First cleaver---cck or no-name?

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Pirendeus

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Mar 31, 2016
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LOCATION: u.s.

KNIFE TYPE: cleaver

Are you right or left handed? Right

Are you interested in a Western handle (e.g., classic Wusthof handle) or Japanese handle? I don't really know.

What length of knife (blade) are you interested in (in inches or millimeters)? Maybe 8"?

Do you require a stainless knife? (Yes or no) I'm willing to try carbon.

What is your absolute maximum budget for your knife? I want to stay around $50, or less.

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

What are the main tasks you primarily intend to use the knife for? Occasional chicken carcasses and some veg prep.

What knife, if any, are you replacing? I don't currently have a cleaver, but use a global Sai santoku currently.

Do you have a particular grip that you primarily use? (Please click on this LINK for the common types of grips.) I'm learning to use pinch grip.

What cutting motions do you primarily use? Push-cut, rocking

What improvements do you want from your current knife? Durability, edge retention, good for beginners.

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

Do you sharpen your own knives? (Yes or no.) Not currently.

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

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

Special notes:
I'd like to venture into the cleaver jungle, and obviously prefer to keep the investment as low as possible. Basically, I'm a light-use home cook. I cut up whole chicken carcasses about once every 6 weeks, and i'd like to have a bit of fun when i do so, as well as prepping some vegetables. I'm not going to be Rambo when dismantling bones in the birds. I dont really foresee myself using a cleaver predominantly, but I'd like the cleaver to last for a long time, too. With this pattern of usage, is a cck a proper purchase, or will a no-name cleaver adequately match my needs? Can y'all suggest a good model? (I'm not adverse to buying used cleaver, especially from a forum member who has maintained it well.)
 
A thin carbon cleaver like the CCK 1303 is a great thin to learn freehand sharpening with... the steel gives you some good feedback, the burr is easily removed, you don't have to worry about sharpening a point, and you don't have to worry about thinning the blade at all. Also, you've got a LOT of steel there... if you screw things up, just sharpen some more! That being said, the CCK, at least the 1303, isn't going to be your best choice to use with a chicken carcass. It is more of a vegetable cleaver than something you'd want to use on a lot of bone or cartilage. You want something heavier with the bird stuff. Also, the price inflation on the CCK stuff means it wasn't the bargain it used to be.

The good news is the cheap Chinese cleaver still exists. What you might do is to get two cleavers- one a vegetable cleaver, and one something heavier-duty. One good vendor is the wokshop, out of San Francisco. They sell on Amazon. I've got their vegetable cleaver, which runs a little under $20 shipped, and I used to have the CCK 1303. The wokshop's vegetable cleaver is a little more rustic (if that were possible!), but it is exactly the same size and shape, and also made of carbon steel. If you want to try out a thin cleaver, this one is good (and cheap) bet:
http://http://www.amazon.com/Wok-Shop-Vegetable-Cleaver/dp/B00018U1J6/ref=sr_1_1?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1461185028&sr=1-1&refinements=p_4%3AWok+Shop

The wokshop also carries a #2 cleaver in stainless steel. This knife is lot thicker, and better for heavy-duty stuff. I think the #1 cleaver should be thicker still, but a #2 should do fine. I've got a cleaver in the same dimensions from the same manufacturer (actual make is "San Hang Nga") but in carbon steel (I picked it up at a thrift store). I really like it- nice distal taper, very comfortable in hand... but that being said, I don't know how good San Hang Nga's stainless steel is.
http://http://www.amazon.com/Metal-Handle-Cleaver-long-wide/dp/B0001CNK6S/ref=sr_1_9?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1461185028&sr=1-9&refinements=p_4%3AWok+Shop
That one comes to $17 shipped, but it looks like if you order from wokshop.com through their yahoo web store, the shipping on two cleavers is cheaper. Actually, they might also be able to give you some good ideas via email. I don't know for sure, since I've never contacted them. They have a bunch of cleavers listed on their web site, with dimensions listed, but not weight. You might be able to score a medium-sized carbon cleaver from them that would work fine for both dealing with the chicken carcasses AND general cutting.
Hope this helps!
 
San Hang Nga stainless steel Chinese chef knives are great beaters/workhorses, and solidly made
 
I'm clearly not going to get the ultimate cleaver at these prices, but what negatives am I likely to experience, compared to a cck or wusthof?
 
A medium CCK cost about 70.00 here. If light use you could try the carbon cheap ones on Wok shop a #1 or #2 weigh more & can handle chix. carcass, but not going through larger bones.

The thing is even these cheap softer carbon cleavers still can be sharpened. After banging away they get a little dented up but you can put an edge on no problem. The cheap stainless Chinese cleavers are a challenge to get any sharp edge on. And if you do it will not hold it worth a plugged nickel.
 
Thanks for all the advice so far. Are there any <$50 sources other than the wok shop that I should consider?
 
You local chinatown kitchenware store may carry some cleavers but I doubt it's going to have the selection at wokshop especially carbon steel cleavers. I got my cheap $10 carbon steel http://wokshop.stores.yahoo.net/vegcleav.html which is now my main knife over all the other "nicer" stainless/semi stainless Japanese knives I had. Sure it took a bit of elbow grease to get it where I'm happy with it (thinning, cleaning up the rough edges with sandpaper, putting wood finish on the handle, sealing the tang handle joint with silicone) but I can boast it is probably the best $10 knife I will ever own.
 
Not directly in response to the OP, but I just picked up a cheap cleaver from Amazon and thought I would share my experience. My wife and I already have two beater cleavers, a carbon San Hang Nga #2 (as I mentioned above- I really like it) and a Shine Liy brand stainless cleaver. My wife doesn't like the San Hang Nga at all because she doesn't use a pinch grip, and the integrated steel handle on that one feels stubby and insecure with a hammer grip. She tends to use the old Shine Liy that I got in the 1990s because it has a slightly larger wood handle. But the Shine Liy is sort of the worst of all worlds, as far as I'm concerned. No distal taper, an overly rounded profile, thick behind the edge (and since I've never thinned it, even thicker now), and yet not quite thick enough at the spine that it's super comfy for heavy-duty stuff like the San Hang Nga is. I could thin the Shine Liy, but I figured I might as well just buy a new cleaver that might be thinner in the first place, and see if I could get something that the wife and I would both like.

So, for $13.49 shipped, I got this:
sekiryu_cleaver_amazon_stock_photo.jpg


It is a Sekiryu #SR510, made in Japan, and as you can see, it has a weird sort of faux hamon. I think that's a surface treatment, rather than paint. Also, unlike most Chinese cleavers, the tang doesn't extend all the way to the end of the handle where it is bent over to secure it. Rather, there are two rounded pins coming out the side of the handle, and I guess that's what secures the handle to the blade. My measurements indicate it is 175mm long on the blade, 85mm high, with a weight of 247 grams. So, compared to the wokshop veggie slicer (the brand is actually "Ho Ching Kee Lee"), the Sekiryu is 35mm shorter, and also a little bit thicker (given that the wokshop veggie slicer is only 19 grams heavier).

The handle is some sort of dark wood, and a bit slippery. I tried to rough it up to improve the grip, but no joy thus far. Also, the bottom of the handle has a crack in it. Chances are that just appeared spontaneously after it had been in the dry Colorado climate for a while. I've treated the handle with board butter, and at some point I'll fill in the crack with wood glue.

Like the wokshop veggie cleaver, the Sekiryu needed rounding of the spine and choil. Unlike the wokshop veggie cleaver, though, it also needed rounding in an unusual place- at the top of the blade, on the back. The stock amazon picture doesn't show it, but the back of the blade stands proud of the metal on the handle a couple of millimeters, in a pretty sharp square edge... so I had to grind that down. Easy with a dremel, but I wouldn't want to try it with sandpaper!

Also, the Sekiryu came with an edge that needed a lot of work. It was like the edge that the Richmond Artifex comes with (at least the one I had a few years ago came with)- looks like the roof of a house. You may have seen the pictures of the choil of the Artifex. The upshot of that is that it is a wedge monster. I even found the Sekiryu wedging in tomatoes! Anyway, I got out my thick Sharpie and marked the blade from the edge to about 10mm in, and took it to my course stone (a Beston 500). One nice thing about a cheap knife is that you don't feel like you have to baby it when you're doing course work, so I had at it. I've got to say, with some time on the course stone, and then the rest of the progression (Bester and then Rika), it took a pretty nice edge, and no more wedging. Between the grinding and sanding the handle with rough sandpaper and then thinning and sharpening, I figure I spent around 45 minutes on it, or maybe an hour.

I've been using it the last few days for small stuff, when I just want to use my smaller 10 x 14 board, and maybe leave the knife out (easier with a stainless knife). I showed it to my wife back to back with the Shine Liy after dinner last night. "Nope," she said. She liked the old Shine Liy better, because she felt the Sekiryu was more liable to slip out of her hand. Sigh. I'll have to see if I can get her to use the pinch grip. And maybe I'll rough up the handle somehow. I imagine something like the diamond patterning like you find on the butt of a gun might give a good grip. Not a bad knife...for the price, anyway. I'd prefer if the handle had more ridges. The wokshop veggie cleaver has the carbon-steel goodness and takes less work to get going, but for something stainless and handy for small tasks, the Sekiryu seems to fit the bill.

p.s. My other knives, for comparison:
Ashi Hamono cleaver, yo handle, white #2
carbon San Hang Nga
wokshop veggie slicer-cleaver (not available for a side-to-side, though- it stays at my parents')
Ashi Hamono Ginga gyuto 240mm Swedish stainless
 
I had a Wok Shop cleaver for many years. Think I paid 10 bucks for it when I bought a wok. Carbon but not a rust magnet. It did not suck.

I would not go cheap stainless.
 
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