[Bruno]

The knife shop in a nearby city held a firesale, and my wife told me I could go and have a look and see if there was anything worth having... I don't what I did to earn this but I wasn't about to complain.

So after some consideration I decided to buy 2 kitchen knives with a 20% discount. Still nowhere near cheap, but not a bad price, and I had wanted to buy good knives for a long time already.

The first one I picked was the Kai Shun dm-0701 general purpose kitchen knife. It's edge is 6 inches long, and it is made from pattern welded steel which was hammered and folded 5 times to end up with 32 layers of steel. Despite being stainless its Rockwell hardness is 61 +-1, and one of the metals in the pattern is high carbon steel.



The second knife was the Wusthof 4972 Japanese style vegetable knife. It's edge is also 6 inches long, and it is made from high quality stainless steel. It has a Rockwell hardness of 58, which should make it a bit easier to hone. I don't know hat to expect of the edge retention qualities, though they should be OK.
Contrary to the sales woman's opinion, this one was pretty dull. It is going on the coticule tonight.

[Bill S]

I love the new knives, Bruno. So, wat's for dinner?

[Wildtim]

Nice knives!!

[Don]

They look awesome

[Viola]

How beautiful! Nothing makes cooking better than great cutlery!

[netsurfr]

Nice knives!!!

[DwarvenChef]

Have you used them much yet? Thats where it's at Even the cheapest stuff is ok if you like how it works, but with good stuff like that you should be super happy

At first I thought the Shun utility was a sujihiki hehe oops

[junkinduck]

Let me know how the shun is. I have been considering a shun. To DwarvenChef from a honing standpoint are they Eastern or Western? I own Wustoff Classic and won't be letting those go I just need a couple eastern knives to round out the block.

[DwarvenChef]

Most Shun knives are not that hard to hone to a certain degree. I would consider them a japanese style for honeing. Some of the Shun line are out right EVIL to hone in a traditional maner, the single bevel ones jump maddeningly to mind Flattening that single bevel, I'm told, will test your endurance and patience.

[Bruno]

The shun is a wondeful knife.
First of all, it is very thin. Less then 2 mm at the spine I would say.
It is also very, very light. For such a big blade, it probably weighs no more than a normal fork. Really.

The factory edge is sublime, and it seems to slide through meat like it is not there at all. I haven't had the courage to hone it yet. I'll practise some more on the wusthof.

Shun also comes in bigger sizes, but I like the 6" edge. It is large enough to cut almost anything, and small enough to be easy to handle.
It isn't cheap (100 euros normally. I got 20% off) but imo well worth the money.

I honestly don't know if I like the wusthof or not. I hope to make it as sharp as my potato peelers. But as far as handling it goes, I still have to get used to the shape, plus I am more used to using paring knives.
However, honing it will be good excercise.

[TOB9595]

These are wonderful knives.
I find I do most all my sharpening on a Sharpmaker. It holds my angle well.

[Bruno]

Yeah... the angle... to be honest, I know that thta is my biggest problem.
My potato peelers have blade faces that touch each other, so no secondary bevel.
This means the edge can be wicked sharp ven if honing technique is not perfect.

The wusthof -unfortunately- does not share this feature. It has the normal western style bevels, so honing technique makes a real difference.
I have gotten it to the point where it starts to bite my thumbnail, though not as decisive as my peelers.
I know I could use something like a sharpmaker, but that would be 'cheating'. I'd really like to take my freehanding to an acceptable level.

I just tried it on a cauliflower. Unfortunately, with this big knife, I only needed 2 cuts to get rid of the leaves, 1 cut to split it in halves, and then 2 cuts per half to cut out the heart.

After that I started to fine tune the edge with my limited skills, and I had to practice on the leaves.
So as I write this, the cutting board is full of confettie sized cauliflower remains. Good thing my wife is already off to bed, or she'd declare me nuts

Any way, next week it is my daughter's birthday and we have lots of guests coming over, staying for dinner. So I'll have lots and lots of cutting to do. I always liked cooking, but with good sharp knives, the preparation is almost as uch fun as the actual cooking.

[icedog]

Great knives. I have a large collection of Henkels Four Star but I really use a boning knife and the santoku which is similar to your Wusthof. It is just a great all around knife for slicing and chopping. I can demolish an onion in seconds.

[DwarvenChef]

My everyday "home" knives are in the works... I still have 2 more to get made ... decisions, decisions....

When I get a new knife to test out, I make salsa Lots of cutting and a treat at the end... well ok the next day (got to let it mingle the flavors )

[Russel Baldridge]

Those are pretty sweet DC.

Are the bottom and top ones a lefties or double bevels?

[DwarvenChef]

Top.......Murray Carter - nakiri 180 in White (double bevel)
Middle...Watanabe - kaibou 210 in White (double bevel)
Bottom..Takeda - ajikiri 110 in AS (double bevel)

Looking at a Moritaka AS next, just don't have a style down yet...

I have a Watanabe KU ajikiri, T. Masamoto takohiki, and a yanagi that I forget the name of, all in right handed single bevel. I'm kind of likeing the single bevel stuff more and more. It's just hard finding them in a KU finnish...

[Bruno]

Did some more cooking and slicing today.

First I steamed potatoes, and then sliced them in thin slices for making gratin. Wusthof ruled this one. The hollowing makes the wet slices easier to fall off. The shun sucked for this. The slices really sticked to it.

Slicing carrots went very well with the wusthof despite it not being razor sharp. With the right slicing technique it went effortless throug the carrots.

Then tonight I was preparing a cold salad for my wife to take to work, and I used the shun. It was like magic. the tomatoes, cucumber, paprika fell apart by the merest touch of the edge. And it is easy enough to handle that I can use it to peel paprikas.

My wife thinks it is funny. These days she says I just look around for things to slice. It is true. With good knives in my hand, slicing is magic.
But she doesn't mind. Her colleagues envy her for having a hubby that likes to cook.

EDIT: I just got off the phone with my mom. She asked me 'if I had given you such knives 15 years ago, would you have done all the slicing and cleaning?' I said yes and she said 'damn. if only I'd known...'
I have always been attracted to knives and sharp objects, but it didn't occur to either of us that a couple of Japanese knives would have saved her lots of hours every week.