Knife accessory, brand & care discussion?

Yeah, that's the meme about how factory ground edges are always burnt or some bullshit, but the truth is it's seems like it gets a better edge after you sharpen it a few times because you set the edge the way you like it, not because it was magically cursed at the factory

It's a well known technique with OH knives and they actually recommend it.

I've just bought a Wüsthof Ikon 20cm chef's knife and I love it so far. I've been struggling with POS kitchen knives ever since I started cooking and it's a revelation. Used it about 5 times so far and I haven't noticed a difference in sharpness to when I first got it. I'm not sure what steel they use- I've only heard it described as 'high carbon stainless steel' which made me skeptical at first since I like to know what I'm getting, but it is brilliant so far. I have a set of nice stones that i use for my various outdoors knives and I'll sharpen the Wüsthof with them when it needs it. I haven't used it enough to whole-heartedly recommend it yet but I am very happy so far.

Maybe, but the explanation is incorrect. There is no difference in the "steel quality" behind the factory edge. That's nonsense. Instead, the real reason is simply that the factory sharpening job isn't very good and you're doing a better job at sharpening it.

Here's mine. All I could afford, but even this is much better than any knife I've ever used. Occasionally I pay 8$ for the local hardware store to sharpen it because I am too scared to ruin the knife edge with improper techniques. Maybe one day I'll try on my cheap colored knives.

Oops, forgot link. smile.amazon.com/HENCKELS-INTERNATIONAL-Classic-8-inch-Chefs/dp/B00004RFMT/

What's the best knife block set?

itsX50CrMoV15 aka 420MoV which an excellent steel for knives

Glad I could point them out to you, then.

Neat to know!

No such thing because most knife blocks wind up being bacteria traps. If we remove the block from the picture and focus just on knives I've heard Old Hickory, Ginsu do pretty good. If you can get past the cringe that comes with owning Cold Steel products they are supposed to make very good knives with some decent ( but not long lasting ) handles. If you feel like over-spending you could go with products from Buck.

How often do you sharpen, Veeky Forums?

I'll also add:
How do you store your knives? I'm soon going to be ordering my first "real" knives soon, and I thought about also ordering a set of knife guards like this to go along with them.
smile.amazon.com/Wusthof-4-Piece-Knife-Edge-Guard/dp/B0009NMW5O/

Are there any others I should look at (maybe from hunting enthusiasts)?

Oh shit, thanks very much. Just shows how bad i am at research

>fbarvaonidtse?
>Veeky Forumsonoikviensgi

don't dead
open inside

I hate those things, but they serve their purpose.
Cheap mode: empty paper towel roll + tape.
Chef crutch.
We also use plastic wrap as a make-shift belt.
It does the same thing.

Worst kitchen wound I've ever seen:
Imagine gripping the handle on one of those and trying to slice through a semi-frozen pork shoulder.
The knife seized on the forward thrust, but the hand gripping the handle did not.
Imagine running your hand down the blade, while clasping the blade tightly.
To the bone on all digits.
Thinking about it still makes me shiver a bit, but the guy who got his hand into the pasta machine was tendon breakingly worse.

I-ii cut myself once, it needed like 2 bandaids

Really depends on your knife and how often you use it. If your technique is consistent you will know when your knife needs touching up, it just won't perform as well as you'd want it to. When that happens to me i use a steel to unroll the edge, and if that doesn't work ill usually go to a high grit stone and give it a honing. Sometimes i know ill end up using the stones and go straight to them anyway. As for storing my knives, I used felt underlay my chefs knife came with for a long time (i have a wusthof ikon 20cm chefs knife, an old sabatier paring knife and a generic bread knife), but then i bought a small wooden magnetic wall rack like a faggot. It works well enough though. Knife guards do their job well, you won't have any problems with the one you linked

...

bump for a little more discussion on this. I'm leaning toward the tojiro black, cuz I don't mind carbon knives one bit and it would be my first weeb memeknife.

the K sab is a solid choice but I've used them before so I know what I'm getting, so the Tojiro would be a bit more of a novelty

That isn't necessarily true, many factory produced knives will have heat damaged factory edges from being power ground without liquid cooling and without any serious effort made NOT to overheat the edge.

In that case, an edge can be sharp from the factory but fail readily due to a burned edge.

>favoite brands

That would be a difference in the heat treatment, not the formulation of the steel.

What do you guys think about Cutco? I like them but Ill admit Im fairly inexperienced with quality knives

Why are ceramic knives so fucking OP compared to steel ones ?
>Hard as fuck, never need sharpening
>Can easily cut through steel
>Folded 1.000.000 times
Even in World War II, American soldiers targeted the men with the ceramic katanas first because their killing power was feared and respected.

I used to be a manager at one of the sales offices, i have the bigdick full set minus the block that i got over the years for free. I really like their edged knives (technically not serated but comparable). The knives come with a no questions asked warranty where they'll replace the knife if it ever breaks as long as theyre in business. only downside for their cooking knives is that their edged knives need to be sent to their factory to be sharpened, which takes about 1.5 months from what ive heard. Dont buy them online, call a sales office and have someone do a presentation so you can get a lot better deal. You can seriously save like $30 on most knives if you have someone come to your house.

also, dont buy their flatware, its ok but way overpriced for what you get

>What do you guys think about Cutco

Pyramid scam, shitty knives, careful marketing.

Ceramic knives are cut through diamonds which is the hardest metal known to animal kingdom

>Pyramid scam
look up what that means, it doesnt apply at all
>shitty knives
not really, the steel is quality, holds an edge, cuts easily, doesnt break easil (if it does, it will be replaced for free)
>careful marketing
I wouldnt call it careful, just true on most points it advertises.

No silly, it's the hardest metal in the universe, we're still not sure about it being the hardest in the animal kingdom

>look up what that means, it doesnt apply at all
Perhaps not literally a "pyramid scheme", but the term is close enough to get the point across. They have shady marketing practices.

>not really, the steel is quality, holds an edge, cuts easily, doesnt break easil (if it does, it will be replaced for free)
The problem is that the price is waaay out of line for the quality they have. That stuff you see on TV infomercials like "Ginsu" and "ninja 2000", etc, are made of the exact same steel, have the exact same warranty, and costs a tiny fraction of what Cutco does.

>I wouldnt call it careful, just true on most points it advertises.
True? Yes. But it's also misleading. For example, the demonstrations that Cutco representatives do to show how the serrated edge is so special works on any kind of serrated blade, even a $1 knife from the bargain bin. Yet the implication is that the knives are somehow super special. Same with the warranty--all those cheap ass infomercial knives offer just as good, if not a better warranty.

Check out:
cookingforengineers.com/article/129/Chefs-Knives-Rated

...despite the Cutco being among the most expensive knives tested, it performed the worst. By far.

Cutco is a $1 product hiding behind $20 worth of marketing.

Citation heavily needed

I wet stone sharpened my wusthofs last night. have owned them 8 years and have only had to wetstone them 3 times. i use them every day and they hold an edge like nobodies bidness.

i love them and think all other knives from all other manufacturers in all other countries are shite. especialy japanese shit that has to be wet stoned every 3rd time you use the knife.

that shit is for weeb faggots.

>has to be wet stoned every 3rd time you use the knife.

You've never actually used a Japanese knife, have you? The whole point is that the harder steel requires less frequent sharpening.

Wusthofs are hardened to 58. Some japanese are hardened to mid 60s HRC. I use wusthofs too but i don't doubt that there are slightly better ones out there. Ill never use anything else though, i love them.

>have owned them 8 years and have only had to wetstone them 3 times. i use them every day and they hold an edge like nobodies bidness.

You mean you've never actually gotten them sharp enough to notice them going dull.

That's common with people who don't have enough practice at sharpening to get knives extremely sharp.

In reality, edge wear on knives is highly non-linear, with a very fast drop off from initial sharpness and a very slow drop off once the plateau of "working sharpness" has been reached.

As always, it's a preference thing.
I prefer carbon knives, but some cooks don't like the extra care they require.
Both seem to be light knives which I'm going to assume is your preference, so it then becomes a matter of what kind of grip you use, how large of a handle you like, and if this is a workhorse piece or an 'impress your date' piece.

This argument doesn't make sense because i've owned them since new... Unless your argument is that they come from the factory dull - which i think we can all agree would be a retarded argument since they are very well praised knives by the entire cooking community.

however, it is possible to understand the disbelief of the statement if you are a weeb faggot that has never seen a knife edge hold up because he has only ever used inferior "high carbon" shit steel from japan...

yeah but then they go and put a 5 degree angle on only one side...

in reality this lasts for about 6 minutes.

The germans put a 12 to 17 degree angle on both sides of the knife and it lasts about 4000 times longer.

Factory edges on production knives are typically pretty shit actually. You should be able to get a MUCH sharper edge sharpening by hand using waterstones.

A truly sharp edge will push cut newsprint, btw.

Also, I have no intention of taking the b8 on your idiotic assertions about Japanese knives.

>A truly sharp edge will push cut newsprint, btw.

ya think? my wusthoffs cut through one of my cast iron frying pans with just the weight of the knife - factory fresh... total accident.

you should of seen what it could do after i sharpened it...

it was literally capable of doing this for 3 years straight without even honing steel.

i know this is hard for you to believe and come to grips with - but it's the reality of the world you live in... i can't shelter you from the truth more than I already have...

>Factory edges on production knives are typically pretty shit actually.

Wow. So you really don't know anything about knives? Glad we got that out of the way early.

...

>Thinking factory edges are sharp

You really don't realize that you've totally outed yourself to anyone with even basic sharpening skills.

Right.. of course.

Wusthoff and Shun can charge 150 bucks per knife because they are shit sharpened out of the box.

You're fucking retarded.

>sharpened out of the box.

whoa...srs'ly...back it up there, cutco guy. Good knives are not for you if you don't know how to take care of them,

I'm honestly surprised at how many people on this board have no idea how to take care of their knives. If any of you want to learn, here is a video.

youtube.com/watch?v=-1fUFbij2s0

>expert village
I don't even have to watch that to know that it's shit.

>turning sharpening into an autistic ritual
>ever

never cook without it

I used to sell them and pretty much Would never buy them for myself, but I would get them for people who have no idea how to take care of knives and want something a step above Walmart knives.

suh-baa-tee-ayy lmao

my sous chef does knives as a side business at the local farmers market. 5 bux a knife.

The warranty is literally forever. No infomercial knife even comes close.

If you buy a knife from them, and 50 years from now your grandchild snaps the blade opening a can of paint, Cutco will STILL replace the knife and only charge for shipping.

What infomercial knife offers that warranty """or better"""

Is this a troll? That is literally the worst sharpening advice I have ever seen.

You should do some research about steel and how it works. If you think a high carbon steel lasts for 3 minutes then you must be using it as a can opener. Factory stamped knives generally come with a 15-20 degree angle per side because they are produced for the home market, and home cooks are comfortable with this edge because it can hold up to heavy rough use. Carbon knives are generally unsharpened, or come with a 15-20 degree inclusive angle because the steel is able to hold up and the technique for using them is different than softer steel.

Why do some carbon steel knives come unsharpened you ask? Sounds ridiculous. The reason is, if you're spending that amount, generally 200+, you have a need for that level of knife and know what kind of bevel and angle will most suit your needs. It's also implied you're familiar with how to care for them, sharpen them, and use them properly. If you need a wusthof with a 70/30 edge sharpened to 15 degrees inclusive, better get out the whetstones because they won't sell it to you like that

I work 2 jobs, one is sushi, one is pasta.

The pasta place, we have robocoupes, mandolines, grinders, all kinds of toys for doing things a knife can do. We use them often because the skill level isn't there to do it by hand.

At the sushi place, you have a knife. You need something thinly sliced? Git gud. I use about 800 paper thin slices of jalapeno a day, could i do it with a mandoline? Of course, but I use my knife and the error rate is lower and I'm able to adjust for the curve of the pepper so that each slice is uniformly sized. We do it by hand because we are interested in building the skills of our staff, and we feel that the staff appreciates the product more when fucking up or wasting causes a lot of extra work. How many times have you seen a guy toss the tail end of an insert. Doesn't happen when you sliced all of it by hand.

I use pic related to protect my shun knives.

Shit i laughed hard

I've slowly built up a small set of globals, and they're the best knives I've ever touched far and away. I think the g2 is the single most well crafted knife available.

Most people dislike them because a) they don't know how and where to properly grip a knife and b) they think that they need the weight of the German knives they're used to. I don't know any situation a wusthof would be better than a global.

Holy shit, someone who actually knows what they are talking about and isn't knowing shitposting?

Wtf are you doing on a Veeky Forums knife thread?!

There is more than one way to grip a knife. Both of your points come down to personal preferences. You also couldn't buy a more western and overhyped japanese knife. I'd rather use a weeb-2000 patterned half tang gyuto than a global, and whats funny is they are usually miles better to use than global knives. People don't NEED the extra weight but at the same time they don't need a lighter knife either. Some people just like a little more weight

I use this to carry my knives and other essentials when traveling and it does a good job - Wüsthof Deluxe 17 Pocket Professional Chef's, Cordura

At home, I have a 32 inch global knife magnet. It's really pretty and much stronger than the typical knife magnet.

They do look like shit knives.

>>look up what that means, it doesnt apply at all
>Perhaps not literally a "pyramid scheme", but the term is close enough to get the point across. They have shady marketing practices.

Cutco Marketing:

Grandma, can you please buy some knives from me so I can a shitty land grand college for my communications degree?

>only charge for shipping

I had to explain to a niece once that even if she got the mechanical claw in the machine to pick the stuffed animal up and drop it into the chute, the prize itself was worth less than the price of playing a single game.

I use pic related for pretty much everything, I also have some shuns that aren't used. Everything was given to me.

Love the globals but I might get a chefs knife with a little more weight to it, potatoes and other thick vegetables are hard to cut with the light weight global.

I also use a king 6000/1000 sharpening stone

On the subject of whetstones I have that King double sided artificial whetstone and it is glorious, of course you could make your knives even sharper with another an 8000 or 10000 stone afterwards but for general use it allows you to perform excellently.

Just buy an ice bear (nagura) stone to even out the surface.

Nogura are intended to build up slurry, not ideal for flattening, but I guess you can use them for that purpose. They're definitely cheap enough. I suppose if you take good care of your stones, you won't need much more than a nogura, however, I foresee difficulties with harder stones, especially natural ones.

Are you using a push-pull method? I've found with knives like globals and many japanese knives in general, using a chopping stroke puts them slightly behind a western knife. They're intended to use the full length of the blade when slicing. Try pulling from heel to tip, in my experience they will fall through. if you need more pressure, try pushing from tip to heel instead. Ideally, you'll want to angle the blade slightly up or down, up if starting at the heel, down if at the tip.

What are the ups and downs of your bag? I've been on the hunt for a new one, preferrably leather because I like the look. Although if I can save 400-500 by buying a wusthof bag that would let me buy some new toys. For me, with canvas bags, my cooking chopsticks tend to poke holes in the fabric, and there's never enough pockets. I also find they fold weird depending on which pocket my cleaver is in. And the velcro straps wear out.

I haven't done any research myself, but I have looked up research and this was the most rigorous I could find :

hefajstos.agh.edu.pl/files/[2008] Wear tests of steel knife blades - J. Verhoeven A. Pendray H. Clark.pdf

The advantage of HC steel seems mostly the ability to get high hardness with traditional methods, which is great for marketing.

With that specific model, very

It's difficult to shop for them because there are like fifty to choose from and they're only available online, so I did some research carefully.

I've carried it to four continents. I carry about ten knives, a thermo pen, honing steel, etc.

I got the Sai model. Feels so nice in the hand

Higher grits don't make knives sharper, they just change the balance between push cutting sharpness and slicing aggression.

Also, for waterstones I would go Naniwa Chosera 1k or Sigma Power Select II 1k or Bester 1200 followed by a Naniwa Aotoshi (rated at 2k by leaves an apex finish like a 5k stone) or a Suehiro Rika 5k or an SPS-II 6k.

Also, for lapping, you should get a Naniwa flattening stone or an Atoma 140/DMT XXC to keep your waterstones flat. It makes a BIG difference.