Kickstarter project: The Perfect Knife (tops out at 19 cm chef knife with ergonomic handle)

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I suppose there could be a situation where being able to change the balance would be useful. Handle heavy for fast chopping, blade heavy for precision tip work. Dunno if their invention is the best implementation....
 
ian said:
I suppose there could be a situation where being able to change the balance would be useful. Handle heavy for fast chopping, blade heavy for precision tip work. Dunno if their invention is the best implementation....
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In theory. In practice that weight will get stuck in the handle heavy position.
 
The Hinoki Essential Knives

This also pops up as an add here, VG10 blade, in a fancy packing. They got 250k founded and are pretty much sold out. Hope they made the knifesmiths in their video a sweet deal.
 
ian said:
I suppose there could be a situation where being able to change the balance would be useful. Handle heavy for fast chopping, blade heavy for precision tip work. Dunno if their invention is the best implementation....
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I’m certain most of the users will be perfectly happy with the knife—everyone has their own path to kitchen knives. I used to loooove my wustof classic years ago.
 
The knife would be way cooler if the slider changed the angle of the blade.
 
I'd like a universal, foolproof removable handle system... At least I dreamed of it at some point. Then I learned how to get over any handle getting in the way of sharpening... the desire still lingers for when I want to work on a blade's finish or such.
 
I'd love to have a knife that updates my Insta for me automatically.
 
All these good for all, change balance, etc never work well. They only make sense to people who don't use knives much. If you use a knife you get used to it or you pick a knife that works for you. No one in their right mind would change balance of a knife in the middle.
 
Where's the integral UV light? I want sterilization capabilities. No Sale
 
Barmoley said:
All these good for all, change balance, etc never work well. They only make sense to people who don't use knives much. If you use a knife you get used to it or you pick a knife that works for you. No one in their right mind would change balance of a knife in the middle.
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Don't knock innovation! I have no illusions about the knife under discussion, but I can imagine situations where it might be convenient to change the balance mid prep. It's no different than starting with a choppy knife and then switching to a more detail oriented knife. It'd be interesting to see whether you could make a single knife perform both functions -- probably it wouldn't work as well as switching knives, but say you only had room on your table for one? I don't know.

Anyway, it's a useless innovation for KKF members because we have so many knives and enjoy switching between them.
 
ian said:
Don't knock innovation! I have no illusions about the knife under discussion, but I can imagine situations where it might be convenient to change the balance mid prep. It's no different than starting with a choppy knife and then switching to a more detail oriented knife. It'd be interesting to see whether you could make a single knife perform both functions -- probably it wouldn't work as well as switching knives, but say you only had room on your table for one? I don't know.

Anyway, it's a useless innovation for KKF members because we have so many knives and enjoy switching between them.
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You are imagining situations that never or rarely happen. This is a classic example of a solution looking for a problem.
 
I can totally understand why the Kickstarter campaign was so successful. 2 chefs and a paring knife for 175 euros ($198.23 usd) is a very good deal for many people wanting a set of distinctive looking kitchen knives. For that amount, I'd prob buy a Takamura gyuto.

Personally I'm not a fan of moving parts on kitchen knives, too many places for food juices and debris to get caught. I prefer simple handles, don't even fancy those complicated Kamon handles TBH.
 
ian said:
Don't knock innovation! I have no illusions about the knife under discussion, but I can imagine situations where it might be convenient to change the balance mid prep. It's no different than starting with a choppy knife and then switching to a more detail oriented knife. It'd be interesting to see whether you could make a single knife perform both functions -- probably it wouldn't work as well as switching knives, but say you only had room on your table for one? I don't know.

Anyway, it's a useless innovation for KKF members because we have so many knives and enjoy switching between them.
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Innovation is a hugely important aspect of knife making! Although, I can't see much utilitarian value in this knife's innovation.

New steels, new profiles, new polishing techniques, new aesthetics, new handle materials, help keep the knife market from getting too stagnant and boring IMO.

Generally, occidental makers producing Japanese inspired knives for the western market are more open to experimentation—they're often not so saddled down with tradition.
 
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DitmasPork said:
Innovation is a hugely important aspect of knife making! Although, I can't see much utilitarian value in this knife's innovation.

New steels, new profiles, new polishing techniques, new aesthetics, new handle materials, help keep the knife market from getting too stagnant and boring IMO.
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Absolutely, but...

I don't know how it has come to this, but everyone's knee jerk reaction against it makes me want to defend the idea even more, even though I certainly wouldn't buy the knife above.

My only point is that sometimes, I'll have a blade heavy knife that I really like for push cuts and for tip work, and then suddenly I'll want to rapidly chop a cucumber, and I'll switch to a more neutrally balanced knife. If instead of switching, I could change the balance on the knife, I might actually use this feature! I don't know. And neither does anyone else here, because they haven't tried it. Of course, it'd have to be some impossibly tasteful version of what's above, and would probably be really impractical costwise vs just switching knives. But cost ineffectiveness are KKF's middle names. Where's your sense of adventure, everyone? :)
 
ian said:
Absolutely, but...

I don't know how it has come to this, but everyone's knee jerk reaction against it makes me want to defend the idea even more, even though I certainly wouldn't buy the knife above.

My only point is that sometimes, I'll have a blade heavy knife that I really like for push cuts and for tip work, and then suddenly I'll want to rapidly chop a cucumber, and I'll switch to a more neutrally balanced knife. If instead of switching, I could change the balance on the knife, I might actually use this feature! I don't know. And neither does anyone else here, because they haven't tried it. Of course, it'd have to be some impossibly tasteful version of what's above, and would probably be really impractical costwise vs just switching knives. But cost ineffectiveness are KKF's middle names. Where's your sense of adventure, everyone? :)
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For people buying +$300 knives, I really don't get the bizarre obsession with price. I've seen people slap a 200 dollar handle on a 50 dollar knife. I've been told, "oh Denkas are overpriced...," "...Mazaki is great bang-for-buck," but when I get excited about a particular knife I don't care what the comparables are. That's the nature of collecting—I'd consider most members on KKF as 'collectors.'

With the feature of adjusting balance on a knife—it's just not something that excites me—at least with the Kickstarter knife's iteration. What is does achieve, is the potential for future innovations, based or influenced by the that idea! I can imagine the technical challenges involved would be cool—think of the mechanics and materiality on high-end folding knives for example.
 
If you have a counterweight in the handle, you are expending energy to move that extra weight around, irregerdless (yes, it's a real word- To the distress of wordists, a dictionary has confirmed the lexical veracity of 'irregardless' | First Dog on the Moon ) of the need for that weight in a particular operation. This will be a knife that weighs more than it had to... I prefer to lift weights at the gym, not the cutting board.

Plus, the whole list of other objections- Moving parts in a kitchen knife? A knife that doesn't conform to my muscle memory of how it should balance and work?! More big $s bilked from the ignorant for kickstarters that are utterly ridiculous?!! And it is UGLY on top of all that?!!!

Just get a knife (or knives) balanced to your needs, or re-handle/thin/shorten a blade to meet your need. The more tasks any tool is required to perform, generally, the less well it performs any individual one of them in my experience. Do you want to rebuild an engine with a 37 blade swiss army knife?
 
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