Guirec PA Review
135cr3 SanMai with soft steel cladding
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Specs:
Length:
Edge: 21,6cm
Handle: 12,6cm
Total: 36,1cm
Height: 52mm
Weight: 216g
balance point: in front of maker's mark, 44mm in front of handle
Spine thickness:
out of handle: 3,76mm / middle: 2,12mm / 2cm in front of tip: 1,65mm / 1cm in front: 1,04mm
spine stays thicker for the first 6cm, then starts to taper slowly
tapers most in the last 3cm to the tip
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Thickness blade:
slightly above edge: between 0,2mm to 0,17mm ; at tip around 0,15
(1cm above / 2cm above)
heel: 1,20 / 2,26
in front of heel:
5cm: 1,21 / 2,17
10cm: 1,14 / 1,99
15cm: 1,11 / 1,78
2cm to tip: 0,76 / 1,43
Handle:
Height: 27,9mm to 25,8mm
Width: 26,1mm to 16,8mm
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The handle is made out of oak with a bit of the front part being burnt. The wood is kept quite natual with the small natural gaps and inclusions not being filled. Therefore it shows the grain of the wood. It has a Rokkaku/ shield form, 4 corner top which aren't sharp but also not round and the bottom is pretty oval with two rounded corners. It tapers towards the front but not consistantly. The wood feels soft and grippy but still smooth.The front corners towards the blade are rounded. It's also rather light. Personally I like that it's not so long. The handle is close to feeling bulky to me but it doesn't reach that point. I'd prefer it slightly thinner but it still feels good. I'm not sure how I feel about it aesthetically. What I would change is the height in the front, or better said the transition from handle to blade, so you have a smaller step down to the spine. The step from top of handle to blade is 4mm, on the bottom it's 2mm. Also would prefer a shorter neck length for pinch gripping it. It is around 2cm, my sweet spot is around 17mm length from handle to choil.
Overall I would regard it as comfortable enough thanks to the feel of the wood.
Fit and finish:
The fit and finish is alright with the knife. The spine is nicely rounded, prety much all the way to the tip, the choil as well. One could argue about filling the gaps of the handle but it's alright for me, it kinda fits the philosophy of the knife. The fitting of the knife could definitely be better as already noted. You havean air bubble on the right side and overall isn't the best job done. Have seen worse on Japanese knives though. The cladding isn't that nice for me. It's rather rough and looks and feels like it was handled with a dremel. Also it made the knife rather reactive. While the patina build-up was quite slow, it took nearly a week for a not brand new knife to stop lightly blackening my onions. The knife has a diagonal finish which isn't too high polished but also not rough. It didn't hinder the knife going through produce.
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Profile and cutting techniques:
It's got quite a round profile but surprisingly didn't work well rocking. It isn't fluent enough and you hit kind of a dead flatspot -a flatspot which hinders/stops your motion- around 8cm in front of the heel. The heel is slightly pulled upwards which I usually like but even though rather minimal the upwards shifting starts too early, around the dead flatspot. It's not really suited for pull cutting. It works fine chopping but could use some more weight for it at the right times. I quite liked it push cutting and push and glide though which worked well for me there.
Grind:
In the top, the section of the forging finish it is rather flat, with some hils. Below it you have some kind of shoulders which get blended slightly convex into another rather flat grind towards the edge. On the left side it's slightly more convex. Between the forging finish on top and the grinded bottom you have kind of like a hill, a ridge. On the left side you can find a bulge in the transition area around 9-10cm in front of the heel. On the right side you don't have as prominent of a ridge as on the left. It's also flatter in generalbut the convex transition reaches lower.
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Cutting produce:
Carrots:
The knife wedges a bit towards the tip, also you encounter a sticking problem. Around 4-5cm behind the tip you experience this the most, the sticking and wedging. At 10-11cm you have a super wedge point, cracking and splitting the carrots. In the last 5cm the knife cuts rather well and has solid food release. Overall in the back half the food release is drastically better. In the front you don't have super clean cuts. There is also sticktion to be found in the front. So the food sticks to your blade and there will be resistance while gliding and stopping the motion. This isn't happening all the time but especially with bigger carrots. Often times the surface after cutting wasn't smooth and it didn't really manage to cut a carrot in half lengthwise without cracking. Also cutting 7+ carrots at once wasn't a pleasant experience.
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Definitely some wedging in parsnip but worked out better than I thought.
Celery root:
I encountered some wedging in celery root but it was manageable. Sticktion was worse though and it resulted in some halts and more force needed. You definitely need some forward motion and need to hit the right point of the knife entering the celery to get a fluent and thoruogh cut. On slightly softer celery root, it went better than expected. You still met some resistance but no stops. I would say it does celery better than carrots.
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Leek:
With leek you could also slightly feel the sticktion. Especially if you cut more than one at once.
Sweet potato:
I only had a really soft sweet potato, softest and “juiciest“ I ever got which it handled just fine.
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Onions:
I think it does really well in onions. It went easily through onions horizontally, with the belly as well as just the tip section. Vertical cuts were also quite smooth, not as smooth as others I have though. Rough dicing, brunoising, Juliennes were rather easy to handle. With Juliennes it didn't completely just fell through but was an easy task nevertheless. Same with brunoising, easy and fast. Wouldn't go as far as calling it a fun onion slayer like my Spare or Bazes which are rather exceptional in that regard though. Overall a pleasant onion cutting experience.
The difficulty with sticking was very apparent with stuff like courgettes, older eggplants and such. The knife also wasn't the greatest for finer, more precise work but also wasn't a bother. It did its job just fine but also not great. Fine dicing shallots, ginger, garlic was still a manageable task but you had to focus a bit more. The knife kept an alright sharpness over the whole time without any refreshments but was in need of a touchup at the end of my journey with it.
The knife doesn't feel light weight but also not super heavy, I would call it well balanced. It felt solid and tough. A knife you don't have to baby but also doesn't spark enjoyment enough for me. After trying it I can still definitely recommend the maker if you know what he does is what you are looking for or at least keep an eye out.
There need to be some smaller adjustments made but definitely have seen and held worse.
Thanky you
@Guirec Péron for providing me a chance to try one of your works
. It work great with pinchgrip and with two finger "hammergrip" aswell. 
