A good friend of mine is an ardent cook as well as a PhD in physics specializing in light and sound swears by the pricer Shun knives- he says the angle of the sharp edge is the key. He's also German and says that the German knives are OK, but Shun is tops.
I understand the love the Nenox. They are like the iphones of the knife world. They just work. However, for more than 500 bones, I would go custom.
Shuns are good mass market knives with great warranties, but there are better knives on the market for similar prices. The Hiromoto is one of them.
Yeah, I only got the Shun because it was like 99 dollars. probably going to for the hiromoto AS for my next knife though.
He sounds like a moron. The geometry of the edge is something that is easy to change and often is for personal preference.
You can only change geometry so far when the knives are so thick at the spine. Unless you want to grind the blade all the spine of the knife. The pitfall of traditional german knives is that they are rather soft at 58 hrc. The shuns are closer to 60. That being said, I like the Zwilling myabis the best for mass market higher end knives which are technically german though they are made in Japan. That is the knife I always recommend when someone has to buy from Sur la Table.
geometry of the edge geometry of the blade You should be removing metal from the secondary edge each time you sharpen btw.
Bandwagoner, I know all about this. I make kitchen knives as a hobby. You can grind a knife from an axe. At some point, if you remove enough metal it's not the same knife anymore.
Do you want to have a japanese whetstone challenge? I pity the fool. Why are you augmenting my posts then acting offended when I do the same.
The quick answer is yes. However, if you develop proper sharpening skills, the difference is negligible. Here is comparison from a good friend of mine who happens to be a knife steel expert, Devin Thomas. He is one of the more famous damascus steel producers/knife makers and his son, Larrin, has a PhD in metallurgy. http://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/showthread.php/4772-what-steels-and-why/page5 If you want to learn everything you need to know about metals as it relates to kitchen, I would recommend you read the whole thread. Another thing to note, heat treat is just as important as steel type. I bought a cheap 52100 (finest grained steel used in kitchen knives) knife from someone recently, and the steel is as grainy as some of the cheapest knives I touched.
I'm sure you would kick my butt in knife sharpening. I readily admit that I'm the laziest sharpener on the planet. I also apologize for sounding offended. I just want to make sure readers get a proper perspective when it comes to the science and engineering around knives. It's a topic very dear to my heart. For a technology that hasn't changed much in a few hundred years, there is a lot of misinformation and mysticism around the topic often perpetuated by the master knife makers themselves.
I was just talking about a stone collection showdown. I think people get bogged down in the details too much when the most important factors are profile and geometry of a knife. Steel is secondary.
