I’m way beyond my first knife, but still rather clueless. I don’t really even know what to ask yet. I’m the kind of person who sometimes overthinks and other times just jumps in and figures things out on the fly. Not much in between. This time I just jumped.
It all started when I was looking for a slicing/carving knife for thanksgiving. As a long time member, I asked for help over at Badger & Blade. To serve that very specific purpose I bought a Wusthof 8” carving knife, carving fork, and boning knife. This worked out very well for dismantling the turkey.
The next thing I knew there was a supply chain shortage and I panicked. Knives were disappearing from inventory over at Cutlery and More. Even the manufacture’s websites were showing outages. So I laid in a few Wusthof paring knives and even a Wusthof petty, which is my least favorite.
The Wusthof knives and a Made In santoku that I got before this frenzy.
Then I started getting emails for invitation sales. I liked the look of the Tojiro Flash series, plus they were marked down and with the 20% off invitation sale they were almost half price! Who could resist such an offer? They were also recommended by someone, somewhere, because homework, right‽ So I ordered one or two and was pleased with my purchase. Then inventories started plummeting and I bought more, and another one. Finally I had all the pieces that I thought I should have except for a straight edge paring knife that was on back order which never came in.
These are the Tojiro Flash knives.
I thought I was in the clear and then I got an email about Yaxell knives and another 20% off the discounted price. Oh my goodness, what a lucky deal this was! This included the Dragon series (made with BD1N steel) which were the last inventory of the ones made in Japan. Again, how could I resist‽ So I ordered one… then two. Remember that whole supply chain shortage that I mentioned earlier, well that kept coming up in the news and of course inventories were falling like the Hindenburg. So now I’m four knives deep into this series.
The Yaxell Dragon knives.
With no rhyme or reason to my purchases (since the carving knife), other than chasing a sale, there I sat with well over a thousand dollars of production knives. This caused me to pause a bit. I realized that I really liked about four of the Wusthof knives and two of the Tojiro. These were the ones I found myself reaching for most often. Of course the carving knife and boning knife are specialty knives and will only get used a few times a year, but they are two of the four I really like. Of the Tojiro knives I really like the 8” chef and 5” petty.
I like the feel of the Yaxell Dragon handles. I really thought the BD1N steel was going to be the ticket for my wife’s, less than careful, cutting style. Her very first run with the nakiri produced a couple of nicks. Nothing I couldn’t take care of on a three piece set of Shapton Pro stones, but still was disappointing after all the marketing hype.
Sometime during all of this a B&B member told me about this place. So here I am and I had no intention of adding any more knives to my growing inventory. But some of you guys make videos and some of those videos are very intriguing. I mean, I really don’t need another knife, but that didn’t stop me from buying four yesterday (technically, since it is now after midnight, two days ago) from KKF members in the BST.
I just sent PP funds for the following:
Karaku AS Gyuto
yahiko sanjo w#2 santoku
Munetoshi 240 Gyuto
Terayasu Fujiwara Maboroshi "Santoku, aka Santobunka"
Here’s what I got by with for well over twenty years.
So here’s my questions/thoughts. Where do I go from here? I ordered a better cutting board, Hagesawa something K. Got some mineral oil for the carbons. I feel like an aimless wanderer in an ocean of choices.
I live in a somewhat remote area of northern Wisconsin, USA.
I’m still working as a self employed truck driver and plan to retire in a few years. So current cooking/knife schedule is weekends only.
I’ve never used a WA handle, so I don’t know which style I prefer.
I’m looking forward to receiving the new knives and getting to know more members.
Thanks for reading my lengthy post.
It all started when I was looking for a slicing/carving knife for thanksgiving. As a long time member, I asked for help over at Badger & Blade. To serve that very specific purpose I bought a Wusthof 8” carving knife, carving fork, and boning knife. This worked out very well for dismantling the turkey.
The next thing I knew there was a supply chain shortage and I panicked. Knives were disappearing from inventory over at Cutlery and More. Even the manufacture’s websites were showing outages. So I laid in a few Wusthof paring knives and even a Wusthof petty, which is my least favorite.
The Wusthof knives and a Made In santoku that I got before this frenzy.
Then I started getting emails for invitation sales. I liked the look of the Tojiro Flash series, plus they were marked down and with the 20% off invitation sale they were almost half price! Who could resist such an offer? They were also recommended by someone, somewhere, because homework, right‽ So I ordered one or two and was pleased with my purchase. Then inventories started plummeting and I bought more, and another one. Finally I had all the pieces that I thought I should have except for a straight edge paring knife that was on back order which never came in.
These are the Tojiro Flash knives.
I thought I was in the clear and then I got an email about Yaxell knives and another 20% off the discounted price. Oh my goodness, what a lucky deal this was! This included the Dragon series (made with BD1N steel) which were the last inventory of the ones made in Japan. Again, how could I resist‽ So I ordered one… then two. Remember that whole supply chain shortage that I mentioned earlier, well that kept coming up in the news and of course inventories were falling like the Hindenburg. So now I’m four knives deep into this series.
The Yaxell Dragon knives.
With no rhyme or reason to my purchases (since the carving knife), other than chasing a sale, there I sat with well over a thousand dollars of production knives. This caused me to pause a bit. I realized that I really liked about four of the Wusthof knives and two of the Tojiro. These were the ones I found myself reaching for most often. Of course the carving knife and boning knife are specialty knives and will only get used a few times a year, but they are two of the four I really like. Of the Tojiro knives I really like the 8” chef and 5” petty.
I like the feel of the Yaxell Dragon handles. I really thought the BD1N steel was going to be the ticket for my wife’s, less than careful, cutting style. Her very first run with the nakiri produced a couple of nicks. Nothing I couldn’t take care of on a three piece set of Shapton Pro stones, but still was disappointing after all the marketing hype.
Sometime during all of this a B&B member told me about this place. So here I am and I had no intention of adding any more knives to my growing inventory. But some of you guys make videos and some of those videos are very intriguing. I mean, I really don’t need another knife, but that didn’t stop me from buying four yesterday (technically, since it is now after midnight, two days ago) from KKF members in the BST.
I just sent PP funds for the following:
Karaku AS Gyuto
yahiko sanjo w#2 santoku
Munetoshi 240 Gyuto
Terayasu Fujiwara Maboroshi "Santoku, aka Santobunka"
Here’s what I got by with for well over twenty years.
So here’s my questions/thoughts. Where do I go from here? I ordered a better cutting board, Hagesawa something K. Got some mineral oil for the carbons. I feel like an aimless wanderer in an ocean of choices.
I live in a somewhat remote area of northern Wisconsin, USA.
I’m still working as a self employed truck driver and plan to retire in a few years. So current cooking/knife schedule is weekends only.
I’ve never used a WA handle, so I don’t know which style I prefer.
I’m looking forward to receiving the new knives and getting to know more members.
Thanks for reading my lengthy post.
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