Who or what led you here?

Kitchen Knife Forums

Help Support Kitchen Knife Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Eamon Burke

Banned
Joined
Mar 5, 2011
Messages
4,931
Reaction score
13
What opened your eyes to good knives, and set you out to find the forum/shop/maker that makes you the nut you are today? Everyone remembers the knife they got fed up with, but something gave you hope that something better HAD to be out there.

When I was a kid, our knives were always dull, despite being carbon Sabs. I watched the Miracle Blade ads as a kid abd was so impressed by the design ideas. I turned pro and was disappointed with the lack of improvement. Then the sushi bar times.

But it was Alton Brown's emphatic endorsement of Shun,a brand I've never owned, that made me believe there are really great performing knives in the world. And he's right 98% of the time(his favorite personal knife is his Carter Funy).


Maybe it was a gift knife out of the blue that knocked your socks off, or was a friend with a Global tatoo--what was your Obi-Wan Kenobi?
 
OCD about everything.....no, but really it was sort of a chain reaction from my leather working alter ego. The question kinda went like this..."could you do the same thing (meaning sharpness, edge holding, custom details, etc.) with a ____________???" So where does an OCD left brainer go from there.....straight to the drawing board, internet research, magazine subsciptions, local chefs, and any other resource to get answers so desperately needed. And then MAGIC happens....someone who owns one of your other knives is a celebrity chef of MASTER CHEF caliber. Sorry I cannot disclose the name w/o permission (personal ethical protocol), but y'all know him very well here.
 
Mine...Well, It is all Delbert's fault. He told me i should join here...And i have been on a kitchen knife kick ever since. I enjoy the extra challenges associated with making a true performer knife. Not like the hunting knives...That might get used a few times a year...Tried and true daily drivers. I am still very green at this, but i have spent countless hours researching...Now i can openly say...I blame Delbert!
 
i loved cleavers and my wife found JCK and got me a suien vc cleaver. after i found out where she got it from, i bought a hiromoto 240mm AS and soon after a 270mm misono sweedish suji. i knew i wanted to transition into j-knives so i got those two western handles and a shun 1k/6k stone to teach myself how to sharpen. after over a year paying my dues with those, i started upgrades.

anyway, soon after, i found FF, KF and KKF. although im curious and check out the old ones every once in a while, i spend the majority of my time here.
 
But it was Alton Brown's emphatic endorsement of Shun,a brand I've never owned, that made me believe there are really great performing knives in the world. And he's right 98% of the time(his favorite personal knife is his Carter Funy).

AB for me also. Pretty much everything I tried from him turned out well so I looked into Shun & Miyabi knives, poked around on the internet a bit, and found KF.
 
One of the guys on Blade Forums or British Blades told me about this forum.
 
I grew a lot of tomatos three summers ago. At one point, I had a ton of 'em and I was cutting them up for something, I can't remember exactly what. Dealing with the poorly sharpened Henckels was enough to get me looking. After a couple of months of digging around both in person and online (KF), I settled on my first Masahiro and Glestain blades. I found this place from an automated JKS email, I believe.
 
I was working in a kitchen and had I thought at the time learned to sharpen well. I decided I wanted to be a cook/chef for life and figured it was time to upgrade from the house knives, and so I bought the best I could afford or at least what I thought was the best I could afford. Global, really is what got me thinking about what a knife could really do. Shortly after that I started school and kept learning and researching knives.

Found FF and lurked and looked thru their archives for years before joining there. I heard about this forum from "the fallout" lurked here a while and joined up here. To me knives are cool and fun, but in the end its still just a tool of my trade for me, but I like to have and use and properly maintain high quality tools.
 
Who or what led you here?
Stefan :viking: and Dave :knight:
 
My first chef job at a high end place, had to sear tuna encrusted with sesame seeds, and slice it super thin. None of the darn knives could cut through the seeds with scrapping them off. So i bought my first knives ( Forschner santoku and chefs knife) and learned to sharpen them. Was amazed at how much easier my life was. From then on i got into having better equipment as i progressed with my culinary skills.

I thin moved on to shun as my first japanese knife. Was great loved the weight and profile but after being sharpened so much for a couple years the steel just started chipping like crazy. Then i started looking online for other knives. First at Jbprince, then CKTG, had no idea what was what.

Took some advice from a friend and bought some misonos, some great knives. Then finally found the forums when i wanted to invest in some more and since then its been downhill. Its like every time i get on here i want to but another knife whether i need it or not :) good thing my salary isn't more than it is or id have a ton of knives everywhere!
 
Led me here??? Dave of course, it's only been about a year now right?:scratchhead:

All kidding aside dad brought me into Korin Some time back when I was in high school. I came across KF looking for info in how to sharpen Japanese knives.....wish I never did that....Ive been going broke ever since.
 
I was looking a slicer for my BBQs, and then ...... getting hooked.
 
Culinary school got me to realize there was more to knives that a slab of steel with a handle. I started reading up on kitchen knives on line going after the "Big" names one always hears about, Wusthof and Henkles. After trying several of each knife I couldnt tell them apart by their use and it was not much better than the school knife I was issued. I soon bumped into "In The Kitchen" forum and was amazed by the shear tonnage of info available. Soon I was talking to Fish and many others (who happen to be here as well) that really helped me understand what I was really looking for. I bought a knife from Fish, an Alton Angle petty from Shun, and was pleased with the difference in steel and construction. I started asking questions about the way these knives where made and how they are used. Alas I did not have a "real" Japanese knife to compare to and soon after a package arrived that I had no clue about. Inside was a Hiromoto HC in 240 from JCK. My wife flipped as she thought I bought something without telling her about it, lol she soon learned to expect packages from Japan :p Fish always replied "Nope wasn't me" but no one else had my address when I asked where this knife came from. Well from that point on I was hooked, I tried everything I read about on the forums about care and sharpening to repairs (ya there was a definate learning curve to get control of) on that knife. Everytime I tried something I would damage the knife some way and the peaple on the forums suggested several ways to fix it. I tried them all as I was learning and soon found myself really understanding all of what was flowing by in the forums.

As my interests grew they morphed this way and that, I was attracted to the forum knives but couldn't afford them and by the time I could my interests changed enough that I was no longer interested in them. Cleavers however did remain a strong interest, I wanted a fourm cleaver (curse you Andy), and still have a strong interest in them. However my interests out pace my budget so I have yet to move past my CCK 1103. By this time I was hard core into carbon steel and had no interest in stainless knives. Not much has changed really from those days so many years ago, I still don't care for stainless knives, now I'm only using the few I bought from Butch years ago and I like them. But carbon is where I live and breath :)

After taking some time off from the forums I was sent an email from people I was with in the old forums asking me to have a look over here. Glad I crawled out from under my rock as I find people I knew there and new ones that are just as interested in these knives as I am and it's good to be among like minded peeps. Now that I can deal with issues of non-exsistant fundage and such I am enjoying reading about knives again and hope to keep going on :)
 
I had some dull knives and a grooved steel way back when and didn't really know what to do with them. So as my blades got duller and duller, I thought I should learn what to do with the steel (answer is: throw it away). Eventually I went onto eGullet and started reading Chad Ward's posts and instructional on knives (before his book). That started to get me interested more in knives and maintaining them, and I began lurking at KnifeForums. My wife then gave me my first good knife for Christmas, and eventually Chad's book came out, and he recommended KnifeForums and Dave's sharpening service. I registered at KF, posted, and then as if getting some irreversible surgery, it was done. And when KF blew up, I moved here.

k.
 
I had been using a crappy Victorinox knife in work for ages and hated it so I bought a Global in a local shop. However it didn't stay sharp for long and I searched for ages on the internet about how to sharpen it. This led me to Gator's site, then Foodie Forums, then KF then here with about a dozen other useless places along the way
 
After replacing my Calphalon santoku, which I had used for about 10 years, with a Shun santoku, I knew current sharpening method needed replacement. The store where I bought my knife offered a sharpening service, but I thought there's no way I could do without my knife for 3 or 4 days. About the same time I had taken an interest in YouTube and started watching all the sharpening videos. When I was researching water stones you naturally run across discussions from various forums which led me to FF and KF. I joined KF shortly before the big event and just kind of wandered over here.
 
I was getting a boardsmith,he had a link to dave's page,and I think dave had a link to KF.......Well you know the rest of that story.
 
Most directly, a visit to Japanese Knife Imports. Jon mentioned it.

Longer term, I found another forum when I wanted to research carbon-steel Sabs. And on that forum there was much talk of Macs as entry-good knives. I'd just happened to use some Macs when visiting a friend not too long before. Oh.... Japanese knives. Hmmm. I wonder if there's a store nearby. Or somebody who can show me how to sharpen.

I remember thinking $100 was a lot to spend on a chef's knife before all that!
 
I found KF on my own while trying to learn more about better kitchen knives. That led me to Dave, and then here.
 
I wanted to learn all about kitchen knives, since I'm wanting to make them. I don't know how I exactly found the site - maybe google....
 
A love of sashimi led me to a discussion of knives with a sushi chef. I then needed a sashimi knife, and sharpening supplies and instruction, which led to Dave, which led here. I still can't believe the depth of knowledge here that is openly shared. Amazing.

Keith
 
Almost 5 years ago my house got broken into and everything stolen, including my Wustof classic block I bought while living in Germany. I was semi-into nice knives before that, but with new insurance money in hand, and the willingness to buy the best I could get, I started searching google for custom knives. Ironically, Kramer was one of the first sites I placed a custom order for, luckily for me. Shortly after that, I found KF, and eventually came here like everyone else. Don't post nearly as much as I did on KF, but I try to stop by at least once a week. Haven't bought any knives since my Pierre's earlier this year, but I have a Burke coming soon.
 
Aldo told me a bunch of good stuff about this site and I came by to see what all the fuss was about. And have never left! :) Im on a couple other forums still but spend the majority of my time hanging out on this one.

My love for sharp well designed tools has driven me to this point!! :D
 
I just followed the light...unfortunately the light was an angler fish and it devowered my wallet.

Anlger fish.jpg
 
I got into knives after getting a 940 Benchmade pocket knife. I realized how much better most of my knives could be. Especially my kitchen knives, which were way too soft and way too European (Heavy and thick)
 
Back
Top