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If you have a store near you that'll let you try out different knives that's the best way to find if something else will fit your hand better. For a pull through sharpener, yes, only being awesome for 1-2 uses may be normal. If you go back 5 or less pages you'll see a bunch of discussion about pull throughs and why they are not optimal. You want to hone to adjust/set the edge before each use and use a sharpener (hopefully stones in the future) to redefine the edge.
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Nov 2, 2015 23:07
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Nigel Tufnel posted:I'm definitely more of a push chopper than a rock chopper but a lot of the time my push chopped vegetables are still joined by a very small piece nearest to me. Is this bad technique or the shape of the knife? Am I better off looking at a Santoku knife? I'm considering picking up the Tojiro DP Damascus Santoku as it was recommended in the OP and it's only £45 here. It's probably a bit of both - some plants are worse about that than others (scallions  ). Since you're not very experienced though I'm going to lean towards you're either pushing down with more force towards the tip of the knife (so it cuts through but the heel never quite goes down enough to really cut through) or your position is just slightly off.Fwiw I don't like the way Globals fit in my hand. There's definitely a lot of personal preference involved with this stuff. If you're using a pull through sharpener then your knife probably isn't quite as sharp as it could be, either.
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Nov 2, 2015 23:18
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Nigel Tufnel posted:My in-laws recently bought me my first serious knife - a Global G2. And while it is a massive step up from the £30 knives I was using I'm not sure what I should be expecting from it. Put the edge flat on the board and look at how it contacts the board - is there a flat spot large enough to allow the type of cutting you want to do? If the profile has no large flat spot you're going to have to rock or slice to avoid accordion cuts. The other issue you might have is something like a low hanging heel on the edge (something like this https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81OOSOSsbHL.jpg). If the heel is low, then it can prevent the edge in front of it from contacting the board properly. I've never used or even seen a Minosharp in person, but it looks like it will contribute to a low heel because of the way it gets used. As far as edge quality goes, it's probably less lovely than a carbide scraper type like an Accusharp, but I still don't think you'll get a good quality edge from it. Looking at videos of it, I think most people will mostly miss the very tip and heel completely, and then the areas immediately after the tip and before the heel will only get hit on one side by the sharpening wheel. Only a small section in the middle gets hit by the wheels on both sides. Oh, come on... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhBolWfpjuQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDJ6YJJjBLI
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Nov 3, 2015 06:33
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Scott808 posted:Put the edge flat on the board and look at how it contacts the board - is there a flat spot large enough to allow the type of cutting you want to do? If the profile has no large flat spot you're going to have to rock or slice to avoid accordion cuts. Oh that's a good point, I thought about that for a moment and then promptly forgot to mention it. iirc the Global G2 has a decent amount of belly on it. quote:Oh, come on...  I like how afterwards it still can't slice through the paper very well (not that paper slicing is a great test anyway).
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Nov 3, 2015 17:36
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Moridin920 posted:Oh that's a good point, I thought about that for a moment and then promptly forgot to mention it. iirc the Global G2 has a decent amount of belly on it. Paper slicing is good for finding imperfections in the edge, if there is any place where the edge is not smooth or is significantly duller than the rest of the edge it will catch on the paper there.
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Nov 4, 2015 01:13
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So I have a Viet-mom (my friend's mom) who cooks for me once a week and teaches me a lot of things. She's an amazing cook but she has lovely $3 knives that are as sharp as butter knives and they're concaved all to hell because she just rubs them on a sharpening stone and only sharpened the middles for years. I bought her a bunch of replacement knives, but she refused to accept them because she's old and Asian and that means she's also superstitious, and one of the old Asian superstitions is that you don't give knives as gifts because it represents severing your friendship. So I decided to try to reprofile her existing knives. Rubbed them on concrete for a while before discovering that rubbing them on a metal file did the job a lot faster. About 5-10 minutes later (wow this steel must be soft) I got the concave edge rubbed out, then ran them through the Edge Faux. Old knife on the left, straightened one on the right.  I'm sure they'll be dull in a week again, she always stores them in a drawer full of other metal utensils and they get tossed around like a salad. But at least they'll be straight! Steve Yun fucked around with this message at 10:36 on Nov 4, 2015 |
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Nov 4, 2015 10:32
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Moridin920 posted:Oh that's a good point, I thought about that for a moment and then promptly forgot to mention it. iirc the Global G2 has a decent amount of belly on it. There's probably no single test that tells you everything, but Steve Yun posted:
Can you gift her knives with a penny or whatever, then she gives you the money back to "buy" the knife from you? That's the superstition workaround that I'm familiar with. Kiwis are supposed to be pretty awesome for absolutely dirt cheap knives. Did you thin it after you flattened the edge? Looks like it could use it, given how far it looks like the edge moved up. Scott808 fucked around with this message at 11:39 on Nov 4, 2015 |
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Nov 4, 2015 11:36
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I'll do that for the next one
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Nov 4, 2015 11:44
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Got my Tojiro DP Gyuto, and it's a beauty. I was worried about the poor QC I have heard of, but mine seems to be absolutely flawless. I saw that a store at the mall was running a half off sale on all MAC knives so I decided to get a lot of my Christmas shopping done in one go.   Left to right. The rounded tip knife is for my little nephew for when we start doing some cooking. The two petties are for my brothers, they go camping a lot and the knives seem like they could be real handy for filleting small trout and for prepping fruits and veggies for camp fire cooking. The chef's knife is for my dad, who only has old cheap garbage knives. One of the bread knives is for myself and the other's for my aunt who cooks and bakes constantly. All the knives seem really sharp and the bread knife is insanely good. I can basically slice paper thin slices off fresh bread with barely any crumbs. I bet it'll be great for my aunt when doing precision cake and pastry work. EDIT: I'm also thinking about making sayas for these knives and my Tojiro out of balsa wood. I'm looking at this guide, but I'd love to hear any thoughts or experiences. Cataffy fucked around with this message at 15:02 on Nov 4, 2015 |
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Nov 4, 2015 14:15
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I am here in search of advise on two knives. My gf is in the industry and her chef told her its time to really upgrade her knife. Is this something I can maybe get her as a surprise gift or should she really pick them out herself? She wants a 12 inch french chef knife and then she showed me a petite knife a while ago but have since long forgotten. It was like 4-5 inch Asian style knife thing and she wants both. I know this may be an expensive adventure but since she does this for a living I am expecting to shell out some dough for them. Any advice for me?
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Nov 6, 2015 02:53
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knowonecanknow posted:I am here in search of advise on two knives. My gf is in the industry and her chef told her its time to really upgrade her knife. Is this something I can maybe get her as a surprise gift or should she really pick them out herself? She wants a 12 inch french chef knife and then she showed me a petite knife a while ago but have since long forgotten. It was like 4-5 inch Asian style knife thing and she wants both. I know this may be an expensive adventure but since she does this for a living I am expecting to shell out some dough for them. If she's in the industry, she probably has an idea of the type of knife she wants. Browse chefknivestogo.com with her, and find something she'll like. If you've got any local places that aren't sur la table or william sonoma that carry kitchen knives, you could go demo some and see what's comfortable. Japanese style gyutos are the way to go imo, bolsters suck, and I have no idea why the french and germans still use them.
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Nov 6, 2015 03:12
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Thanks for the advice. I'll do that.
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Nov 6, 2015 04:16
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Chef De Cuisinart posted:If she's in the industry, she probably has an idea of the type of knife she wants. Browse chefknivestogo.com with her, and find something she'll like. Can I ask why some people hate bolsters so much? Some of my knives have them, and I like them, because on some knives that don't have them it becomes harder to hone and sharpen near the heel. What's the downside?
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Nov 6, 2015 14:03
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guppy posted:Can I ask why some people hate bolsters so much? Some of my knives have them, and I like them, because on some knives that don't have them it becomes harder to hone and sharpen near the heel. What's the downside? The bolsters people talk about disliking are the ones that run all the way down to the edge, not the collar type. They get in the way when sharpening near the heel, and eventually you'll end up with a recurved blade of sorts. Unless you grind it down, the bolster will be lower than the cutting edge. How do you find it harder to sharpen near the heel without a bolster?
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Nov 6, 2015 14:34
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Scott808 posted:The bolsters people talk about disliking are the ones that run all the way down to the edge, not the collar type. They get in the way when sharpening near the heel, and eventually you'll end up with a recurved blade of sorts. Unless you grind it down, the bolster will be lower than the cutting edge. Ah, that makes more sense. I sometimes find a large handle (e.g., on the commonly-recommended Victorinox) gets in the way near the heel of the blade because it physically prevents the blade from contacting the hone. If that's not a common problem maybe my angle is too aggressive. The bolster on other knives -- I'm thinking of my Mac, for example -- prevents that problem.
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Nov 6, 2015 15:19
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I was trying to find a picture I saw a while ago of a knife sharpened far past the bolster because it was funny but this will have to do for illustrative purposes:
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Nov 6, 2015 18:32
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What's the name for that problem?
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Nov 6, 2015 18:50
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Does anyone have any experience with Shun's attempts to re-shape a knife that's had a bit of it's tip broken off? Less than two loving weeks after getting a new knife it got jostled off my loving cutting board and onto the goddamn floor, and nearly 1/8" of the loving tip got snapped the gently caress off. This isn't covered by warranty, but they say they are happy to attempt to re-shape the blade, and I'm wondering it it's worth sending it to them and risking it being irrecoverably altered, or if I should just use it as is, since the rest of it isn't damaged.
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Nov 6, 2015 23:45
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I bought the Tojiro DP gift pack recommended by this thread and I've been using them for the last few months, it's amazing how much of a difference having a good knife makes. I grew up with cheap stuff and sort of came to accept it as a universal truth. Thank you, cool and good thread.
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Nov 7, 2015 00:43
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Oldsrocket_27 posted:Does anyone have any experience with Shun's attempts to re-shape a knife that's had a bit of it's tip broken off? Less than two loving weeks after getting a new knife it got jostled off my loving cutting board and onto the goddamn floor, and nearly 1/8" of the loving tip got snapped the gently caress off. This isn't covered by warranty, but they say they are happy to attempt to re-shape the blade, and I'm wondering it it's worth sending it to them and risking it being irrecoverably altered, or if I should just use it as is, since the rest of it isn't damaged. I don't have experience with Shun sharpening specifically but if it's an eighth of an inch I can't imagine they'll gently caress it up. They'll just sharpen it down a bunch and create a new tip; your knife will be slightly shorter in the end and obv you will have lost some metal so it won't last as long as it would have otherwise. Any decent knife merchant can do that. The 'attempt to' is most likely just customer service covering their rear end in case someone lies about how much is broken off and then gets mad if too much is gone and it's not really fixable. That said there was a line cook I worked with that had a Shun that had its tip broken off (a little more than yours iirc) and it was still useable for most things.
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Nov 7, 2015 02:23
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Oldsrocket_27 posted:Does anyone have any experience with Shun's attempts to re-shape a knife that's had a bit of it's tip broken off? Less than two loving weeks after getting a new knife it got jostled off my loving cutting board and onto the goddamn floor, and nearly 1/8" of the loving tip got snapped the gently caress off. This isn't covered by warranty, but they say they are happy to attempt to re-shape the blade, and I'm wondering it it's worth sending it to them and risking it being irrecoverably altered, or if I should just use it as is, since the rest of it isn't damaged. As much as I think Shuns are overpriced, their sharpening service is good. They'll fix it, and the way they do it is by taking metal off of the spine of the knife, they don't actually file down the edge. So the tip will curve down, they won't make your knife 1/8in shorter.
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Nov 7, 2015 05:17
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Steve Yun posted:What's the name for that problem? I had a roommate who was a sous chef and had a big chef knife that was BADLY ground down like that. I think he must've hit it with an electric sharpener really often for a couple years period, because it was literally shaped like a 10" fillet knife. He loved it but it was kinda useless if you didn't want to gently caress up the edges of your cutting board.
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Nov 8, 2015 03:26
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Oldsrocket_27 posted:Does anyone have any experience with Shun's attempts to re-shape a knife that's had a bit of it's tip broken off? Less than two loving weeks after getting a new knife it got jostled off my loving cutting board and onto the goddamn floor, and nearly 1/8" of the loving tip got snapped the gently caress off. This isn't covered by warranty, but they say they are happy to attempt to re-shape the blade, and I'm wondering it it's worth sending it to them and risking it being irrecoverably altered, or if I should just use it as is, since the rest of it isn't damaged.
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Nov 8, 2015 15:06
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coyo7e posted:(blade below bolster) ... "worn out?" Wait what? Why on earth couldn't you just grind down the bolster to match the blade again?
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Nov 10, 2015 06:17
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CrazyLittle posted:Wait what? Why on earth couldn't you just grind down the bolster to match the blade again? You can but it's a serious pain in the rear end.
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Nov 10, 2015 09:03
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Thoht posted:You can but it's a serious pain in the rear end. 5 seconds with a dremel. And next time don't use a pull through sharper that causes that problem
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Nov 10, 2015 13:53
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Fo3 posted:
That's 95% of the problem I think. I cook daily with a bolstered knife and in 8 years of use and sharpening like every other month I've not had this problem.
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Nov 11, 2015 00:52
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Oldsrocket_27 posted:Does anyone have any experience with Shun's attempts to re-shape a knife that's had a bit of it's tip broken off? Less than two loving weeks after getting a new knife it got jostled off my loving cutting board and onto the goddamn floor, and nearly 1/8" of the loving tip got snapped the gently caress off. This isn't covered by warranty, but they say they are happy to attempt to re-shape the blade, and I'm wondering it it's worth sending it to them and risking it being irrecoverably altered, or if I should just use it as is, since the rest of it isn't damaged. I had a maybe 1/8" chip about half way down my 8" chefs knife and sent it in to them. I think they must have just ground down the cutting edge until it got past the chip, because the knife definitely has a different (shallower?) profile now. Basically they told me they would remove as little material to get the defect out. It cost like $5 for return shipping, so it can't hurt to send it in. It also came back crazy sharp.
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Nov 11, 2015 01:17
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If my knives are in pretty good condition / sharpness do I just need to be using a 1000 whetstone? Is 400-600 just for blunt knives?
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Nov 12, 2015 13:32
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Nigel Tufnel posted:If my knives are in pretty good condition / sharpness do I just need to be using a 1000 whetstone? Is 400-600 just for blunt knives? Yeah, you can just use a 1k for touchups until the edge gets to the point where you really need to remake it completely.
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Nov 12, 2015 13:51
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I was going to buy one of those knockoff knife sharpeners and I noticed there was an even cheaper knockoff brand... anybody have experience with the $18 knockoff? TomTop $18 sharpener: http://www.amazon.com/Professional-Kitchen-Sharpener-System-Fix-angle/dp/B009OAZEIA/ vs Previously recommended AGPtek $29 sharpener: http://www.amazon.com/AGPtek%C2%AE-Professional-Kitchen-Sharpener-Fix-angle/dp/B00ABVS5VY/
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Nov 17, 2015 17:52
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It's new so nobody has experience with it. You're gonna have to be our Guinea pig.
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Nov 17, 2015 18:06
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extravadanza posted:I was going to buy one of those knockoff knife sharpeners and I noticed there was an even cheaper knockoff brand... anybody have experience with the $18 knockoff? As I noted before, some are more accurate in their angle markings, some have instructions and colour coding, some do not. They're not all the same quality wise, some may have better stones than others. The manufacturers and sellers aren't idiots, you get what you pay for. This applies more to dealing with direct China ebay sellers, as that's who I deal with. Amazon is often useless with me being in Australia. With amazon you're dealing with 3rd party importers that may just be more expensive because they want more profit 
Fo3 fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Nov 17, 2015 |
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Nov 17, 2015 18:32
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Fo3 posted:... some have instructions and colour coding, some do not....
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Nov 17, 2015 19:06
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extravadanza posted:IIRC, one of the reviews said the instructions are all in Chinese! Looks like there are plenty of instructional videos out there anyway, so I'll buy the cheap one along with a couple of reasonable stones tonight, I think. Watch a video and use a protractor or something to make sure the angles are actually as marked and you should be fine.
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Nov 17, 2015 20:55
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Discussion of sharpening jigs has me wondering what my fellow freehanders like to use to maintain their kitchen steel. I can't be the only one here to roll with bench stones and slightly convex edges.
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Nov 18, 2015 02:51
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I use a King 400/6000
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Nov 18, 2015 03:12
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Bester 1200, Suehiro Rika 5000, and a leather strop with green compound. I usually just touch up the edge on the 5k and only very rarely have to go down to the 1200.
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Nov 18, 2015 09:25
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Chef De Cuisinart posted:I use a King 400/6000 I'm using a King k-80 (250/1000)
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Nov 18, 2015 17:33
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| # ? May 9, 2024 22:36 |
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Is there a way to tell if I'm honing my knife wrong, and how? I haven't been able to get my Victorinox back to how it was from the factory. It doesn't help that my wife and roommate forget and put my knife in the dishwasher or in the drawer without the blade guard.
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Nov 20, 2015 18:41
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