No offence man and I dont like shuns either but if you think that they dont hold and edge and it fails after cutting a few steaks then you need to relearn how to sharpen I have sharpened a ton of shun knives for co workers even ones that are massively chipped and they do get very very sharp and hold it for awhile at the end of the day if I can get a butter knife to sharpen up and cut over 40 ducks and still hold its edge and it has no heat treat I think its just your technique. I really dont like people saying knives from vg10 cant hold an edge or sharpen up, anything can sharpen up a pan handle can. Just sit down and practise sharpening and learn to take care of your edge and you will have it last weeks.
I do have to agree that VG10 can hold an edge well. I have a Shun Premier santoku that I have been trying to get rid of forever. It is my goto knife when I have a job that might not treat the knife I'm working with very well, yet it manages to push through and still hold its edge. Everytime I grab it, it is razor sharp and performs its job well. I still dislike Shun, but this damn knife is starting to get on my nerves as to how well it holds an edge. I have a Hattori 270mm JCK Gyuto that holds an edge even better than the Shun. The Hattori has been abused, chipped, been thinned and had the profile changed so many times over the years, but it still holds a screaming sharp edge and it never fails to let me down.
That said, I still prefer white #1 or AS just because how it reacts on the stones and I can get a sharper edge on them. But I can't knock VG10, it's held up much better than I thought it would. I would have to say that it is my favourite stainless atm.
To add to the conversation. I had this issue come up when I first started sharpening my own knives. I found that I had two seperate issues that was causing my edge to die off quickly. The first is that I had a hard time feeling a burr at first, so I would guess when to move on to the next stone. Because of this, I never actually sharpened it properly at the 1k before moving on to the 5-6k, etc.
The second issue I had was that the knife I got wasn't properly treated. It was a Takeda and I sent it back for him to look at. Somehow along the line, the steel wasn't treated properly and it was too soft to keep an edge for long. It would last maybe a couple of hours into service, then I would have to swap it out for another knife. He sent me a new one with a custom handle added free of charge.
My guess is that it is either the knife is just a ****** one that is too soft to hold an edge for long, or that you aren't getting a burr before progressing to the next stone. If both of these aren't the case, maybe you are just pressing too hard when cutting? If that is the case, add a micro-bevel at a shallower angle and work on using finesse, not force.
