Upgrading 5 Knives

I posted earlier today about looking for a paring knife and I appreciate the response I got there, but I though in hindsight it may be a better idea to post all of the items I am looking for at once, it may be easier since I have one overall budget for them rather than trying to guess what my budget for each piece will be. Below I listed what is currently in my inventory and for 3/5 knives I am upgrading some that I am considering.

Basically if you had the budget I do and needed to replace the 5 knives listed below what would your choices be?

Thanks for any and all help.

LOCATION
What country are you in?

- USA



KNIFE TYPE
What type of knife are you interested in (e.g., chef’s knife, slicer, boning knife, utility knife, bread knife, paring knife, cleaver)?

I will list what I currently have and something similar to what I am looking for. Basically if you had the budget I did and wanted to replace the indicated knives below, what would you suggest?

- F. Dick - Superior, 10" Chef / maybe a cleaver at some point in the future?
- F. Dick - Superior, 8" Chef / Weige Knives - Custom, 9” Chef (already in progress)
- Wusthof - Classic, 8" Chef / keeping for secondary chef knife
- * Wusthof, 8” Offset Serrated / MAC 10 ½” Superior Bread Knife
- * F. Dick - Superior, Slicer / unsure at least 12”, maybe with grantons?
- * F. Dick, 5” Narrow Boning / unsure, I really like this knife and just want something similar
- * F. Dick - Superior, 3” Tourne / Tojiro DP 2 ¾” Bird’s Beak Peeling Knife
- * F. Dick - Superior, 3” Paring / Tojiro DP 3 ½” Paring
- Messermeister, Take Apart Shears / these are good for now

Are you right or left handed?

- right

Are you interested in a Western handle (e.g., classic Wusthof handle) or Japanese handle?

- I have primarily used western in the past, but open to Japanese as long as it feels good in the hand

What length of knife (blade) are you interested in (in inches or millimeters)?

- see above

Do you require a stainless knife? (Yes or no)

- preferred stainless, but not necessary

What is your absolute maximum budget for your knife?

- $500 total budget for the 5 *’d knives in the list above



KNIFE USE
Do you primarily intend to use this knife at home or a professional environment?

- home use

What are the main tasks you primarily intend to use the knife for? (Please identify as many tasks as you would like.)

- paring, 70% in hand work on vegetables, 30% precision board cuts on smaller items
- tourne, 100% in hand primarily for peeling purposes
- slicer, 100% on board, slicing terrines, pate en croute, molded aspics and the like, once or twice a year used to carve a roast beast of some sort
- serrated, 100% on board, breads/pastries of all kinds
- boning, debone chickens, frenching ribs, skinning pork belly, cutting apart larger pieces of meat into sections, just general butchery I guess

What knife, if any, are you replacing?

The *’d items above, paring, tourne, slicer, serrated, & boning

Do you have a particular grip that you primarily use?

Paring
- in hand = middle finger to pinky wrapped around handle, index finger on the back of the blade and thumb on the other side of the item being cut
- on board = pinch grip

Tourne
- in hand = middle finger to pinky wrapped around handle, index finger on the back of the blade and thumb on the other side of the item being cut

Slicing
- finger point

Serrated
- hammer grip or finger point

Boning
- varies

What improvements do you want from your current knife?

Really overall, I just want a higher quality of knife overall, that will get and retain a better edge, be comfortable to use and have a decently professional level of fit and finish. I don’t abuse my knives, but I don’t baby them either, they are tools and I use them as such.

Currently I use a honing rod before almost every use and will sharpen them probably every 2-3 months or as needed if they are dull sooner.


KNIFE MAINTENANCE
Do you use a bamboo, wood, rubber, or synthetic cutting board? (Yes or no.)

- wood & synthetic boards, but primarily wood

Do you sharpen your own knives? (Yes or no.)

- yes with Edge Pro system, in hindsight I have come to realize it is not the greatest option

If not, are you interested in learning how to sharpen your knives? (Yes or no.)

- yes want to move to sharpening stones within the next year

Are you interested in purchasing sharpening products for your knives? (Yes or no.)

- yes as necessary



SPECIAL REQUESTS/COMMENTS

- none

Any thought of how you'd spread that $500 budget over the five knives? Just to get a rough idea about your priorities.

Mac is probably going to be a good bet for what you're looking for. They have a good molybdenum Chef series line which is modestly priced and has a lot of the "Western" shapes. That line has a tourne knife, at least two different boning/fillet knives. Can't speak to the tourne but I have both of the fillet/boning knives. They're good. Better than the Forschners they replaced. The Mac Professional paring knife is good. I like it a lot.
If you want a slicer with kullens, esp in a large size, you pretty much have limited yourself to only a very few options. Misono offers a moly line with kullens. If you opt for something without kullens, there are a lot of very good options. I get along very well with a Misono Swedish 240 suji as my kit slicer. Does all I need it to. Very few times have I felt I needed something larger. When I do, I have larger sujis which I can grab.

In order of most used to least would be

Serrated
Slicing
Boning
Paring
Tourne

So I would probably prioritize more money towards the top of that list.

Mac bread knife or Tojiro ITK are your best bets for the serrated knife, Since you already have the mac, you could grab a tojiro to replace the wusthof.

There are a couple on your list that I would keep instead of replacing.

Wusthof, Clssic, 8" Chef There's your beater knife, chop nuts, whack chickens, other tasks that you may not want to use a Japanese knife for
Wusthof, 8” Offset Serrated I've one of these for sandwiches, it's been used (not by me) on tomatoes. The MAC is a better knife but the Wustie will augment it.
F. Dick - Superior, Slicer Keep it until you know you want to drop coin on a suji.
F. Dick, 5” Narrow Boning You like it? Keep it. There's not really a Japanese equivalent to a Europeean boner
F. Dick - Superior, 3” Tourne Another Euro design, I don't know Dick (boy I've heard that a lot) but is Tojiro an improvement?
F. Dick - Superior, 3” Paring Same as above.
Messermeister, Take Apart Shears These are good for now. No argument here.

I'm thinking you "need" two new knives in addition to the MAC bread knife. A 240 Gyuto and a 150 - 180 Petty. Price breakdown would go 250 for Gyuto, 150 for Petty and 100 for the MAC. You can some nice knives for that and augment them with your existing stock.

Or do something different.

Good luck in your search.

For your price point I have been finding myself drawn to the Ken Onion Rain boning knife. It has the right profile. I'm not sure there is much else out there worthwhile aside from the macs already mentioned. I wasn't a big fan if the Tojiro Gokujo but it might be worth checking out.

Here is the Ken Onion: http://www.knifemerchant.com/produc...HlPhtW2l_Ft-WZ5PehjCwyLaUIzGfAGJ8EaAm948P8HAQ

Just a quick clarification on my part since I have seen a few people misunderstand how I listed things.

I listed the knives in the following fashion

- * Wusthof, 8” Offset Serrated / MAC 10 ½” Superior Bread Knife

What I meant by that was that I currently owned the Wusthof and the primary knife that I am considering upgrading to was the MAC. So basically before the "/" is what I have and after it was what I was looking into getting and wanted suggestions on if what *I had was a good idea or if there was something better. The ones that had the "*" in front of them were the items I was wanting to upgrade right now.

So I do not currently own either of the Tojiro DP knives or the MAC serrated.

Completely my fault for not being clear enough.

Chuckles & James

Thanks for the recommendation.

B]daveb[/B]

That was my plan with the Wusthof Class 8" chef. The Wusthof serrated needs to be replaced, I have had it resharpened twice (by someone else) and the last time it came back with almost all of the serrations gone. It still works, but not well and I don't think it would be worth the money to fix.

The slicing knife I have is honestly a piece of junk. It won't take or hold an edge well and the top on it was bent many years ago. I don't really use it much, but have had more and more of a need over the last year and a half for something thin which this is my only current option.

What will a gyuto give me that I won't have covered by the Weige chef's knife that I will be getting to replace my old one?

Also curious about the need for the mid length petty. I can't think of an actual need I have for one at the moment. Not saying that I don't have a need for one, just what could it do for me that won't be covered by one of the other knives listed?

Miles

What do you think of the handle on the MAC boning knives? From some of the things I have read about them, people complain of them being overly large and clunky.

I don't know that I definitely need kullens on the slicer, it was more of a question of do I need them for what I primarily use it for or not. This is actually the knife that I am most at a loss for what I need. As mentioned in the q'naire it will mostly be used for slicing various charcuterie (terrines, pate en croute, and the like) as well as the occasional slicing of roast beasts around the holidays.

---

I actually wound up pulling the trigger on the Ealy parer that popped up on the for sale board yesterday. I had seen it recommended a whole bunch in other threads and at $90 shipped it seemed like a good deal as most of the new ones seemed to run $120-$150 before shipping. That still leaves me with needing the tourne but since that is the least important on my list it may have to wait if getting the others pushes me over my remaining budget. Thanks again for all of the help guys.

~Travis

I'm going to go against the serrated grain. Unless you are a baker that cuts a lot of difficultly crumbed bread buy a 14 dollar forshner or victorinox and throw it away when it gets dull. I have a nice one that I use at home for bread I bake, but it's nice to have something that you can not feel bad about.

TxChef77 said:

Just a quick clarification on my part since I have seen a few people misunderstand how I listed things.

I listed the knives in the following fashion

- * Wusthof, 8” Offset Serrated / MAC 10 ½” Superior Bread Knife

What I meant by that was that I currently owned the Wusthof and the primary knife that I am considering upgrading to was the MAC. So basically before the "/" is what I have and after it was what I was looking into getting and wanted suggestions on if what *I had was a good idea or if there was something better. The ones that had the "*" in front of them were the items I was wanting to upgrade right now.

So I do not currently own either of the Tojiro DP knives or the MAC serrated.

Completely my fault for not being clear enough.

Chuckles & James

Thanks for the recommendation.

B]daveb[/B]

That was my plan with the Wusthof Class 8" chef. The Wusthof serrated needs to be replaced, I have had it resharpened twice (by someone else) and the last time it came back with almost all of the serrations gone. It still works, but not well and I don't think it would be worth the money to fix.

The slicing knife I have is honestly a piece of junk. It won't take or hold an edge well and the top on it was bent many years ago. I don't really use it much, but have had more and more of a need over the last year and a half for something thin which this is my only current option.

What will a gyuto give me that I won't have covered by the Weige chef's knife that I will be getting to replace my old one?

Also curious about the need for the mid length petty. I can't think of an actual need I have for one at the moment. Not saying that I don't have a need for one, just what could it do for me that won't be covered by one of the other knives listed?

Miles

What do you think of the handle on the MAC boning knives? From some of the things I have read about them, people complain of them being overly large and clunky.

I don't know that I definitely need kullens on the slicer, it was more of a question of do I need them for what I primarily use it for or not. This is actually the knife that I am most at a loss for what I need. As mentioned in the q'naire it will mostly be used for slicing various charcuterie (terrines, pate en croute, and the like) as well as the occasional slicing of roast beasts around the holidays.

---

I actually wound up pulling the trigger on the Ealy parer that popped up on the for sale board yesterday. I had seen it recommended a whole bunch in other threads and at $90 shipped it seemed like a good deal as most of the new ones seemed to run $120-$150 before shipping. That still leaves me with needing the tourne but since that is the least important on my list it may have to wait if getting the others pushes me over my remaining budget. Thanks again for all of the help guys.

~Travis

Click to expand...

Nice snag on the Ealy parer, one of the best there is out there, I would just get a Victorinox birds beak it's cheap (6.95) and can always get a new one without worrying about the cost, if you say you cut a lot of bread than go for a bread knife, the Tojiro and Mac are very comparable, the fit and finish on the Mac will be way better than the tojiro, the tojiro is kind of a crapshoot when it comes to that. I would just spend my money on a nice gyuto and petty since you already got the parer. Something like the Gesshin Uraku
from JKI http://www.japaneseknifeimports.com/gesshin/gesshin-uraku/gesshin-uraku-240mm-stainless-wa-gyuto.html

daveb said:

There's not really a Japanese equivalent to a Europeean boner

Click to expand...

Yes there is, Tojiro gokujo.

Of the two Mac boning knives, one has a molded handle with a slightly curved blade. If you're comfortable using Forschner knives, it should feel pretty familiar. The other option is a bit blocky and has a fairly straight blade. It really reminds me of a filleting knife that you might find in a tackle box. I use both. I much prefer the molded handle. If I ever get around to it, I may shape and fine tune the handle. Just never cared quite enough to bother with it. Tojiro has a western style boning knife and if memory serves, Shun offers one as well. For the money, the Mac knives are really hard to beat.