Rustic vs polished

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branwell

branwell

Straffanforge
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Hi Guys,

Sry if this has been asked a thousand times. I did use the search and.......


I have two chef knives. One polished, one rustic. The rustic has a White #1 edge and the polished an AS edge. Both are sharpened to about the same sharpness and on veg, they perform pretty close to each other. Problem is with meat. The rustic knife feels like it has a lot more drag against the meat.

Is this common or am I missing something?

If it's the result of the finish, is polishing a rustic knife a good option?

Many thanks,

Branwell
 
By rustic, do you mean a black finish? If so, then yes, you will have more "drag" on proteins. The KU (black) finish is there to protect the soft, highly reactive cladding found on most white steel knives from acidic foods from reacting with the steel, and vice versa. Mainly why you are not going to find many, if any (I've never seen one) KU finished sujis, as it's primarily a protein knife. No need to protect the cladding from reacting with acidic foods and such.

Someone please correct me if I'm talking out my butt, lol

Btw, what knives are you talking about. Not that it matters. Just wondering
 
Thanks for the reply.

The rustic knife is a 210mm Goko gyuto.
The polished knife is a 240mm Hiromoto AS gyuto.

Both are clad in stainless so no black.

Again, thanks,

Branwell
 
The Goko I saw when searching looked to have a light KU finish, you got pics or a link?
 
The only pic I can find is here.

http://www.************.com/gokogyuto210mm.html

All that said, I took some sand paper to it this evening and polished it up some. The rusticness is pretty deep so I couldn't get it completely smooth, but it feels much more like the other knife now. Will try it out when I get some chicken tomorrow and see how it goes.

Many thanks for the replies.
 
a nashiji finish is what they call a pear finish. (like the fruit)

i prefer this finish over kurouchi.

just saying =D
 
Jmadams13 said:
By rustic, do you mean a black finish? If so, then yes, you will have more "drag" on proteins. The KU (black) finish is there to protect the soft, highly reactive cladding found on most white steel knives from acidic foods from reacting with the steel, and vice versa. Mainly why you are not going to find many, if any (I've never seen one) KU finished sujis, as it's primarily a protein knife. No need to protect the cladding from reacting with acidic foods and such.

Someone please correct me if I'm talking out my butt, lol

Btw, what knives are you talking about. Not that it matters. Just wondering
Click to expand...

Takeda and Mortaka make KU sujihikis, and Murray Carter has made several, one of which graces Lefty's kitchen:

file_zps7e762dc4.jpg
 
Yup - my Carter suji isn't going anywhere. Thin, nimble and very, very sharp.

GEDC0589.jpg
 
Huh. Well, at least I knew from the beginning I was talking out my butt, lol. I always forget about Carter
 
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