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The Kitchen Bladesmith

craftsmanship.net

66 pointstaivare18 comments

Great article. BTW, those of us who are kitchen mortals may find this: http://thesweethome.com/reviews/the-best-chefs-knife-for-mos... and this: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/04/never-a-... useful. I have the Victoronix chef's knife and it performs quite nicely, as long as you keep it sharp.

I use this: http://kk.org/cooltools/archives/607 , which works as well as promised.

http://www.cookingforengineers.com/article/129/Chefs-Knives-...

Seconded! I have owned several Forschner/Victorinox chef knives and consistently recommend them to friends. (No, they didn't break. One was lost to heat, another I sharpened down toward boning knife territory.) Kitchens without contracts for D-R or whatever often have some floating around. If I'm not mistaken, the 8" is still the house knife at America's Test Kitchen.

I also own a Sharpmaker, which I recommend, but don't personally use for chef knives, but for pocket and camping knives.

You wouldn't happen to know of an affordable blade with a more French profile that I could recommend? I try to start everyone on a Forschner, but some end up gravitating toward something more like a Sebatier. I'm not aware of a Victorinox-caliber bargain in that sub-category.

Mercer[1] makes excellent knives, and their chef's knives are pretty much a French profile. I own a Mercer 10" carving knife and a 10" bread knife, and I think all my future knife purchases will be Mercer blades. The Genesis line uses the same steel as Forschner's blades, but IIRC the knives are actually forged in Taiwan and so are 10% - 40% cheaper. Many of their knives have a Granton-edged version as well.

The only drawback is that Mercer is a true professional brand and only available from restaurant supply stores. I only discovered the brand when I started shopping at a local one.[2] Fortunately, they have online ordering and ship anywhere in the US.

[1] http://www.mercercutlery.com/professional-cutlery

[2] http://www.acemart.com/index.ep

Thanks for this comment!

Alas, the Victorinox itself is being pushed back into restaurant supply, with a less spartan-looking, "consumer-friendly" version replacing it at retail.

My main knife is a Sabatier 12" (can't remember the manufacturer, probably a Thiers-Issard) and I love it. I don't know of a lower cost alternative, but I press carbon steel on everybody.

The K Sabatiers are great value knife. The Stainless isn't quite as hard as the Forschners, but it's close and the price is only modestly more. I'm too scared to deal with high carbon blades because I live in the outer Richmond in SF and everything I own rusts, even the fridge.

I just bought a 240mm ohishi VG-5 chefs knife from Bernal Cutlery in SF, and I am enjoying it a lot, but I'm thinking the extra money might not have been worth over a 9" K Sabatier.

If you're super paranoid about rust, apply some mineral oil, fat, silicon, wax, etc to your blade after cleaning and store it in a cool dry place. Worst case even if it does rust, clean the rust off and let it develop a patina, then sharpen to your liking.

And the blade looks fantastic with a bit of a patina to it.

I've got a number of KAI, Shun and MAC knives, which seem to be universally superior quality. I'm particularly fond of a KAI "Wasabi" brand vanadium steel santoku knife that is terribly easy to maintain and cuts like magic, and has for years. I've also got a number of better grade Wusthof knives (wedding gifts mostly) that are fine knives, but do require a lot more maintenance.

I wish I didn't dislike the feel of the Global knives, because they're clearly exceptional in many ways. Apparently I need to check out the Victoronix.

Never heard of craftmanship.net. They have lots of other interesting articles!

If you are after something rare, exceptionally hand crafted and historical then think about a knife set made in Sheffield, England. Sheffield was the cutler to the world at one point but mass production has destroyed most of that business now.

http://www.steelcitycutlery.com/pocketknife.html http://www.ferrabyknives.co.uk/hand-forged-4-knife-set.html

I've got an Ablett pocket knife, which is a wonderful piece of work.

And I just bought my wife a chef's knife from Blok (http://www.blok-knives.co.uk/). I would thoroughly recommend them... not only great craftsmanship, but lovely to use.

It's a bit perplexing that mass production should gut the entire state of Sheffield's industry, or that it hasn't bounced back somewhat, considering that custom, semi-custom, and high-end production knives are in great demand, and Solingen and Seki City seem to be doing okay.

I don't dislike the unfinished pebbling look on a knife like the Ferraby nearly as much as I dislike the tacky faux Damascus texturing on others, but it sure distracts from my enjoyment of it. It's a conceit...it's saying "look at the very expensive art object I have", not "look at the first-class tool that I have".

I just sharpened the kitchen knives today with my set of Japanese whetstones. After you've done it often enough, you can tell a lot about the blade steel by the swarf it makes and how it feels.

I use pedestrian domestic whetstones and oil stones (from Arkansas, I believe), but agree you can tell so much about the knife by how it feels and the residue it leaves. My Grandfather taught me how to do it, and it makes me a bit wistful when I take my pocket knife to the stone.

If you like custom knives, this video is worth watching:

http://thisismadebyhand.com/film/the_knife_maker

Does anyone know who makes the "Gordon Ramsay by Royal Dolton" knives?

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