I've mailed the knife to
@M1k3. Hopefully, it'll show up in CA some time next week, corona gods willing…
I won't repeat what other people have said already, so just some of my impressions here.
When I first picked up the knife, it felt hefty (which I like), even though, at 261 g, it isn't heavy. It has this really solid feel to it that I enjoyed a lot. This isn't some flimsy laser thingy, but it isn't a workhorse either, IMO. It just says "I rule around here", without having to strain.
The taper towards the tip is great, and I like the profile. It reminds me of my KS, but it felt friendlier than the KS. It doesn't stop as abruptly on the heel as the KS, and it's also better suited to rocking.
@Briochy sent it to me really sharp, so I didn't do anything to it. Plenty sharp enough as it was.
I cut a whole lot of stuff with it; various veggies, garlic and ginger finely sliced and rock-chopped, basil chiffonade, tomatoes, chillies, beef, lamb, chicken, bacon, salami, cheese, sous vide bags, and soft bread. It didn't really matter what I was cutting, the knife always did it effortlessly and competently.
As to the food separation, I have mixed feelings. Yes, stuff definitely sticks less and separates from the blade a little easier than with my other knives. So it works better than anything else I have right now in that respect. My concern isn't so much about the performance, but about the huge amount of extra effort required. It's a really complex and labour-intensive grind, and I'm wondering whether something else, such as an s-grind (which I have no first-hand experience with) might not achieve the same thing for less effort.
Here are some videos. With potato, I thought the knife did fine, but not brilliantly.
I thought the hook grind worked considerably better than my other knives when slicing onions. Very little of the cut pieces "walking up" the side of the blade. But, for diced onions, the small pieces seem to effectively eliminate the hook's effectiveness: the individual pieces are so small and light that they will stick to the blade if they find even a small contact area.
With cucumber, I got good separation, better than with any of my knives.
I want to thank Jules for make this pass-around possible. I learned something while using this knife, and I feel privileged getting to try a knife such as this because of all the good will on Jules's part, and on part of this community.
