Inexpensive chef's knife on sale for $10

boing
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Chef’s knives are pretty balenced, but not the cheap ones, and not in the way that’s good for throwing. But at that cheap, with a grinder or belt sander I think you could make do. $10 bucks is like Chinese supermarket cleaver cheap.

I’ve never been particularly impressed. From my use of them they’re pretty good for their market segment, but not nearly as insanely good as everyone lets on. They’re just a very nice food service knife, there are plenty of comparable products out there. But they’re commonly available, well loved, and an easy, respectable recommendation for people who want a decent respectable knife that can take abuse. What I’d like to track down is some of MoraKniv’s food service knives. Their outdoor/utility knives are some of the best cheap steel I’ve encountered. Really well made and designed, and they’ve got a lot of features and a whole concept that’s totally at odds with typical knife market BS. I got a 2 pack of hunting knives from them for my brother and I at like 18 bucks. We both love them. Their food service line is apparently intensely loved in Europe, but only the outdoor knives seem to have have distribution in the US.

The nerds at Cook’s Illustrated are frequently wrong and deeply frustrating to read every other month. I have had some incredibly frustrating and crap knives made from 440. Rather than not being as good as some modern steels, its not as good as a lot of old steels. Cheaper steels, or carbon steels. Its not bad steel, but its not exactly great steel either. The fibroxes are good for cheap knives, but they really aren’t that different from many comparable commercial grade beaters. Better sharpening and heat treat than some of their competitors out of the box. Though I hear they’re kind of a bitch to sharpen (that is sort of endemic in this sort of knife). But like I said, easy for a lot of people to find and justify so they’re a good recommendation. Cook’s recommendation is one of those weird areas where they break from their habit of recommending the more expensive option for weirdly specific and oddly predicated reasons. But it also has little to do with the product being any better, or better value, than anything else they looked at. Especialy given how few things they looked at. But it also doesn’t quite wash. The Fibrox usually sits at around ~$45, slightly higher than comparable knives at MSRP. More for the rose wood. Which isn’t quite cheap, for 10 or 15 bucks more you can step up to a knife that’s seriously better in almost every way. If you shop for a deal, say when they drop to the sub $30 range, which are frequent its a pretty decent deal. But you can do the same thing with far, far better brands. I just got a really nice knife that originally retailed at more than $125, and currenly tends to sell at ~$100 for around 50 bucks. Its better steel, nicer looking, from a better manufacturer. An actual quality, well regarded, name brand, high end knife. For a few bucks more than Victorinox’s commercial grade beaters. Though its for a gift, and I haven’t used it. For an extra 25 bucks you can find a not on sale Tojiro DP, a serious Asian knife geek knife that’s widely considered to be one of the best for the money knives you can get. And these guys:

exist now. Their first run of knives should (if I’m not screwed) ship within the next couple months. My point being there are plenty of options to spend less, or slightly more to match or out perform Victorinox’s products. But if you like them, don’t mind spending whatever they’re going for, etc. then cool. I’ve pointed some people in their direction, and will continue to do so. And still want to find some of those Mora kitchen knives…

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Looks neat, but it is still a Kickstarter that hasn’t shipped yet. I can’t imagine recommending something that doesn’t exist as a shipping product yet.

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Well I didn’t recommend it (here), I mentioned it. I did back it, and the crew have been very, very, good in terms of keeping us up to date. Though it is my first kickstarter (I find the whole concept kind of bullshit). They had a small production run of prototypes ready at the time of that article. From which they sent out some for review, leading to an awful lot of attention. So that review was based on a knife in hand situation. All that was really left at the time of funding was finishing work/finalization of production molds, packaging design and quality control during actual production. They added a blade guard and sharpening stone as backer bonuses and additions to the line. The delivery date got pushed back from March to late May early June, and everyone was notified about that quite early in the process (they ended up massively over funded, leading to larger production runs and more QC concerns). Several test runs have apparently been run off, and quality is reported by 3rd parties as still being good. But some of the delays were claimed to result from additional refinement of the molds/dies after an early run that wasn’t up to par. So the major concern with backers, press, and the company is whether they can maintain quality with the much larger production run. In terms of Kenji’s recommendation: out of every crowd funded, or start up, product he’s publicly backed only one is looking like vaporware. The Wokmon, a metal cone that adapts a western gas burner into a jet suitable for proper wok cookery. Most of the others have become something of kitchen standards. The Anova sous vide machine and baking steel in particular. He was also involved in both popularizing and designing/refining this: http://www.kettlepizza.com/ which even has a Serious Eats edition with additional features due to his involvement. And was an early supporter of the Searzall. I would not have backed that kick starter if the price were any higher, it didn’t happen to fit exactly what I was looking for at the moment or Kenji hadn’t given a vote of confidence. Not only did I back it but I recommended several of my friends who were knife shopping give it a shot.

That said this is a group with no manufacturing experience previous to this project. Though there was apparently several years of work involved before the Kickstarter was even launched, it wouldn’t totally surprise me if it failed to materialize or the final product had some flaws or longevity issues. I, and most people, fully expect it to ship. But like I said the question of consistency in the final product is the major thing everyone is watching out for. Frankly from everything I’ve seen thus far I fully expect the company to exist and improve going forward. Even if my early run Kickstarter backed knife is shit or never shows up. The concept is sound and their marketing is excellent at the very least, and they’ve pretty clearly developed supply lines and relationships/contacts needed to make it happen. So its a group to keep an eye on, if they don’t hit it now I fully expect they’ll have it figured out in a few years.

Edit: AND I just decided to click on that last update I never bothered to read from 10 days ago. I’m currently looking at photos of finished production knives and factory photos of the manufacturing process. Apparently the final test run of the production process after full production began to finalize the complete process. The full run of knives is apparently finished with heat treat and headed for whatever step is next. I believe handles, grinding and sharpening. Followed by packaging. Shipping is set for June, and updates are slower as the team is in and out of Asia over seeing things. For things not to materialize now it would have to be an astounding con.

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I’m not trying to demean you in any way, but did you try Google?

http://www.knifecenter.com/kc_new/store_store.html?brand=32&a=kitchen&series=3602

I like the Fibrox’ lightweight flexible blade and the handle works for me. They’re also twenty bucks and I don’t have to feel guilty about sharpening instead of steeling. It holds an edge well enough that I also don’t have to be crazy on top of it.

Again, I think hand tools are incredibly specific. I’d rather help someone find a life partner than a hammer. I don’t like Globals, others do. Personal preference counts more than anything else and I went through an afternoon at Bowery Kitchen with a very patient staff to end up happy.

But then, Mora wasn’t on the wall at the time. Maybe I’ll see if that’s changed.

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Of course, but I’m a bit of a bargain hunter, and haven’t look in a while. The price on the ones at your link is both higher than I’d like to pay for something like that, and apparently higher than they typically run outside the US. Thanks for the link though I’m gonna poke around a bit.

The Fibrox for an 8" chef’s is sometimes twenty bucks. At sub $30 its a good buy. But the typical price is over $40, and MSRP is something like $45. Its pretty trivial to find them, or any of their competition at 20-30 dollars though. But at MSRP or sale price I like the Mundials and Messermeister products better, and there isn’t really a huge difference between any of them. Except maybe the Dexter Sanisafe line (white handle), which is heavier, blunter and more poorly sharpened than most. A few of Dexters more consumer focused lines are pretty atrocious too. All the stuff you like in the Fibrox will exist elsewhere. In terms of flexible blade, love that in a fillet knife (Love the Dexter V-lo). Never in a chef’s. But don’t get me wrong. These are good cheap knives. Just not good good knives. I just feel like they’re exactly comparable to most of the decent knives in that market segment, and there are often cheaper options. they have their flaws so do the competitors and its a wash and personal preference after all. I feel like a recommendation in this market segment should be a list of applicable brands, followed by "whatever is closest to 20 bucks this week or you like best. Especially now that the Victorinox rose wood models are starting to become the standard rec (because they’re nicer). Ultimately unless you are looking at >$30 knives it costs a pittance to step up to something nicer. And they are nicer like noticeably. Even without spending a ton of cash on some fancy brand, Asian fetishism, and fancy steels.

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Indeed. And the source I linked to explains why. The quality of a 440 knife is crucially dependent on the heat treatment, and a lot of vendors these days don’t bother. Victorinox treats theirs to around 55 on the Rockwell HRC scale (i.e. very hard). See here:

Fibrox is the best in its market segment, not the best best, and nobody ever argued otherwise, not even Cook’s. I don’t use them. I have Shuns as my daily chef knives.

The fibrox serrated bread knife, however, is awesome.

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I’m gonna start calling every reviewed item “The Holy Grail of…”

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Well, in this case the comparison is more apt given that the Misen can’t actually be bought and doesn’t exist as a shipping product yet… :smiley:

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That would be The Holy Grail of Reviews.

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I’m sure someone will be disappointed.

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Surely they wouldn’t write in to tell you such a thing, would they?

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I wouldn’t call them the best in the market segment, personally. And 55 isn’t “very hard” in terms of rockwell, in fact its in the sub 56 hardness level that’s often lamented as the “too soft range” typically used by western knives (though that’s not particularly true). “very hard” in terms of rockwell hardness for knife steels is in the high 50’s to low sixties. Though not all steels can be practically used, or hardened to the same range. I’m having trouble finding a spec sheet that lists the applicable range for 440c. But several of them list 60 as the high end of its range. Dexter as an example is a bit hard to peg down. They refer to almost all their steel as “DexSteel” and seldom specify what exactly it is or where their proprietary steels are different from commercial versions. However is several places the company has confirmed that all of their knives are hardened to 54-56, and certain lines use 420 (which is lower carbon, and lower quality than 440) or 440 steel. The Messermiesters I mentioned (its the 4 seasons line) use CrMov15 German steel. Its a slightly different but roughly equivalent steel to 440 and 420, and has actually been used by Victorinox on some of their products. They harden to 56. These steels, as I said, can be hardened up to 60. But at that point they apparently become too hard to practically sharpen. These are the stainless steels that gave stainless steel knives a bad name. They can be used to make damn decent knives, but they have serious short comings as compared to cheap carbon steel and with improper handling make paper weights. Even when handled right they can be difficult to sharpen, though the counter point is that they’re extremely durable and hold an edge for a very long time. Which is why they’re mostly seen in cheaper, hard use outdoor and pocket knives these days.

Your Shuns as another example are very hard. Shuns are typically hardened to 60 or above. The one I have for example is listed at 63 (which is too hard for the steel in question VG-10, leading to a very brittle knife that I have no end of trouble with). The Misen I mention is slated to be hardened to 58-59. High end JA Henkels (the very same knives that are often accused of being “too soft” as an example of Western knives inferiority to Japanese) are typically hardened between 57 and 60 these days. The often Highly recommended Misono ux10 Gyuto (Kenji’s usual recommendation) is hardened to 60.

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The perfect little notch between the handle and the blade is a very comfortable place for the index finger to rest, free from harm and in an all-knowing area. FWIW

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As you know, there are three different grades of 440. If it just says “440” without specifying a letter, odds are good that it’s 440A, which is the cheapest and worst grade, albeit the most rust-resistant.

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Right. And actual hardening, design and bevel angle have an effect too. Most of the knives in question are 440c or something roughly equivalent, including the Victorinox. Dexter isn’t clear about what’s what. But their crappier products seem to be 420 or lower grades of 440. It’s a big part of what makes them suck.

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Damn, you can pick up a six pack of the ten inch version from Amazon for $65 :hushed:

I have absolutely no reason to own 6 10 inch Chef’s knives but I really want a reason…sigh…

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I don’t think you’re going to ruin a $10 knife… Most people not willing to spend real money on a knife are also not willing to spend the time to properly sharpen their knives, or even to get the skill to do so. Getting them to spend 30 seconds sharpening the knife every few times that they use it is probably going to be an improvement. Sometimes the perfect is the enemy of the good enough.

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Chef’s knives, which are designed to be sharpened regularly usually ARE softer than outdoors knives which aren’t. You don’t need to hold an edge as long if you can simply put a new edge on it daily. Which was kind of my point above…How and how often you sharpen a chef’s knife generally matters more than the quality of the knife. Most people simply do not keep their knives sharp. So their experience and safety is going to be improved more by getting them to sharpen their knives regularly, even if they do a mediocre job than by getting them to buy any particular knife.
For professionals high quality knives and doing a GOOD job sharpening them is not only going to make their job more pleasant, but also, I suspect, cut down on the incidence of carpal tunnel injuries.

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I think you’ll find that a couple of strategically placed oak-blocks around the sander should dampen and stabilize the resonance to a point where other knives won’t disrupt it. A little experimentation with some cheap knives will allow you to find the best interference patterns from alternate placements. I know some swear by quartz crystals, but that’s just a bunch of new-age nano-particle mumbo-jumbo. Go with the repeatable science.

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Do a bit a googling. You’ll see most of the “survival”, hunting and what have knives from various well regarded brands sit at a hardness range of ~56-58, with a few breaking up into 60. This is similar but lower to most quality kitchen knives which seem to fall into a 58-62 range, with exceptions spiking higer or dipping lower (but there are exceptions to all generalizations). Pocket knives too, Swiss Army Knives are claimed to be at 56, Opinel at 56ish, Kershaw (who make Shun) at 57-60, and so on. Far fewer of these manufacturers list actual hardness in their materials. Its in a similar functional range, and things 55 or below tend to be lower quality or special use, but the chef’s knives usually sit higher. Harder use knives, say a machete or something made for yard work, or from what I understand dive knives (which are often used for prying and spend a lot of time soaking in salt water) will often be softer. Just as something like a western cleaver should be softer. For good reason. Softer steel will take a less fine, less sharp, edge. But that softer steel is far less likely to break when it encounters hard substances, is seriously WACKED into material, or is bent or torqued at weird angles (as with prying). Its not much to do with how frequently something is meant to be sharpened. Nothing in an outdoor knife says that its not meant to be frequently sharpened, and frequency of sharpening has more to do with frequency of use (you use a kitchen knife more often than a camping knife). A dull hunting or pocket knife is just as dangerous to you as a dull kitchen knife. And sharpening too frequently can cause problems just as sharpening too infrequently can. The factor there is that quality manufactures consider whether a knife can practically be resharpened, or whether it is so soft that it can’t take an edge or maintain it for any amount of use. Both are a factor of the particular steel at a particular hardness. Each steel seems to have a slightly different functional range, below which it can’t take an edge and above which it is too hard to sharpen without special tools. Some steels can’t be hardened at all. And some steels can not be hardened to or outside a particular range.

And that’s sort of a major thing with these food service knives. They’re made to stand up to incredibly hard use. Multiple trips through an industrial dish washer per day. Knocking around with pots and pans. Abusive use on stainless steel broiler plates and tables. Hacking hard bone. Chipping through frozen product. Getting thrown at bus boys. Hell I’ve used them to open #10 cans. So as much as their softness is dictated in part by their cheap steel, it isn’t necessary or desirable for them to be any harder (or made from better steel) because otherwise they wouldn’t hold up, or would be too pricey to replace when they finally give it up. Most people buying them for home use aren’t going to give them anywhere near that level of abuse (and most outdoor and pocket knives of any sort will never experience something like that). So while a restaurant buying 20 of these at a stretch is going to get poorer performance and much greater expense by paying $15 more per knife for a serious jump in quality, Home users don’t have that limitation. They’re still a good recommendation for people who really just want a decent functional knife and don’t care otherwise, as a stepping stone to better knives, and just for funsies, for those same reasons. They don’t need to be cared for like a better knife. Can stick em in the dishwasher, misuse em, etc. Sharpen in bizarre and half assed ways, or when learning to sharpen without worry. And they’re cheap enough that replacing them somewhat frequently is feasible. All while taking a pretty decent edge, and a design that’s actually functional. And compared to similarly priced consumer products, the shit hanging on the wall at target they’re usually worlds better.

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