Cutting Performance - Reasonable Expectations

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pechelman

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I am relatively new here, but not knew to knives, and certainly not new to sharpening. (straight razors, jnats, etc)
I have a modest selection of kitchen knives, the ones of note being a 210x95mm Takeda Cleaver, 220x120mm Moritaka Cleaver, 240mm KU Itinomonn Gyuto, and a 180mm Carter KU Funayuki. (a few shuns and calphalon beaters)

Out of all of my kitchen knives, hands down, the worst cutter is the Carter. It just doesnt cut anything with height. (i.e. garlic isnt a problem)
Wont get through onion or a potato. (without substantially more force than my other knives)

The spine measures ~1.6-1.8mm and is about 45mm at the heel if I am remembering correctly. The primary edge is shaving sharp so all signs point to this being a secondary edge \ thinning issue. This knife really is the definition of "Thick behind the edge", even if the calipers don't agree.

Even after a few thinning sessions on the ~325-500 grit (well worn dmt), the knife still wedges into foods, even if I'm only using the tip as one would do for prepping to dice an onion. Cutting anything like a carrot is honestly just dangerous with this knife it requires so much force to push through. I bought this brand new directly from Carter, and have not contacted him yet as I see I've already used this knife and it's not in a returnable condition.


So the point of this post;
I was expecting a ton more here from the Carter given his reputation, and my experience with his neck knives, but were those expectations out of line for his KU kitchen knives?
Should I just keep thinning this until it cuts (or end up grind a hole in this knife, heh) or should I contact Carter?

I know this is my first post here, so let me just say, I am not intending to flame anyone here.
I love his neck knives, so I'm really just hoping to get some input from the more veteran folks around here.
 
I'd contact Carter. He is known for fixing any issues, for free or cheap. I'm also curious to see what Salty would have to say about this, after watching his youtube videos about "The Grind."
 
Edit, missed the part where you said it was brand new when you purchased.

I have owned a few carts and I found my KU finished knife performed very well.
Sucks that it sounds like something isn't right with your knife. I would honestly say contact carter. I'm sure he would be willing to take a look at it and regrind it if needed.

I'd normally say it may have something to do with your sharpening because it sounds very unlike a Carter to have trouble getting through a carrot but you have made it clear that you do a lot if free hand sharpening.

-Chuck
 
thanks for the replies guys
Drafting an email right now. Will follow up with an update if people would like to know.


And yea, the primary edge on his knife out of the box, was as one would expect, very very good.
Even still, I wanted to eliminate that as a variable and got an amazing edge off a 5k Gesshin / CrO2 Balsa Strop. (same stone\finish as I use on most my other kitchen knives)
 
I experienced a similar issue with my KU Carter. It's only 1.6mm at the spine. Out of the box, it wedged a lot more than my Yusuke and other knives. After staring at the choil, looked like the edge had high shoulders behind it. I spent quite a bit of time thinning on a beston 500. I thinned not only the shoulders directly behind the edge, but all the exposed metal up to the KU finish. Not sure how much I thinned, but enough to remove most all the deep grind marks. Cuts really nicely now. But like others say I would contact Carter if you don't want to keep experimenting on stones.
 
This is surprising because most posts I have read on Murray's grinds are that they are thin thin thin behind the edge and cut accordingly.

I will be watching this thread attentively because I was planning on picking up one of his KU funayuki as a small chef/gyuto, but also because I've heard so much their cutting performance--was going to be something fun.
 
I experienced a similar issue with my KU Carter. It's only 1.6mm at the spine. Out of the box, it wedged a lot more than my Yusuke and other knives. After staring at the choil, looked like the edge had high shoulders behind it. I spent quite a bit of time thinning on a beston 500. I thinned not only the shoulders directly behind the edge, but all the exposed metal up to the KU finish. Not sure how much I thinned, but enough to remove most all the deep grind marks. Cuts really nicely now. But like others say I would contact Carter if you don't want to keep experimenting on stones.

Thanks for your input here.

I went back and looked at the knife, and mine is actually 1.5mm just infront of the carter stamp.
Just like you, I've starred at my knife from the same angle, and after a bit of thinning, it is obvious it has "shoulders" as you put it. Great metaphor.

Perhaps also worth noting, it is also now obvious from the thinning grind pattern off my flat dmt diasharp, that the knife had a pretty substantial convex grind to it from Carter that extends pretty high up. (just like all of his other knives I own despite them all being listed as "Flat Ground")

Last night's thinning session really has me thinking I'd need to change the angle I'm thinning at and actually start removing some of the KU finish just as you noted.

Either way, a polite email fired off just a few minutes ago. Will report back as requested.

Thanks again to everyone,

Phil
 
He cranks out a lot of knives, so not surprising some go out the door with a sub-optimal grind. What is nice is that he makes things right.
 
Just a quick post-Thanksgiving update.

Right after my last post, I got a prompt email from Jason over at Carter Cutlery instructing me to send the knife back in.
Yesterday I got an email from him that they got the knife, and that the knife was thinned and had the secondary edge reground and is already on it's way back to me.
All free of charge. Superb customer care right there, especially being just after Thanksgiving and before a trip Murray is leaving for early Dec.
Just one more thing to be thankful for this season.

I hope my experience here will be a lesson to anyone with any piece of Carter's cutlery. If something doesnt seem right or if you have any questions, just go talk to them.
It's my unsolicited opinion that they really do care about the customer's experience and will work to make it right.

Guess I've just been recently burned with some other companies, with bad policies / customer service that made me come here and ask first about what to do.

Very much looking forward to getting the knife back and will surely post an update on it's undoubtedly new and improved cutting performance.
 
Good to hear he reworked it for you, hopefully when it arrives it'll perform.
 
I don't own a carter knife, but I have heard nothing but the best about him and his customer service. Happy to hear it all worked out for you.
 
The knife arrived last night. Cooked a simple dinner last night, but suffice it to say, I had enough time with it to tell that it’s a totally different knife.
It cuts great and has definitely exceeded my expectations. I let my wife try it out too and she was just silent as she was very slowly cutting through some veggies. I asked what she was doing and I got this verbatim response; “I’m just enjoying how this knife cuts, is that ok?”

Now I'm just going to sit here patiently waiting for a Nakiri to come up on his site that catches my eye.
 
It had to be an oddball, some of the best performers out there usually.
 
carter is real good about corrections however with his volume increase since he moved to the states some not nominal blades slip out. one of my buddies got three & one wssould'nt cut up to par. however murray said to send it back to check the rockwell. my 3 kitchen knives were purchased about 10 years back & the first cut veges for 3 months before i needed to touch it up. that model had the center part of the blade made of hitachi white at 65 rockwell. cranky72
 
just a quick followup.

It's been ~6mos, use this thing on a near daily frequency and about one month ago is when i finally started to notice it wasnt crazy sharp.
took my time, progressed up to a 5k s&g gesshin, stropped on CrOx, and was done in ~5-10 mins.

such a fantastic knife. so sharp and hard and durable. cuts great. quick to sharpen.

it's a shame, cause I hardly use my other nice knives.

STILL waiting for a nakiri i like to pop up on his website. one day i suppose
 
In my personal experience (2 x Carter, 4 x Takeda), Carter pulled a knife from final QC inspection, refused to sell it as agreed, returned my funds and put me on the top of the list for a custom of similar style all before I knew what happened because he didn't like the final quality (...and he sold the original for less on his 2nds page). On 3 out of 4 Takedas, when I asked questions and sent pictures showing warps and profile issues (and these were before his recent production changes), I was told "your knife is perfect. If it's not perfect, the next one you buy will be more perfect."
Just my experience
 
So what area needed to be ground more? The part very close to the edge or the whole shinogi?
I'm having a similar wedge'ing problem with a santoku and I'm in the process of thinning it down.
It's really funny when two very similarly shaped knives but with different profiles cut so differently. In my case a very cheap and thick Tanaka wedges very little compared to my thin Anryu. I'll need to measure them very closely with a digital caliper to see what's going on.
 
somebody gets a takeda that wedges and the hoards freak out. someones carter cuts like shite brand new and nobody bats an eye..

There's a clear difference. You haven't been following the threads carefully, have you? Problems are more common with Takedas than Carters, and Takeda isn't necessarily willing to fix his knives. Problems are very uncommon with Carter, and I haven't seen a single thread explaining that Carter wasn't willing to fix one of his knives.
 
is takeda not willing to do fixes? in the thread i'm thinking of the buyer shipped it to him and was given back a reground knife and seems to be quite happy with it. kind of seems it is implied that if a thread wasnt created about it, takeda might not have been so willing to do the fix.

it's unfortunate this kind of thing happens at all. i'm willing to bet this sort of thing is more common with many different brands, just that people aren't forth coming with it; either out of ignorance to the issue and/or fear of peer backlash, however misguided that notion may be.
 
is takeda not willing to do fixes? in the thread i'm thinking of the buyer shipped it to him and was given back a reground knife and seems to be quite happy with it. kind of seems it is implied that if a thread wasnt created about it, takeda might not have been so willing to do the fix.

it's unfortunate this kind of thing happens at all. i'm willing to bet this sort of thing is more common with many different brands, just that people aren't forth coming with it; either out of ignorance to the issue and/or fear of peer backlash, however misguided that notion may be.

There are other threads re Takeda not wanting to fix knives that did not cut well. There's a whole thread about older vs. newer Takedas and how newer Takedas don't perform as well as older ones and fixing them is one issue discussed in this thread.

As for Carter, I have owned 3 and currently own 2. While I haven't used one knife that I currently own, all Carter knives I've used or owned consistently cut very well. I've never had a problem with one. I also know of at least 3 other members who have Carters and none of them reported any problems. One member I know says the Carter he has is the best cutting knife he owns. I know there are members who own Carters and have had issues with them, but, not once, have I ever heard that Carter refused to fix a knife.
 
mirror polishing the bevel leading to the actual edge will drastically reduce cutting drag. my tests on cardboard show a fantastic reduction in pressure needed to cut & slice. cranky72
 
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