misterfish":xppbms1q said:
Following all the advice from my question a weeek or two ago we went into town and after some ondering SWMBO finally decided that she liked the Global knives the best and we have a set due for delivery at the start of next week.
Also we do have another question. We do have a japanese style knife that SWMBO believes she got cheap from the 'remaindered' shelf in Lakeland years ago. Has anybody any idea of the make or any other information about the knife - there is no maker's mark that we can find. Here's a piccy of the item in question
Misterfish
The style of knife is called Santoku, which translates as three uses or virtues (slicing, dicing and mincing) mainly meant for vegtables but obviously can be used for general work too. The Kullenschliff show its a western interpretation of the traditional Japanese design, only usually found on export models or western copies. Notice the way the pattern ends abruptly near to the handle? With damascus steel I would expect that pattern would disappear into the handle. I think these could be laser etched rather than folded metal. I've only seen a few etched blades, its difficult to tel them from the real thing. The only way to be sure is to put 2 side by side, if the patterns are the same, they're etched! Their lakeland origin also points to them being the etched variety. You can expect to pay £150, easily past £300 for a damascus Santoku bocho.
The attached pics are of damascus steel Usuba Bocho and a Yanagiba blades (picked them up from Ichimonji Mitsuhide, Kappabashi, Japan). Notice how the pattern goes into the handle? The blades are one side edge about 15 degrees rather than the normal double bevel but carry a lifetime, free repair guarantee.
Before I got these I used globals for years, they are nice blades but £150 for a bread knife?? The G2 is ok, I found it slightly heavy and much preferred the G5 having said that, once I found that good quality Japanese knives of white or blue steel can be found and imported for a lot less, I haven't bought another global. Admittedly these two in the pics were a little more than the globals but I do like damascus / suminagashi (marbled paper)
I never got on with the handles on the GS range, I found the G series much more comfortable. But its such a personal thing.. As you probably already know, don't put the globals in the dishwasher, they rust. The sharpening gizmo scratches the side of the blades and watch out for counterfeits, there's a lot of them about too.
I'll grab a pic of the the KAI cleaver too, good solid blade and still sharp enough to shave with!
