Kramer Evolution

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I went to a sur la table to pick up a Kramer carbon they were holding for me and started experimenting with the new Kramer evolution, cutting some lemons and carrots they had. The profile may not be to everyone's taste, but I don't think I have ever seen a mass produced knife that is this sharp out of box - and with so low an angle - a lot less than 15 degrees, looked like 10 in fact. it's a lot lighter than the 52100 as well. All in all I was sorely tempted, SG61 steel is pretty good as I recall - I have a couple of Japanese knives that use it..

Anyway for the money, if you dig the profile, I don't think it can be beat currently - $249 list for the 10" and you can usually wangle a discount......
 
Couldn't find a Kramer Evolution. Do you mean Kramer Essential? Or the Miyabi Evolution?
 
I don't think many here want to admit a mainstream manufacture can make a knife that easily cuts as good as the bling handle makers, and quasi blacksmiths who utlilize stock removal and pre-bought damascus billets. The Kramer style is a love hate thing. I do admire Mr. Kramer and his modesty. He says that if you want to try his concepts without spending the dough Zwilling does a good job.

Is he saying that to sell a product? Yes of course. But he also gets to have Chocera make him stones...That's pretty darn cool.
 
I don't think many here want to admit a mainstream manufacture can make a knife that easily cuts as good as the bling handle makers, and quasi blacksmiths who utlilize stock removal and pre-bought damascus billets. The Kramer style is a love hate thing. I do admire Mr. Kramer and his modesty. He says that if you want to try his concepts without spending the dough Zwilling does a good job.

Chill down. A lot of production knives are held in very high regard here including the ZKramer and the new AEB-L one. I hope that you didn't meant the second parts of the sentence as a jab towards the vendors here - you may want to reword it a bit just in case. Also proper heat treatment and geometry is much more important for the performance of the knife than how you get the chunk of metal into that shape from what I know about knifemaking.
 
Also proper heat treatment and geometry is much more important for the performance of the knife than how you get the chunk of metal into that shape from what I know about knifemaking.

Yep.

The only reason that forged knives are considered to be better is due to the assumption that non-forged knives will be stamped out of sheet metal, resulting in a flimsy blade with a full-flat grind...

With each hammer blow on a piece of modern mill steel, you're risking ruining a perfectly good piece of metal. Good forging does not improve a piece of mill steel, but bad forging or an errant hammer strike can do damage. There are metals (such as copper) which work harden significantly and generally need to be forged in order to be used for certain applications.

I'd assume that a knife maker like Marko working by stock removal would take significantly longer to carry of the rough shaping with a grinder than it would take to do with a power hammer.

Mr Bob Egnath (debatably the most highly revered American sword-maker in recent memory) tended to work entirely by stock removal. I am fortunate enough to own one of his blades, which is on par with the very finest forged blades I've seen anywhere in the world (and I do have quite extensive experience with nihonto).


Anyhow, thread jacking over. I really enjoy my 52100 Zkramer.
 
quasi blacksmiths who utlilize stock removal and pre-bought damascus billets. The

Please educate yourself a little...

I'll help; here's an article on stock removal vs forging by ABS master smith Kevin Cashen:
http://www.cashenblades.com/images/articles/lowdown.html

The notion that forging I'd better than stock removal is idiocy.

Those who choose to work by stock removal are not "quazi blacksmiths" they are knife makers. I doubt that any knife/ sword maker working by stock removal would ever claim to be a smith...
 
I'm pretty sure that Miyabi Evolution and Kramer Essential are using AEB-L steel. If you like the profile and grind, go for it. Miyabi certainly knows how to heat treat their steels, and the knives are hand-ground by skilled people.
 
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