Butchering Adventures

A little background is in order, I work at a small farm that, in addition to other things, raises and sells mostly pork and some beef to restaurants and individuals in the area. I do pretty typical small farm stuff but I'm in charge of processing and curing meat and making cheese for the consumption of those at the farm. I've been doing this for about 10 years and have been happily butchering with my inexpensive set of Victorinox, Forschner and Dexter knives. Then I stumbled onto this forum and got this notion into my head that I should start collecting butchering knives from small North American knife makers. It made sense at the time.
So I got the first two knives and a couple of lambs and thought I'd share the experience.
I was fortunate enough to get one of Marko's 330mm scimitars in 52100 http://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/s...es-New-Line?highlight=marko+tsourkan+scimitar
http://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/s...ale/page101?highlight=marko+tsourkan+scimitar
and a Butch Harner bullnose butcher I bought from chef knives togo which advertises the knife as XHP but there's a picture of a bullnose knife in O1 on the Butch Harner website. I'm assuming it's XHP.
Weight: 7ounces
Blade Length: 180mm
Overall Length: 300mm
Thickness at Heel: 2.8mm
Blade Height: 34mm

More photos and comments later.

If that's discoloration on the Butch, it's not CTS-XHP.
Great story, how cool is it to use those bad boys as a butcher? I'm jealous!

knyfeknerd said:

If that's discoloration on the Butch, it's not CTS-XHP.
Great story, how cool is it to use those bad boys as a butcher? I'm jealous!

Click to expand...

Would it be O1 then?

So, on with the adventure. I honed the scimitar on a 1000 grit Naniwa Pro having read in a post a while back that doing that is an old butchers trick. On these chops, the knife slipped through the meat smoothly but hung up just a bit more than I expected on the fat.



We're going to be doing a couple more lambs in the next few weeks and I'll take the knife to the 3000 grit stone to compare.
Granted, this is a lot more knife than you need for lamb chops but it's a Marko and its made thicker and longer cuts and that is where it really shines.



Sectioning off the rump from the leg was effortless, what a dream. After that first one I remember just kind of talking to the knife and thanking Marko. Does anyone else do this? It stayed sharp the whole time, even with the occasional running into bone and along the cutting board. Perhaps slightly less sharp at the curve but way, way better than my old knives. The handle is comfortable, the fit and finish are great, feels nice sharpening. It's a definite keeper.

I am a butcher at my restaurant. I use a standard victornox scimitar, i can only imagine how much of a joy that marko is to use. Very jealous!