Favorite Cutlery

[Dave the Cook]

Wusthof Classic 10" chef's knife...weighed in at 10.3 ounces just now, though it probably weighed more when I got it a decade or so ago.

nearly new Wusthof Classic 10" cook's knife...came in at 9 3/4 oz. Are they starting to skimp on the steel?

For purposes of comparison, my 10" Henckel (made c. 1979) is 9-3/4 ounces.

[Fat Guy]

Probably some variation in our measuring devices. I can't find technical specifications from Wusthof, unfortunately. Note also if you want a heavier Wusthof you can get the wide 10" chef's knife.

Here's the regular 10":

Here's the wide 10":

[pjs]

Steven, your stone looks identical to the King 1200 I have. I would be glad to lend you my King 6000 if you want to try taking it further before buying. I know exactly what you mean when you say they're the sharpest of anyone I know. Amazing what a little research can do.

nickn, that clam treatment sounds like it would work. Lately I've been throwing mine in the freezer for about 5 minutes to facilitate opening. All the credit for this trick goes to Lidia B.

project, Rockwell is a measure of hardness. Japanese woodworking tools are currently pushing 67. They are most likely laminated--hard center, softer outside to make sharpening easier. While harder steels hold an edge better, they are more difficult to sharpen and more brittle.

I've no experience with the diamond stones but I've read of a well-known sharpening expert who tried to true-up the suface of his diamond stone and ruined the thing. He now uses them only for initial cleaning up of the edge. His name is Brian Burns and I learned more from him than any other source. Try a google search.

As far as jigs go, unless it was made specifically to fit the profile of the knife I don't think they work. Practice freehand on something disposable. Just remember to increase the edge angle slightly as you go up in grits.

PJ

[Fat Guy]

The stone I have is the model Y980 1200 grit stone from JB Prince. This is in very wide use among New York area professional chefs, many of whom shop at Prince. I believe the actual manufacturer is Sun Tiger. It's the middle stone on this page:

http://www.jbprince.com/product.asp?3=2503

I should probably pick up the 6000 grit Y981 too, huh? Or maybe the Y979 1000/6000 grit combination stone.

[project]

  Fat Guy:

 

  Thanks for the pictures of the two Wustoff's. My eyeballs and

  knuckles execute conspiracy and collusion conclude that the

  wide model would be much more desirable.

 

  Good that you found the picture of the wide Wustoff: So far

  in my Internet shopping, I came up very short on detailed

  information -- detailed photographs, weight, distance from

  bottom of handle to cutting surface, angle of the edge,

  Rockwell hardness of the edge metal -- and heard about the

  Wustoff wide but didn't see one.

 

  Your Wustoff is the narrow one?

 

  PJS:

 

  Your advice on doing the last of the sharpening with a

  slightly larger angle seems like a good idea.

 

  Your remark that a jig needs to be made specifically for the

  profile of the knife is what I feared.

 

  So, to investigate the subject, did a little trigonometry and

  solid geometry. What I found is somewhat encouraging.

 

  Basically, for some first-cut candidate jig geometry,

  sharpening on the curves promises to get the angle larger but

  by no more than one or two degrees. If we are a little

  careful, then we may be able to keep the angle accurate to 1/2

  degree, a little more careful, 1/4 degree in principle.

  Details below.

 

  Trig: Let plane P be the plane that bisects the edge of the

  knife. Intuitively, if we think of the knife as very thin,

  then plane P is the plane of the blade.

 

  Pick a 3D coordinate system (axes mutually perpendicular as

  usual):

 

  axis 3

 

  |

  z | \ line t

  | \

  | \

  | angle beta \ y

  origin +-------------------------------\----------- axis 2

  / \

  / \

  / \

  \

  axis 1

 

  Pick a point y on axis 2 about 5' from the origin. Place the

  knife so that its plane P is coincident with the plane

  (horizontal) of axes 1 and 2 and so that the point to be

  sharpened is at point y. At point y, the sharp edge is

  pointing away from the origin.

 

  At point y, draw line t in the horizontal plane and tangent to

  the edge of the knife at y. Let beta be the angle (less than

  or equal to 90 degrees) between the line t and axis 2. We

  will want angle beta to be 90 degrees or close. The figure

  has angle beta at maybe 60 degrees.

 

  Pick a point z on vertical axis 3. So, first-cut, where

  should point z be? Well, hmm, to jump ahead a little, if we

  want an edge angle of 15 degrees, and point y is 60" from the

  origin, then point z should be z = 60*tan(15) inches (where

  the tangent function as argument in degrees). So, with my

  trusty dusty old HP-15, z = 16.08"

 

  So, let alpha be the acute angle at point y between axis 2 and

  a line from point y to point z.

 

  With angle beta 90 degrees, to sharpen the knife with a 15

  degree angle, we want angle alpha to be 15 degrees. In this

  case, tan(15) = z/y.

 

  So, take a pass by Home Depot and get a stiff rod of some kind

  (cross section round, square, L-shaped, something or other)

  about 6' long. At one end mount a flat sharpening stone, long

  axis of stone parallel to the long axis of the rod, and

  cutting surface of the stone parallel to the long axis of the

  rod. Rest the other end of the rod on some slot or grove at

  point z (to be more accurate, point z plus the thickness of

  the sharpening stone).

 

  Then, with angle beta 90 degrees, the stone will give angle 15

  degrees at point y.

 

  But, due to the curve of the knife edge, angle beta can vary,

  by maybe 30 degrees. So, as angle beta varies, what angle of

  sharpening do we get?

 

  Let delta be the angle we do get. Hold angle alpha at, say,

  15 degrees.

 

  Then, some trigonometry shows that

 

  delta = arctan( tan(alpha)/sin(beta) )

 

  Then, write a little software, check with trusty dusty HP-15,

  and get

 

  alpha = 15 (degrees)

 

  beta delta

  (degrees) (degrees)

  --------- ---------

  90 15.00

  85 15.05

  80 15.22

  75 15.50

  70 15.92

  65 16.47

  60 17.19

  55 18.11

  50 19.28

  45 20.75

  40 22.63

  35 25.04

  30 28.19

 

  So, the good news is, if the curve of the blade gives us angle

  beta of 70 degrees, that is, 20 degrees off 90 degrees, then

  we get sharpening angle of 15.92 degrees instead of 15

  degrees. So, we are off by a little less than 1 degree.

 

  If the curve of the sharp edge turns, say, 30 degrees total

  from the bolster to the tip, then we should be able to clamp

  the knife so that beta is never over 15 degrees, and (as long

  as the knife is small compared with the 5') the result will be

  sharpening angle delta between 15 degrees and 15.50 degrees.

  So, we are off by at most 1/2 degree. If we set alpha at

  14.75 degrees, then we should get all our angles within about

  1/4 degree of 15 degrees.

 

  My father, uncle, grandfather had sharpening stones, so I grew

  up with Arkansas stones mentioned in awe and still have some.

  I did a lot of blade sharpening as a child -- shop, lawn and

  garden, but not much kitchen -- wore out a lot of stones from

  Sears, etc.

 

  On using a diamond stone, the DMT Web site says to use only

  water with the stone. I believe that they would advise never

  to try to grind the stone flat. And, FG, don't need, really

  can't use, whale oil.

 

  Sounds to me from

 

  George Tichbourne

 

  http://www.tichbourneknives.com/

 

  and his use of a DMT bench stone, that the DMT diamond

  'stones' are terrific but not to be used exactly like the

  older stones. Also, apparently he uses only 600 grit. So,

  going past 1000 grit would seem to be going for something to

  shave with.

 

  But I'm still looking for sources of strops and stropping

  compound or paste.

 

  The next issue for me is to convert the simple geometry above

  to something promising for practice. My current thinking has

  me go to my shop, clamp the knife by the handle (using

  something that will hold the knife firmly but not hurt the

  handle) vertically, and have a diamond stone mounted on a rod.

  For the other end of the rod, have two groves (slots, holes),

  one for each side of the blade. So, a little trigonometry, a

  few measurements, a little crude carpentry, one or two pieces

  of, say, aluminum angle from Home Depot, one or two diamond

  stones, and it might work well enough.

 

  Note: These thoughts are all experimental. Working with

  knives can be DANGEROUS. Use these thoughts at your own risk.

 

  Next I'm looking for a knife.

 

  Maybe a Wustoff 10" wide blade. Would like to know the

  Rockwell C hardness figure, etc.

 

  Yes, I knew that Rockwell is a measure of metal hardness. I

  have yet to find a reference that higher number mean harder

  metal but assume that it does.

 

  Thanks for your point that some Japanese tools are Rockwell

  67.

[ChefHDAN]

I have to replace the henckel. My knuckles are starting to scrape the cutting board. I guess over the years I've taken a bit off from sharpening and wear.

This is my biggest complaint with Henckels, they seem to evaporate in the professional kitchen. I think they are a fine knife for the home, but for the same money, why not buy a better knife??

And yes I'm talking about the newer blades and not the 15 year plus blades which seem to be very high quality.

[Fat Guy]

Project, yes I have the regular Wusthof 10" chef's knife. It's already wider than most chef's knives and is about as heavy a knife as I think I'd want to work with when performing repetitive tasks. The 10" wide model is quite a lot of knife. I'm more tempted by the 8" wide as something to round out my collection. It's an 8" knife with the heft and width of a 10", basically. So you get superior leverage when doing fine work close to the tip of the blade but you get a knife that behaves like a 10" in other respects (except that it isn't as long).

The Wusthof Web site, if you follow the links enough levels down, has photos of every piece in each collection. It's hard to give direct links because it's a frames site, but when you go into the collections you just need to click the little gray arrows at the top left of the main frame in order to see everything. In addition to that there's a good buyer's guide in pdf format, though you need to do a lot of zooming and panning to read it.

You will also find, if you direct yourself to the German site (which you can view in English), that the data are more elaborate, though still incomplete. I have to guess they're trying to make it harder for people to copy their knives, but maybe you can e-mail for whatever information you want.

Here's some basic information on the Rockwell scale:

http://www.swingweight.com/rockwell_scale.htm

Regarding the sharpening angle, this is probably one of those situations where just learning to do it by feel is the most effective thing. Listening to the sound your knife makes when you sharpen it is key. This will help you know you're maintaining speed and angle. Also important is the use of guiding fingers on the blade -- sharpening is a two-handed operation for me. You can maintain some pretty accurate angles just by practicing and using all the visual, auditory, and tactile clues the process has to offer.

May I suggest, however, that a sharpening discussion is not well served by being buried on this thread? It should be its own thread, or we should be adding it to one of the several sharpening threads we've already had on this site.

[project]

  Shopping on the Internet, see the Wusthoff has three

  chef's knives that look promising to me:

 

  10" Classic Black Wide

 

  12" Classic Black Heavy

 

  14" Classic Black Heavy

 

  For example, can find these at

 

  http://wusthof.knivesandtools.com/en/ct/wu...lassic-chef.htm

 

  From the pictures, both the "Wide" and "Heavy"

  models do seem to have more space under handle for

  knuckles.

 

  Thing is, Wusthoff may like these more than I do:

  Apparently the 12" goes for about 190 US$ and the

  14", 250 US$.

 

  My main reason to buy one of these is to improve on

  my Sabatier, especially in how long the thing holds

  an edge, and, without some really solid information

  that their metal really is better, tough just to

  rush out and grab.

[Fat Guy]

There is a discussion of the Wusthof X 50 Cr Mo 15 steel alloy on the German site. Then again the details of production are also no doubt important.

Speaking of alloys, I've often been tempted by the very high carbon stainless steel Chef's Choice knives. Does anybody have experience with these?

[project]

  Fat Guy:

 

  I've done a lot of sharpening by manual methods, feel, etc.

  It works.

 

  My interest this time in a jig is just to make progress on (1)

  just what angle I am getting and, then, from use of that

  angle, (2) just what angle I want. That is, some people

  recommend 15 degrees, some 17, some 20, and with just manual

  methods and without an accurate jig there is no good way for

  me to achieve or know I have 15 or 17.

 

  On the Rockwell hardness scales, found a paper at the NIST

  that explained in detail. And, yes, a higher number means a

  harder material. The Rockwell C scale formula runs up to 100,

  but doing any measurements above about 70 are chancy. And, 70

  is fairly high, up in the range of some carbides, etc.

 

  It was George Tichbourne's remarks that got me thinking about

  hard knives and diamond sharpening stones: With diamond

  stones, I can sharpen a really hard knife, and with a hard

  knife I can hope to keep a sharp edge longer.

 

  If Wusthoff is making their metal to be "easy to sharpen" by

  just any common means, e.g., a steel rod with groves, then I

  suspect their steel is softer than I would want.

 

  E.g., Tichbourne claims that his metal is harder than most

  files or steel rods.

 

  I'll try the Wusthoff factory Web site.

[Huevos del Toro]

These Portuguese knives sold by PCD seem good, and there's a Web clearance on the 12" chef's knife right now.

FG;

I just received the 12-inch chef's knife from PCD. It's a hefty bugger at 418 grams (14 3/4 oz.). From the knife: ICEL (Edge Resources, Inc.) made in Portugal.

For $67.49 USD (includes shipping) it looks to be a heck of a deal. Time will tell, but the balance feels good. Item #ed271741530

Edited to add URL: Edge Resources www.edgeresources.com/mainframe.html

You can purchase on-line from them.

Although I haven't had the opportunity to really test the ICEL, first impressions are good. I like the balance, weight and handle. It was suitably sharp from the factory. I expect this will take over my heavier chopping chores. If I find anything about it that isn't now apparent I'll post.

[Fat Guy]

Thanks very much for following up.

[pjs]

The Wusthof 8" wide sounds like the answer to my dreams. My current tool of choice is a 15 year-old 8" Henckels. Though it's not been sharpened down anywhere near to uselessness and holds an edge well, I'm tired of banging my knuckles.

PJ

[haunted_chef]

I have several Messermeisters in my draw, they're are sharp too. Just ask my fingers...and yes they hold an edge very well.

They are not extremely expensive either.

john

[Niall]

Although I haven't had the opportunity to really test the ICEL, first impressions are good. I like the balance, weight and handle. It was suitably sharp from the factory. I expect this will take over my heavier chopping chores. If I find anything about it that isn't now apparent I'll post.

I've been using an Icel 10" for about two years now; I like the feel and weight of it. My other half has a 4 year old Mundial 10", and the Icel holds it's edge for much longer, although both get the same treatment. The Mundial will need to be replaced soon; the rivets are starting to protrude from the handle; maybe time to get a Wusthoff.

[Huevos del Toro]

Hehehe, sorry about the pun.

Specialty Knife: Also taking reccommendations for a really good bread knife.

Ben

I bought the Forschner Victorinox 10-inch bread knife on the advice of a Cooks Illustrated test. At under $40USD it's a bargain and extremely useful. I'm slowly losing my bias against stamped blades, although I still prefer a forged blade for the weight and balance during chopping chores.

[ChefJeff]

Does anyone have experience with Kasumi ? I'm considering adding their 7" Santuko knife to my collection. A bit pricey, is it worth it ?

[ChefJeff]

FYI - got this question answered at FoodTV. Just in case anyone else was curious.....

_____________________________________

Jamie Oliver's MAC knife

The knife that Jamie Oliver is using on "Oliver Twist" is a MAC knife,

MBK-110 Mighty Chef's 11". He will also be using all MAC knives in his upcoming "Happy Days with the Naked Chef" tour of the US that starts Oct.21.

MAC knives are also used on "Kitchen Session with Charlie Trotter", "Taste of Napa with Joey Altman", and the upcoming "Hawaii Cooks" with Roy Yamaguchi.

MAC knives are endorsed by Thomas Keller (French Laundry), Charlie Trotter (Charlie Trotter's), Daniel Boulud (Daniel's), Hubert Keller (Fleur de Lys), Nobu Matsuhisa (Nobu's), and the late Jean-Louis Palladin.

Everyone has an opinion on the best knife, but there is a reason why all these great Chefs use and endorse MAC knives even though they are constantly solicated by every knife manufacturer. MAC knives are simply the best--just ask anyone who has ever used one.

Harold

MAC Knife, Inc.

[Human Bean]

[i'm not a shill for MAC knives.]

I have some MAC's that are almost 30 years old, and they're my favorites, but they're probably not for everybody.

They're stamped, not forged, so they're thinner and much more flexible than the euro knives. They are also made from a rather hard steel (comparable to Global, I expect) so they keep their edge very well. Given that, they'd probably be 'hard to sharpen' - I've never had that problem (Edge Pro, if that means anything to you).

Like the Globals, the edge is completely flat, so you can't rock them for chopping. I use my cleaver for that (cost ~8 dollars 20 years ago, stainless, and kicks butt for prep, but isn't ergonomic enough if I were a pro and had to spend many hours doing prep).

Dunno why those 'name' chefs are pimping them, but they are very good knives, and recommended if they fit your needs.

[sashae]

Has anyone had any experience with Furi Technics knives? They're Australian, and appear similar to Globals in design..

http://www.furitechnics.com.au/

The 23cm EastWest knife looks particularly nice...

http://www.furitechnics.com.au/FuriPro/Kni...stwestLarge.htm

My two favorite knives are a 12" Global chef's, and a 9.5" Misono hollow-ground slicer that my wife's family got for me in Japan, engraved with my name on the tang. The hollow grind is fantastic for very, very thin slicing (I prefer it to my Kyocera ceramics, although the ceramics are nice as well) and the knife in general is just fantastically well balanced.

On this subject, does anyone have any good recommendations for knife *storage*? I currently have a 6 slot block, with the Kyoceras being stored in their original boxes, and the Misono stored in a Messermeister plastic sleeve, with numerous other knives in drawers, etc. I could use a larger block, but if there's a particular commendable one i'd love to hear about it.

[Human Bean]

On this subject, does anyone have any good recommendations for knife *storage*?

I don't have any blocks, but I use a zero-cost method for storage of seldom-used knives that mostly live in a drawer with other junk.

Take a piece of corrugated cardboard, and cut it to fit the shape of the blade, more-or-less. Then, slit it through the corrogations to make a sheath (One piece, don't cut it into two). Keep the knife in it, secured with a rubber band or two. It can then be kept in a drawer without worries. You can also do the same truc with regular cardboard folded, cut, and rubber-banded.

The knives that actually get used around here (cleaver, slicer, and parer) live in the plastic dish drainer.

[Fat Guy]

I have one of those butcher-block miniature islands that has a built in knife block hanging off one end. It comfortably holds my five most frequently used knives. The rest of my good knives go in a drawer in their sheaths (I keep the manufacturers' cardboard or plastic sheaths so I don't need to make my own, though I would if I needed to) and the crummy knives just get tossed loose into the flatware drawer.

I'm constantly fighting a battle to keep my kitchen countertops clear. One of the most common ergonomics failures in home kitchens is cluttering up the counters with jars, small appliances, knife blocks, etc., so that there's no actual space to spread out and work. So if you can accommodate something that's wall- or under-cabinet-mounted, I think it's better than having a freestanding knife block on the counter.

[BettyK]

Fat Guy,

What brand are knives 11 and 12? Could you please comment on them. I'm used to my old Chicago Cutlery which is without bolster. I find the CC easier to sharpen than the Wusthof which is with bolster.

In fact I haven't even tried to use the Wusthof as I'm afraid to ruin it.

[JC]

Here's another maker to tempt y'all: http://www.tichbourneknives.com/kitchen.htm

His name is George Tichbourne and many people on another knife forum commend his knives highly.

[Ron Johnson]

I have a magnetic strip that is screwed to the wall above the countertop but below the overhead cabinets. It comfortably holds all my blades in a nice row where I can easily tell which is which and reach for the one I require. This method of storage also insures that other objects do not bang into my knives and that they stay clean and dry. It works for me.

Edited January 16, 2003 by ron johnson (log)