Been a while since we had a Cleaver chat.

[josemartinlopez]

I should never have opened this thread.

 

[Noodle Soup]

It is probably not news to long time readers here but I collect cleavers. That includes all the new to me variations I can find on my trips to Asia. Most get rotated around some but my current kitchen battery includes a Sugimoto No. 7 for heavy chopping, a CCK 1911, the Viet Dao Vua mentioned before in this thread, a little Thai bone chopper and a nice medium weight "Rice Knife 9001" I picked up in Malaysia last year. The Dau Vua and the Rice Knife probably see the most day to day use but I have a purpose for all of them. Rice Knives are made by a company called Zhengshi Daoye in Taiwan

 

[Danzo]

No. And I'm fairly thin too. Grip and weight does the work. View attachment 97174

wow you got a dalman! lucky you

 

[josemartinlopez]

I should elaborate that the "custom cleaver" was a cheap sobakiri I bought on a whim, then cut off the tail to see if it could be salvaged as a cleaver. It was a waste of time, just like overly-broad and pointless questions.

Not quite the custom cleaver we are looking for. Next.

 

[KO88]

OK that is great I m about to get in line on Isasmedjan list I was about to get like 190x80 smaller cleaver. But when I m reading this I m thinking about full size or maybe even oversize...

Now I have Takeda cleaver small (205) which is great. Thin lightweight gets super sharp... And have small toyama nakiri.

By the long shot for me but want to get hand on toyama cleaver. How is it?

Also nobody wrote here about Heiji cleaver...

Btw that Robins things are totally beasts too. How much does they weght? How are they compared to toyamai?

 

[wind88]

OK that is great I m about to get in line on Isasmedjan list I was about to get like 190x80 smaller cleaver. But when I m reading this I m thinking about full size or maybe even oversize...

Now I have Takeda cleaver small (205) which is great. Thin lightweight gets super sharp... And have small toyama nakiri.

By the long shot for me but want to get hand on toyama cleaver. How is it?

Also nobody wrote here about Heiji cleaver...

Btw that Robins things are totally beasts too. How much does they weght? How are they compared to toyamai?

Toyama cleaver for me checks pretty much all the boxes for me except the weight. It’s a tad too heavy. I blame the overly fat tang. Otherwise, it’s ideal for me.

 

[Unstoppabo]

Do nakiri's count as cleavers? If so, I've got 2 that are basically polar opposites.

Top one is a pretty thick Thai cleaver in 52100, spalted maple and black dyed redwood burl handle with zebra wood saya by AM Marr FB link. It's not all that thick behind the edge but the 51200 is tougher than anything else I have so it's sharpened at a pretty high angle and used for tougher tasks. I'm not the original owner but it was pretty thin behind the edge and convexed when I got it. Feels great on the stones.

The second one is a w#2 nakiri by Yoshikazu Ikeda. The choil shot is a bit misleading because it thins out very quickly in both directions. The edge makes my Konosuke HD2 look fat and tbh, I'm a bit scared to use this one. No problems with chipping but I think I bent it on a squash or watermelon.

I will probably add something in between at some point.

 

[cotedupy]

No. And I'm fairly thin too. Grip and weight does the work. View attachment 97174

This picture of the grip illustrates perfectly why a slicing cleaver does need some height at least.

I have hands on the small size of medium and about 100mm in height is the minimum for me. I do have a 1303-size cleaver and it's too short for me to hold like this properly.

 

[damiano]

This picture of the grip illustrates perfectly why a slicing cleaver does need some height at least.

I have hands on the small size of medium and about 100mm in height is the minimum for me. I do have a 1303-size cleaver and it's too short for me to hold like this properly.

This is my 195x95 Sugi. No problem with this grip - though my hands aren’t the biggest either.

 

[cotedupy]

This is my 195x95 Sugi. No problem with this grip - though my hands aren’t the biggest either. View attachment 97269

Nice! I think a Sugimoto is going to be next on my list (I only have relatively inexpensive cleavers atm).

I was thinking about a no.6... is yours one size down from that?

 

[damiano]

Nice! I think a Sugimoto is going to be next on my list (I only have relatively inexpensive cleavers atm).

I was thinking about a no.6... is yours one size down from that?

Yes, indeed it's one size down from the #6. For home use it's a great size imho. I actually had the Shun Chinese vegetable cleaver for a long time, it was my first 'serious' knife. I really liked its geometry, so that was my starting point for finding a better cleaver. You know, Shun.. No edge retention and difficult to get sharp.

 

[RDalman]

Btw that Robins things are totally beasts too. How much does they weght? How are they compared to toyamai?

The recent ones I made, The 185x100 was ~370g the x80 where I think 320-340g.

 

[valgard]

This one from Yanick is pretty awesome. It's a light vegetable cleaver, but great grind and nice forged geometry more than anything. Profile needed a bit of tweaking ootb for me but I would recommend it, and he's a great guy.

 

[josemartinlopez]

What makes the geometry of a vegetable cleaver good?

 

[alterwisser]

So how does a custom cleaver outperform a CCK?

by being in the hands of a superior user

 

[josemartinlopez]

Funny, funny. Let's assume both are in your hands wise guy, does that work?

 

[alterwisser]

Funny, funny. Let's assume both are in your hands wise guy, does that work?

can you specify your question?

you’re asking a very generic question. Steel, grind, F&F.... there’s so much you can or could be talking about.

a CCK is a decent knife, a good one with some tweaking. But you can get one that is similar to it for $15... I think the CCK is overpriced, even though it’s relatively cheap.

performance is a tricky beast. If you’re just looking for a well performing knife, there’s no need to Spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars. A $600 knife often doesn’t perform significantly better than a $150 knife, and a $4000 doesn’t perform significantly better than either one....

i am sure you understand there’s more to buying and collecting knives than performance. I mean, you’ve been around this forum, right?

 

[josemartinlopez]

can you specify your question?

Steel, grind, F&F....

take your pick. let's not limit it to strictly cutting performance and edge retention etc.

 

[alterwisser]

Love, love Cleavers (now). I don’t think I’ll ever go back to using regular knives as my go to’s....

current cleaver Lineup:

- Full Size Kamon (240ish)... that one is insane, but almost too big

- Smide in 1.2562 with wrought iron cladding. LOVE it. It’s gorgeous and a great performer

- Dalman Carbon with Hamon. Love that one as well. I think it’s his standard carbon UBC-20 or whatever it is...

- Dalman small cleaver (scrap) in AEB-L, it’s the one I abuse on a daily basis

-CcK 1303. Don’t use it much, maybe I should

- cheapo full metal Tim Leung or whatever the name is, had it thinned by @suntravel but badly chipped the edge .... I don’t know how :-(

 

[alterwisser]

take your pick. let's not limit it to strictly cutting performance and edge retention etc.

nah man, you take your pick

 

[Matus]

This thread will ruin me ...

 

[KO88]

Love, love Cleavers (now). I don’t think I’ll ever go back to using regular knives as my go to’s....

current cleaver Lineup:

- Full Size Kamon (240ish)... that one is insane, but almost too big

So is the Kamon useable or not? Thinking about oversized cleaver but ehh not sure? What is the height and weight?

 

[alterwisser]

So is the Kamon useable or not? Thinking about oversized cleaver but ehh not sure? What is the height and weight?

its usable, but not my sweet spot.

i think it weighs 428 IIRC

230x100, 1.2519 at 65 hrc

 

[KO88]

What would be tall enough height?
Just because of weight I can imagine something like ~240x~90 ~500g not sure if possible.

In 26c3 + wrought iron. Or mono with hamon?
What would be better u think guys?

 

[alterwisser]

What would be tall enough height?
Just because of weight I can imagine something like ~240x~90 ~500g not sure if possible.

In 26c3 + wrought iron. Or mono with hamon?
What would be better u think guys?

theres no “better” imho, it’s personal preference...

 

[bruce8088]

Pretty much what Ricky has I want to try.

TF
Wat
Miz
Takada
Kemadi

IMO considering ootb + work involved + personal pref + considering price. TF>Tweaked Wat>Takeda>Mizuno>Kemadi. TF is the most balance ootb (hand feel excellent) and the continuous convex is well done practically, profile is great and just behind Wat in flat area. Wat was wonky just behind the edge ootb (hand feel was decent) but I fixed it in 2 sessions, now it cuts very nicely while still being decent for food separation, profile is great and mostly flat. Takeda is very thin behind edge while having an impressive forged hollow (hand feel excellent) that occupies 100mm out of the 110mm height, spine taper is also very impressive cuts well enough given how great the separation is, profile is a subtle continuous curve. Mizuno has an extreme convex grind into very thin near edge geometry at both tip and heel but very heavy knife (hand feel abit off), profile is between the TF and the Takeda. Kemadi had an extreme flat grind (hand feel was good) which lead to it being very sticky with the ootb etched finish (i ended up sanding it all off and finger stoned it which helped quite abit which Gavin is enjoying it now ), even though it may have cut the best out of all the cleavers since it's so extremely thin but for me it was actually much slower in use due to the stickiness, the bulat is toothy and very practical for real kitchen use but needs a bigger micro bevel than most to hold that thin edge stable, profile was abit odd for me with the upswing tip since i tend to use tips alot.

 

[GorillaGrunt]

Yeah balance is so important for a cleaver especially a big one, probably with relation to the profile too. I’m getting the sense that even more than with a chef knife there isn’t one golden ratio of an answer, more of finding one that feels good for the user. That Kamon is the most beautiful I’ve ever seen!

 

[spaceconvoy]

Dunno.. once you get deep into the gyuto rabbit hole, you'll see passionate arguments about the difference between 53mm and 55mm heel heights From what I've read, it seems like cleaver users fall generally into two categories - those who want more control over the blade and prefer thinner slicers, and those who want the weight of the knife to do most of the work and prefer medium weight cleavers. CCK vs Sugimoto, to simplify the debate.

 

[cotedupy]

Love, love Cleavers (now). I don’t think I’ll ever go back to using regular knives as my go to’s....

current cleaver Lineup:

- Full Size Kamon (240ish)... that one is insane, but almost too big

- Smide in 1.2562 with wrought iron cladding. LOVE it. It’s gorgeous and a great performer

- Dalman Carbon with Hamon. Love that one as well. I think it’s his standard carbon UBC-20 or whatever it is...

- Dalman small cleaver (scrap) in AEB-L, it’s the one I abuse on a daily basis

-CcK 1303. Don’t use it much, maybe I should

- cheapo full metal Tim Leung or whatever the name is, had it thinned by @suntravel but badly chipped the edge .... I don’t know how :-(

That's a pretty swish collection you've got there! Particularly love the look of the Smide and Kamon.

 

[cotedupy]

This is my most used knife. Leung Tim Sang Dao #2. Roughly 215 x 105.