Hi everyone...
Thanks a lot for your advice, seems like I opened a can of worms here with my request. I was doing some research but I couldn't find by myself an answer. Is not that I "hate" carbon, actually I like a lot how sharp it gets and how easy is to get it that sharp, but seems like I just cann't keep my knife clean (the tojiro) , I have to wipe it every time, and then dry it with another cloth, and sometimes even that way it gets rusty in a matter of hours, besides that very gritty finish makes it annoying. What I already did is to sand those tojiros but even that way they take a rusty finish, I don't mind on patinas, but this ones take a dirty look wich I don't like very much.
Maybe some other carbons don't take that ugly look, but so far my experience with carbons are the shirogamy tojiros (A gyuto, a nakiri and a santoku) since I use the santoku and nakiri to carve laquered duck, those ones are not that prone to get ugly, but the gyuto (That I bought just for the sake of giving a try to shirogami steel) that gets some prep action is the one getting troublesome, besides is too small (21 cm, and I'm used to 24 or 10" ).
But as I'm telling you, I got this one to have some experience with carbon and so far, not so good. If all carbon is that sensitive, they will not be my choice for serious line work (truth to be told is that they don't get that much action, BC I became the kind of chef that I hate... The one that gets in the kitchen, works a bit, gets a ton of phone calls, then goes to the office to fight with purveyors, partners, handymen, and that at the rush hour is expediting, and once the service is over I'm socializing with my customers, wich is not my favourite activity but is part of the trade, and at the end I don't spend that much time cooking or cutting).
At the end of the day the knife wont cut tons of produce or meat, but it will get some professional use and probably it's share of abuse.
The handle?... I have only experience with the yo handle and the d-shaped wa handle of the tojiros, and so far, I prefer the western handle on the mac than the "D handle" of the Tojiros, but I have zero experience with octogonal. Maybe next week I'll be in Chicago, and if so, I'll order the Konosuke HD wa gyuto, and just like BDL suggests, maybe I'll fool around with that one to see how I feel with that kind of handle, that way I'll get a more solid experience to decide on the new knife.
What I'll be doing with the new knife?... Basic prep, no cutting bones or hard stuff, and this knife is not because my Mac is not fullfiling my expectations, this new knife is just for the sake of experimenting with new stuff, I want to see what's the next level of sharpness in stainless steel,basically is someting that I don't need, is just something that I want.
I wanted to take advantage of my trip to the U.S. and get both knives to save the 35 bucks that costs the shipping to Mexico , but seems like the smart thing to do is to wait a bit. Anyway I'll still be checking on all your suggestions because I think that a "laser" is not the best knife to have in a professional kitchen, specially when there is a big chance that one of my fellow cooks take the knife while I go to the office or while I chat with a customer.
Thanks a lot to everyone for the imput, I'll check every suggestion that you made.
Luis
