I sharpen knives at a professional level and have thousands invested in sharpening equipment and sharpened thousands of knives. I figured I can post a few tips when purchasing knives to help the collective here. These are in no particular order here.
1. Your money is better spent on individual knives vs a block. Blocks are typically a way to get you to buy more than you need.
2. Pick a knife with a half bolster or no bolster. Knife like the standard Wusthof Classic and Henckels will need to have the bolsters reshaped as they age to keep the designed geometry of the knife. The Wusthof Ikon and Zwilling Pro are half bolster knives and have much better handles.
3. Choose a knife with a HRC rating of 58-62. Anything less dulls really easy and anything over chips really easy unless it"s a true Japanese handmade knife in SG1 or SG2 type steels.
4 .8' chefs knives, paring knives, steak knives, bread knives and cleavers are the most used knives with the chef's knife winning overwhelming in this group. I work on a private estate with a world renowned executive chef and he uses one knife 99% of the time and its a 40yo Wusthof Classic. He is German so this makes sense...
5. Steel rods don't sharpen knives, they realign the blade. steeling knives to bring back sharpness works best on cheap knives with HRC rating less than 58.
6.Ceramic Hones at 2 degrees over the bevel with zero pressure are the best ways to bring an edge back.
7. Electric sharpeners ruin good knives over time. they remove way too much metal per pass
8. German knives are far more durable than Japanese knives. I rarely sharpen a Shun without a chipped blade and rarely sharpen a German blade with a chip.
9. Sharpeners I recommend are Edge Pro, Tormek, Spyderco Sharpmaker, Wicked Edge, Lansky and pretty much anything that clamps the knife and gives yo control of the process. For rods I recommend the Idahone. I use a Tormek mostly for my profession and only recommend it to people that understand the process and how fast it can remove metal.
10. Knife brands I recommend are Victorinox, Dalstrong Gladiator, Wusthof Ikon, Zwilling Pro, Enso, Miyabi and Benchmade Meatcrafter for game. There are other great brands out there, but these stand out to me.
There is likely much more I could elaborate on here, but figured I'd post something with general info and we could expand from there...
1. Your money is better spent on individual knives vs a block. Blocks are typically a way to get you to buy more than you need.
2. Pick a knife with a half bolster or no bolster. Knife like the standard Wusthof Classic and Henckels will need to have the bolsters reshaped as they age to keep the designed geometry of the knife. The Wusthof Ikon and Zwilling Pro are half bolster knives and have much better handles.
3. Choose a knife with a HRC rating of 58-62. Anything less dulls really easy and anything over chips really easy unless it"s a true Japanese handmade knife in SG1 or SG2 type steels.
4 .8' chefs knives, paring knives, steak knives, bread knives and cleavers are the most used knives with the chef's knife winning overwhelming in this group. I work on a private estate with a world renowned executive chef and he uses one knife 99% of the time and its a 40yo Wusthof Classic. He is German so this makes sense...
5. Steel rods don't sharpen knives, they realign the blade. steeling knives to bring back sharpness works best on cheap knives with HRC rating less than 58.
6.Ceramic Hones at 2 degrees over the bevel with zero pressure are the best ways to bring an edge back.
7. Electric sharpeners ruin good knives over time. they remove way too much metal per pass
8. German knives are far more durable than Japanese knives. I rarely sharpen a Shun without a chipped blade and rarely sharpen a German blade with a chip.
9. Sharpeners I recommend are Edge Pro, Tormek, Spyderco Sharpmaker, Wicked Edge, Lansky and pretty much anything that clamps the knife and gives yo control of the process. For rods I recommend the Idahone. I use a Tormek mostly for my profession and only recommend it to people that understand the process and how fast it can remove metal.
10. Knife brands I recommend are Victorinox, Dalstrong Gladiator, Wusthof Ikon, Zwilling Pro, Enso, Miyabi and Benchmade Meatcrafter for game. There are other great brands out there, but these stand out to me.
There is likely much more I could elaborate on here, but figured I'd post something with general info and we could expand from there...
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