. okay, i'm a total newb when it comes to cutlery. i have a half decent set of Global knives right now, but i only recently started to learn to sharpen them properly. i'm not a professional chef so i don't have to spend hours doing repetitive cutting. but i do like to do things "properly" so i'm keen to learn all i can. my current knife collection feels like it's missing a couple of key knives - a slicer and a carver to start with. but instead of spending a couple of hundred quid on getting the global versions, i'm wondering about whether it might be better to stumble on with what i have while i'm learning sharpening and cutting skills, and save that cash to put towards a newer more exciting set of knives.

 

i've been looking around on the web at various knives, including:

 

Fujiwara FKM Stainless
Global Knives
Kai Shun Kaji knives
Kai Shun Premier Tim Mälzer Knives
Kasumi Damascus knives
Misono UX 10
Nenox
Togiharu
Tojiro "Flash" DP Damascus Series aka Senkou
Tojiro DP Cobalt Alloy Steel Series
Tojiro SD Molybdenum Vanadium Steel Series
Yoshikane hammer finished
 
I know that y'all professional chef types will have a mix of knives from a mixture of sources, but i'd prefer to stick to one type. cause that'll look nice. and i want a set of knives that looks nice as well as performing well. so i've been looking at what knives are available in the various sets verses which knives i like the most from my current global set, verses the knives i think i might want based on my own experience and also reading various threads with various advice that was offered to other newbs.
 
The set that i'm currently leaning towards is the Tojiro "Flash" DP Damascus Series aka Tojkiro Senkou knives.
 
The specific knives within this set i am thinking about purchasing include:
9cm Tojiro Senkou Paring Knife
13cm Tojiro Senkou Utility Knife
15cm Tojiro Senkou Boning Knife
16cm Tojiro Senkou Chef’s Knife
18cm Tojiro Senkou Chef’s Knife
21cm Tojiro Senkou Carving Knife
24cm Tojiro Senkou Bread Knife
24cm Tojiro Senkou Slicer Knife
*pics of each below.
 
Total cost for all these knives will run me approx £900. That's about $1500 of your USD. So what do you guys think? Am i missing anything i might later learn to want? Any horror stories about these knives i should be aware of? Anything not horrible but worth knowing about these knives? And gang for my buck elsewhere i should be looking at?
 
Any and all advice gratefully received! :)
 
 
 
 

 

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post #2 of 5
5/7/11 at 11:27pm

Hi Ruscal,

I haven't got any exerience with the tojiro's but i've heard some good reports about them.

 

Just wondering why you would want to have all these knives?

As far as chef's knives are concerned, I think a 16 cm chef's knife is too small, even a 18 cm is quite small. I would go for a 21 or 24 cm chef's knife.

 

Then maybe a paring knife, bread knife and boning knife. That makes it about half the amount of knives......

Life is too short to drink bad wine
---Anonymus---

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post #3 of 5
5/8/11 at 5:31am
Thread Starter 

Hey Butzy

 

thanks for the reply

 

this might sound odd but i'm looking for 8 knives cause my knife rack holds 8 knives. here's a pic of it with my current set of global knives. it has 8 sets of hidden magnets which are equal distances apart, so no matter how you put the knives onto the rack they always look tidy. i like tidy. i guess i am a little OCD about things like this. :) plus 8 is a lucky number, eh?

 

i take your point about the 16cm chef knife being too small. right now the biggest knife i have (excluding my bread knife) is a 16cm chefs knife. i added an 18cm into my list as something to grow into using as i develop my technique. but i take your point - i think i was being a little unadventurous there.

 

i've been watching through various videos this morning looking for info on the web about knife technique and it seems that the carving knife is another name for a slicer knife? is that right?

 

if i lose the carving knife and make the 18cm chef knife a 21cm chef knife then i think that leaves me with 7 good knives (i'd still keep the 16cm chef knife as a utility knife and kinda like a training wheel). looking at the Senkou range if i wanted an 8th knife to round the set off i guess i would choose the 70mm Peeling Knife.

 

so that would update the list to the following:

 

70mm Peeling Knife
90mm Paring Knife
130mm Paring Knife
150mm Boning Knife
160mm Chef Knife
210mm Chef Knife
240mm Bread Slicer
240mm Slicer

 

 

Is that getting better or worse?

 

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post #4 of 5
5/11/11 at 9:42pm

If you just care about the rack being full, why not buy 3 or 4 quality knives.

 

i.e

a 240mm gyuto, santoku,western style chef knife or cleaver (whatever you prefer)

a 3.5 in pairing knife

a bread knife

maybe a boning knife if you do fish.

a good honing steel.

 

Why don't you ditch the block, buy a wall mount magnet system and save yourself 400 quid? OR spend the extra 400 quid on the knives and get some serious top end Japanese steel with fewer knives. Having a 3 or 4 matching knives hanging on the wall looks super sexy AND you can see exactly what you are reaching for. Realistically, between a chef knife, a pairing knife and bread knife you have covered more than 90% of everyday uses.

 

My 2 cents, i'd hate to see someone drop a ton of cash on tools they probably won't use.


Edited by timtanguay - 5/11/11 at 9:59pm
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post #5 of 5
5/12/11 at 3:53am
Thread Starter 

hey tim

 

thanks for the advice. it's funny - the more threads i read about knives the more i'm seeing the same advice. and the more i feel like i'm going against the flow a bit.

 

i actually have a wall mounted magnet knife block at the moment. here's a pic of it with my current set of knives: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6634650/COOKING/Knife%20Rack%20small.jpg

 

i think maybe i need to experiment with some different brands to see what i like before i decide to buy a whole set. i'm not sure that there's any way of doing that without buying a few different brands of knives though....

 

so maybe i buy the 210mm tojiro senkou chefs knife. and maybe buy a 210mm Misono UX 10 chefs knife too to compare? and see what i do and don't like about each of them before moving forward?

 

 

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