Knife rating

Viking has been expanding into related market in past years. Most know them for there great ranges but in past years they have introduced cookware, knives, kitchen tools and even blenders. All of there products are high quality. The cookware rivals anything that I have seen from All-Chad. I had the opportunity to try their knives at the Chicago Houseware Show this year and they have a great feel in the hand as well as an extremely sharp blade. My only question is how well does that edge hold up. Wusthof and Henckels are always safe bets for their blade construction.

The edge holding up would depend on a few things. Some knives are tempered to a lower Rockwell hardness than others. This is good to make it easier to sharpen, the down side is you will need to sharpen it more often. Also the angle the knife is sharpened at. All forged knives have flat ground edges (the natural taper of the blade from spine to edge) is ground to a sharp edge by just barely shaving of the steel to provide the cutting edge. German style chef's knives will come sharpened with about a 20 degree angle. This is a very sturdy angle and excellent sharpness. I have not used a Viking knife, but as long as the it is all High carbon stainless steel witha Rockwell hardness in the mid 50's it will hold an edge very well.

I have always felt that the most important factor in selecting a new knife is balance. Messermiester, Henckel, Wusthof, and any other regular German style blade will have approx. same angle on the edge, be so close on Rockwell Hardness, and be 100% stainless steel. They will sharpen and hold an edge with little if any noticable difference.

Also there are sometimes little differences in the shape of the blade. The curve of the edge might be a bit different.
If you are settled on buying a 100% high carbon stainless steel German stlye chef's knife. It comes down to three things, I put in this order.
- Balance, grip, how it feels when I rock it back and forth on a board
- price
- appearance (hey your gonna live with it)
One other tip- if you hold the hanlde loose in you hand and tap it on a counter. A higher pitch usually means a higher quality of steel.