[Disclaimer - I probably do have some kind of bias or skin in the game here; I've know the guys for quite a while and have got quite a few of their knives for myself and others, most of which I've swapped stuff for rather paying in cold, hard cash. But let's try to be as objective as possible eh. Impressions are from knives that were acquired 2+ years ago, when I still lived round the corner in glorious SE London. Combination of iron clad A2 and Stainless clad AS.]
F&F - The knives I've had have always been very good for this, I've never had to touch up, round any choils, &c. It's what I'd expect from a premium knife. And haven't found the cladding to be notably reactive personally, kinda average. The etched iron cladding is pretty gorgeous tbh, it's
really stunning. I'm not such a fan of the handles, which are heavily tapered, almost rectangular, and have a large chunk of metal as a collar/ferrule thing. Which means balance points are a little backward of the norm in Japanese knives.
Grind - The grinds are quite thin on the styles I've had. They err more toward laser than WH.
Performance - I can't really fault this; they take an incredible edge very easily, and the retention is extraordinary. Happily hold their own with other 'premium' makers I have, perhaps even better. Our most used knives.
QC - Well it can't all be sunlit uplands can it? BF make quite a lot of knives now, it's not just three of them sitting in a railway arch in Peckham anymore. And from a couple of
@Corradobrit1 's pictures above there do seem to be some issues here. I'd say say those are pretty highly atypical, but at the price - you'd expect things like that not to be slipping through at all. Of the 6 or so I've had, there was one (a petty) that I felt I needed to do some thinning and sharpening work on. If I was buying from overseas: I'd probably go direct, ping them an email and ask them to select a knife according to what you want, and snap some pics of it.
VFM/Verdict - These obviously aren't particularly cheap knives, positioning themselves pretty firmly in the range of some quite smart Japanese or Western custom makers. But mine stack up well against things I've tried or have in a similar range. I wouldn't say they're extraordinarily good value, but they certainly aren't style over substance, and the performance of the steel (and whatever they do to it) is really quite impressive.
