Knives & Knife sharpening

For my first venture into Japanese knives, I'm looking at a Fujiwara FKM 210mm No. 9 gyuto, $82 shipped from JCK. Marginally cheaper than an equivalent Tojiro DP series. I thought I'd get a Tojiro petty or nakiri to fill the gap down the track, but my brother is giving me an Opinel No. 6 stainless for xmas so it might well be that I don't need a bigger knife if it lives up to expectations.
 
Mong. said:
For my first venture into Japanese knives, I'm looking at a Fujiwara FKM 210mm No. 9 gyuto, $82 shipped from JCK. Marginally cheaper than an equivalent Tojiro DP series.
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Koki is nice to deal with, and the Fujiwaras are well rated for the price. I think the Fujiwaras are quite sharp out of the box, whereas some others need a good sharpening before you can use them.

There is a lot of knife porn on his website, and I wished I could a) justify and b) find a reason to need a sujihiki with a woolly mammoth molar ivory tooth handle, or one of the ultra expensive cleavers.

Guess I will have to stick to my $12 Kiwi brand cleaver a while longer though.
 
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Mong. said:
For my first venture into Japanese knives, I'm looking at a Fujiwara FKM 210mm No. 9 gyuto, $82 shipped from JCK. Marginally cheaper than an equivalent Tojiro DP series. I thought I'd get a Tojiro petty or nakiri to fill the gap down the track, but my brother is giving me an Opinel No. 6 stainless for xmas so it might well be that I don't need a bigger knife if it lives up to expectations.
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It gets expensive pretty quickly. Even if you're only buying entry level gear. I'm also tossing up whether or not to get a smaller (165 or at a stretch 180mm) vegetable knife. Would really like a carbon steel left handed one which is even more expensive. As a lefty you get shafted all your life! I'll see how I go with the gyuto first. It's been hijacked and shoved under the Christmas tree.
 
Nick the Knife said:
On our annual visiting the inlaws in Sydney - wandered up to Cabramatta to go to a few of my faves shops. Ended up finding a HUGE whetstone approx 25 x 16 x 8cm, must weight around 5kg! Its a natural jade-ish coloured stone, quite soft and with a grit I'd estimate at around 1200-1500.
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Are you succumbing to the lure of the stone?
 
I get the feeling that the main difference between entry level and top level gear is visual. Ivory and bog oak handles, 1,000 plus layered damascus steel etc etc. It's all boyz toyz.
 
Thanks to PJ, my old man is the happy new owner of an Edge Faux. Because he is a lazy old bludger painting the house, I've been given all the knives to do. I set it up today and went to work on a cheapo utility knife that's not sharp enough to cut you if you run it across your palm. Is it just me, or is the 180 stone really shit? I spent ages trying to get an edge using that, and in the end, I probably gave up too soon. Much better results as I went to the higher grit stones. I've made the knife usable again, and I've just given a cheap nakiri purchased in Vietnam a quick run on the 800 and 1500 stones. I'm going to try both of them out when I make risotto for dinner in an hour, and if they're okay, I'm going to move on to a Wusthof Trident series chefs knife.

One thing worthy of mention is that I dropped the 400 grit stone in the sink and it broke off it's backing piece. I've busted out the Tarzan's Grip and glued it back together. It'll be fine, but it has reminded me to take a bit more care with the stones.
 
Mong. said:
Thanks to PJ, my old man is the happy new owner of an Edge Faux. Because he is a lazy old bludger painting the house, I've been given all the knives to do. I set it up today and went to work on a cheapo utility knife that's not sharp enough to cut you if you run it across your palm. Is it just me, or is the 180 stone really shit? I spent ages trying to get an edge using that, and in the end, I probably gave up too soon. Much better results as I went to the higher grit stones. I've made the knife usable again, and I've just given a cheap nakiri purchased in Vietnam a quick run on the 800 and 1500 stones. I'm going to try both of them out when I make risotto for dinner in an hour, and if they're okay, I'm going to move on to a Wusthof Trident series chefs knife.

One thing worthy of mention is that I dropped the 400 grit stone in the sink and it broke off it's backing piece. I've busted out the Tarzan's Grip and glued it back together. It'll be fine, but it has reminded me to take a bit more care with the stones.
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The 180 might be pretty rough on a cheap blade and you might not have even gotten an edge to speak of.
 
Well, the knife in question cut quite well through onions and capsicum tonight. I'm quite impressed with myself, I make a nice risotto. The cheapy nakiri-type knife from Vietnam is pretty mean and sharp now too, and while cutting tomatoes I cut myself. Having sharp knives is a change that'll require some adjustment. Successful first testing of the Edge Faux, the results have been good. I'm repairing the 400 grit overnight, but I'm working on a Wusthof Trident with the 180 grit stone now. Hopefully there'll be a better result from that stone on the higher grade steel.

Oh, it also turns out that the Vietnamese nakiri-thing is carbon steel. I got a bit of a surprise chopping onions with it, the blade began to rust a little and was staining the vegies. I'm going to bust out the sandpaper and get that shitty looking black layer off the top of the blade and clean up the handle a bit.
 
Mong. said:
Well, the knife in question cut quite well through onions and capsicum tonight. I'm quite impressed with myself, I make a nice risotto. The cheapy nakiri-type knife from Vietnam is pretty mean and sharp now too, and while cutting tomatoes I cut myself. Having sharp knives is a change that'll require some adjustment. Successful first testing of the Edge Faux, the results have been good. I'm repairing the 400 grit overnight, but I'm working on a Wusthof Trident with the 180 grit stone now. Hopefully there'll be a better result from that stone on the higher grade steel.

Oh, it also turns out that the Vietnamese nakiri-thing is carbon steel. I got a bit of a surprise chopping onions with it, the blade began to rust a little and was staining the vegies. I'm going to bust out the sandpaper and get that shitty looking black layer off the top of the blade and clean up the handle a bit.
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180 grit is pretty rough. Unless the Trident was used for trimming the lawn and has no bevel left I'd start higher up in the series myself.

Having a seriously sharp knife does take a bit of getting used to.
 
So, how are peeps going with their new jap knives? Have used mine (Tojiro carbon steel gyuto) straight out of the box for a week now and it doesn't feel like it even needs steeling. Amazingly sharp. Feels like a great work horse of a knife. Incredible bargain for $70. Of course I couldn't help myself and have ordered a left handed Usuba from the same crew. Would have also been $70 if I was one of the boring, bog standard, right handed people of this world but as I'm not, it was more like $100. In the interim built myself a sink bridge and as it seems ridiculous just to have one stone for that, I also decided that I'd need another higher grit stone. I think I'll need it to sharpen/deburr the flat back of the Usuba. The Usuba is going to be pretty familiar territory as nearly all my woodworking tools are chisel ground.

Oh and then I made an end grain cutting board. I don't really buy in to the prolonging the edge theory that a lot seem to use to justify buying one but it just looks so damn nice. I'll post a pic of my effort. A complete pain in the arse to do if (like me) you haven't got access to a thicknesser and a nice big saw bench. One of those enormous overhead belt sanders would be good too. And an extraction set up. My entire garage was covered in an inch of very fine saw dust from sanding end grain. Not something I'll do again in a hurry.
 
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Pjotr said:
Oh and then I made an end grain cutting board. ... Not something I'll do again in a hurry.
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So this is not an offer to make one for any P&C member interested then :weird: :laugh:
 
Pjotr said:
So, how are peeps going with their new jap knives?
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My soon to be wife used my carbonext gyuto for the first time last night, and exclaimed how nice and sharp it was, and said she understood why I raved about how good it was. Then left it wet in the dish drainer.
 
Pjotr said:
So, you haven't got a dishwasher she can leave it in for you?
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Luckily (?), no. I was happy all the time she thought she was just humouring me.
 
You all seem very knowledgeable about kitchen knives. Care to provide some advice?

What would be a good (but still reasonably-priced) kitchen knife set? Would like to get something to replace the rubbish set we have now. Is it possible to get such a set for around $150?

Just want something that works well and will last. Ideally it would come with around 6 knives and a block to hold them.
 
mr626 said:
You all seem very knowledgeable about kitchen knives. Care to provide some advice?

What would be a good (but still reasonably-priced) kitchen knife set? Would like to get something to replace the rubbish set we have now. Is it possible to get such a set for around $150?

Just want something that works well and will last. Ideally it would come with around 6 knives and a block to hold them.
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I was going to say that six sounds like overkill, but we use 5 regularly. Do yours need to be in a set?

Knives we use are:
  1. Gyuto 240mm (Chefs knife)
  2. Paring knife - straight edged
  3. Paring knife - serrated
  4. Cleaver
  5. Bread knife
  6. Guess you could add a good pair of kitchen shears to that list too

I think we have already mentioned www.chefsknivestogo.com and JapaneseChefsKnife.Com in this thread. I would recommend either the Tojiro DP, or Fujiwara FKM serie4s as good entry level knives.

I am going to presume you have a bread knife and kitchen scissors already, so would probably recommend something like
The Fujiwara FKM 240mm Gyuto
and a Fujiwara FKM 120mm paring knife for a total of about $130.

I would also give tojiro examples, but it seems like chefsknivestogo can't send these internationally any more.

For the serrated knife - I would just suggest a less than $9 Victorinox serrated paring knife from your local kitchen ware shop. And a $15 Kiwi brand cleaver from your local asian supermarket. I only use the serrated parer for things like cutting tomatoes or soft fruit, and a cleaver tends to get bashed about a bit, so I don't like to spend big money on these items.

Just make sure you have your own way to sharpen - did you get on the edge faux bandwagon earlier?

These would come in at about your price limit, but just remembered you would have to add postage of around $15 from JCK (not sure about CKTG) on top of that.
 
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mr626 said:
You all seem very knowledgeable about kitchen knives. Care to provide some advice?

What would be a good (but still reasonably-priced) kitchen knife set? Would like to get something to replace the rubbish set we have now. Is it possible to get such a set for around $150?

Just want something that works well and will last. Ideally it would come with around 6 knives and a block to hold them.
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Do you do any form of sharpening?
 
Pjotr said:
Do you do any form of sharpening?
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Good point Pjotr. Depending on what Mr626 already has in the knife draw a good sharpening by himself, or at the local butchers for $15 may be all that is needed.
 
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