Knife porn thread

I recently acquired a Wicked Edge bench kit. Goes down to 1000 grit and seems relatively infallible.

Over the last few days I’ve done all my kitchen knives bar the long Damascus carver which (as rarely used) I assumed would be sharp.

Properly shocked when I went to use it on a lamb roast (early Christmas dinner). Was like a bludgeon compared to the other knives I’d sharpened. Carved with a chef’s knife instead.

Spendy kit for sure - but results speak for themselves. Previously I thought the carver was excellent.

For clarification I have a Lansky kit as well, and it isn’t even in the same county.

Such a lot of money though. How does it compare with a course and a pair of stones?

You are absolutely right.

The artisan approach would be far more satisfying. Sometimes (at least for me) deskilling and hitting the same results makes sense. I don’t want great results in one discipline, but as many as I can.

If I want to run at 25mph I get on a bike. Kind of the same thing.

(Also for disclosure, I bought it very lightly used for a lot less than retail from a custom knife maker friend who upgraded to a full station).

Wow, didn’t even know such a thing exists. I bet the results are amazing.

I’ve been using Shapton 1000 and 4000 stones for sharpening, and a Global diamond sharpening steel to maintain the edge between sharpening.

At home I have a nice little collection of Globals, but at work (I work as a chef) I use Victorinox fibrox handled knives for everything. I probably use my pastry knife for most cutting jobs, lol.

Randomly browsing I came across this thread for how to mod them https://knife.wickededgeusa.com/forums/topic/mods-lets-see-em/page/18/ including a link to this post with a good summary, including how to get it to work with large chef's knives an SAKs: https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/wicked-edge-gen-3-pro-shortcomings-and-solutions.472849/

A couple of nice handmade knives that have come my way
A Shing sodbuster
And an Ord friction folder
Both very lovely.

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That is what all the sharpeners do that mean that the get the same results everytime.

Then looking at the quality of the stones.

Exactly so.

There must be easier ways to drive yourself insane than this.

Both lovely. I've got an Ord knife so might be biased.

Before I go ahead and order this niwaki knife can anyone recommend anything better, cheaper etc etc.

It will be for chopping vegetables only

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I haven't used their kitchen stuff but if it's anything like their gardening tools it'll certainly do the job.

Can't recommend anything in that style at a cheaper price but would say in the long term you might prefer a knife that isn't stainless steel.

On the off chance you're in central London any time soon, it's definitely worth calling in at Kataba in covent garden/TCR - more money but a good place to go and try holding a few knives.

What’s the score with stainless? I’ve been using a cleaver for years but I think the quality of the steel is pretty poor (it was £10) it just doesn’t hold its sharpness and gets bumps on the blade quite easily.

Good stainless is excellent, and expensive stainless steel can be as good/sharp as expensive carbon steel.

Cheap Chinese cleaver steel is cheap and soft, but easy to sharpen, plenty of people around the world sharpening them on a brick.

The harder the steel is, the more likely it is to chip rather than dent.

This is a cheaper cleaver. I cannot say I’m good at sharpening knives because I’m not. But this chunks seems to appear every now and again

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Personally I find it harder to get really sharp (admittedly this is probably a me problem), especially longer knives.

If you want something that you can be a bit rougher with, maybe leave on the side after use for a while then SS is better & the niwaki knives at £40 each are probably hard to beat in the Japanese style.

For me, carbon steel Japanese blades are more high maintenance but easier to get quite sharp and so maybe more rewarding to use/own if you care about that kind of stuff.

Have a look at the ProCook offerings. We have an outlet in Gloucester and they come in at around a £100 a knife for the top end VG10 Damascus Japanese made offerings - but a lot less as you go down the range a bit.

Amateur chef and knife tart here - but for value for knife I really rate them.

(Just me, no affiliation)

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The edge is far from sharp, but do the dents appear after sharpening, which would suggest a fault in the steel, or after use?

Are you chopping through lamb bones or equivalent? Or just slicing vegetables? The former will bugger almost any steel unless you sharpen to a very thick angle.

My heavy (cheap Chinese) cleaver is set at 40 degrees and will hammer through anything. The rest of my kitchen knives are at 20 for delicate, but razor sharp, working.

I hope I’m wrong - but that looks a lot like ( the Niwaki) like a sandblasted fake hamon? The equivalent of Halfords stick-on fake bonnet vents on an Astra diesel estate.

Do you know how something like this would compare to a tormek sharpening set up?

I’d like to advise, but I have no experience with the Tormek system. Sorry.

I like procook - I've got a bread knife of theirs and it's still insanely sharp! There's an outlet shop in the millennium dome now too so quite easy to get to.

I visited the Procook outlet in Portsmouth on Black Friday weekend, lots of nice stuff in there.

Henckels had a 30% additional sale on that day, so bought some things.
Sadly, someone had bought pretty much the entire stock of Miyabi they had just before us.