Yeah it does, really good to use for cooking but also a work of art, even if you never use it, you would still be happy to look at it.
Knife Thread
- Thread starter Glaucus
- Start date
Just back from Toronto on holiday and visited a Japanese knife shop called Knifewear while in the city, my missus had spent a small fortune on clothes by this point in our trip and was ribbing me for being a tight arse,... so I treated myself to a couple of knives.
I use a few Chinese knives at the moment so these are a considerable step up. The Nagara Guyoto/Kiritsuke is Aogami Super (Blue Carbon Steel) with stainless steel cladding and the Fujimoto Santoku is SLD semi-stainless steel with stainless steel cladding.
Fujimoto Hammer Tone SLD Santoku 165mm and a Nigara AS/S Tsuchime Kiritsuke Gyuto 240mm.
I use a few Chinese knives at the moment so these are a considerable step up. The Nagara Guyoto/Kiritsuke is Aogami Super (Blue Carbon Steel) with stainless steel cladding and the Fujimoto Santoku is SLD semi-stainless steel with stainless steel cladding.
Given how much decent whetstones cost, £6 is not so much a bargain as a red flag IMO. It'll be relatively soft, and very easy to dig your knife edge into if you over-angle the blade or press too hard. Also, it'll probably take much longer than a more expensive stone to put an edge on harder steels.Comes with a 20 degree guide though... my knives are jap, so I'll have to buy a different guide?
The also sell a 400/100 stone, but I gues you don't need 400grit unless the knife is wrecked?
That said, at £6 you can always buy one to practise on, if you've not used one before. Practice on one of your crappier knives, not your favourite Japanese knife, but do be aware that the results you get on a cheap Western knife won't be the same. I actually struggle to get a decent edge on my Wusthof with the same whetstones that put a super-sharp edge on my Japanese knives, but that might just be me not adjusting my technique properly.
I've never tried to use a whetstone with an angle guide still attached (always figured it would scratch the stone), but yeah, 20 degrees is generally going to be a bit too much for Japanese knives. That said, it's a complex rabbit hole to go down, and there isn't really a universally "right" angle to sharpen at. But sharpening at a right angle would definitely be wrong
400 grit is a perfectly reasonable grit for re-sharpening a blade if it's gotten really blunt, or working out small chips. To be honest, for most of us home cooks you can put a more than adequate edge on a knife with a 400 grit stone. All the silly paper slicing tests I do at home are just hobbyist b******t really, I'm not doing anything in my kitchen that needs that sharp an edge
Given how much decent whetstones cost, £6 is not so much a bargain as a red flag IMO. It'll be relatively soft, and very easy to dig your knife edge into if you over-angle the blade or press too hard. Also, it'll probably take much longer than a more expensive stone to put an edge on harder steels.
That said, at £6 you can always buy one to practise on, if you've not used one before. Practice on one of your crappier knives, not your favourite Japanese knife, but do be aware that the results you get on a cheap Western knife won't be the same. I actually struggle to get a decent edge on my Wusthof with the same whetstones that put a super-sharp edge on my Japanese knives, but that might just be me not adjusting my technique properly.
I've never tried to use a whetstone with an angle guide still attached (always figured it would scratch the stone), but yeah, 20 degrees is generally going to be a bit too much for Japanese knives. That said, it's a complex rabbit hole to go down, and there isn't really a universally "right" angle to sharpen at. But sharpening at a right angle would definitely be wrong
400 grit is a perfectly reasonable grit for re-sharpening a blade if it's gotten really blunt, or working out small chips. To be honest, for most of us home cooks you can put a more than adequate edge on a knife with a 400 grit stone. All the silly paper slicing tests I do at home are just hobbyist b******t really, I'm not doing anything in my kitchen that needs that sharp an edge
I dunno, My Japanese (vg-1) nakiri is an absolute pleasure to use compared to my pro-cook 'nihon' XC-50 german steel knifes... it's bloody lethal though.. the blade edge is a lot finer and it just glides through onions and potatoes (and fingers
) with pretty much zero downward pressure.I take your point though, my Jap knife cost almost as much as 5 procook x-50 knives (when they were on offer), so I won't be practising on that!