Really? That's It? - Early Observations of My First Carbon Knife

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HumbleHomeCook

HumbleHomeCook

Embrace your knifesculinity!
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I've never been interested in carbon steels and have always gravitated to semi and full stainless. Being heavily influenced by the pocket/sporting knife world, I fully resisted carbon steels due to rust concerns. I often can't spend time rinsing and drying my pocket knife so something prone to rust has always been out for me.

But delving into Japanese knives and wanting to explore things outside my norm and keep things fresh and fun, it was time to get a carbon steel gyuto. In this case that means a Tadafusa Nashiji Blue #2 from Epicurean Edge at $110USD. Nothing exciting to most here but I dig function over form and there's something about good value knives I really like.

Now, going back to this rust thing. First, let's set the parameter that I'm a home cook. I'm not in a high-volume, high-stress environment. Well I mean the stress part can be...er...never mind... 😁 Now all these years I've read these horror stories about carbon blades. And I think if you were to print the content of all the posts, dialogue, discussions, etc. I've encountered on the subject of how you must be VERY DILIGENT in looking after your carbon steel knives it would likely be a stack of paper taller than Mt. Fuji! Hell, I've even read many discussions about corrosion degradation of edges. I'm not disputing that happens but just saying it only added to my disdain for carbon.

I mean seriously, why would I want to deal with any of that??? I'm not an expert sharpener by any stretch but I'm a fairly good one. I'm learning new techniques on new stones and can get flustered and I know I will always only be just so good, but I can get good stainless really, really sharp. And since (in mind anyway) the only good reason to get carbon over stainless was it's sharpenability, the rusting thing just far outweighed any small edge improvement I could imagine.

So, it's only been a few days, and I haven't done a ton of cooking yet, but I've been using this knife exclusively for all that I've done and I am left with the very real question of, is this it? And by that I mean the rusting thing because holy crap, it's essentially a non-issue. Among other things, I've cut tomato, onions, limes and not a hint of issues. And I'm not wiping the blade off every four cuts or seven seconds whichever comes first.

I've worked with carbon steel in other applications and I know it rusts readily but seriously, from this admittedly very limited exposure, as long as you respect your knives, the rust issue should absolutely NOT stop you from buying carbon blades. I know other compositions will act differently but you just cut some stuff, wipe it off, cut stuff, maybe rinse it, wipe it, cut more stuff, etc. Yeah don't leave it sitting there for ten minutes with whatever you cut on it but again, just respect your knives.

I am in no way turning my back on stainless steels but this opens up so many more options for me and is very exciting!

I also got my first Shapton Glass 4k stone today and decided to work on the Tadafusa's OOTB edge which wasn't too great. I dropped down to my SG500 and was having some troubles (combination of changing my technique and working with higher hardness steel) but I eventually got things in a much better place. I wouldn't say this Blue 2 was super easy to sharpen over stainless but I do see that it can take a very keen edge.

K0jPBOD.jpg


To my fellow carbon noobs, I say just take the plunge. I still think you should be comfortable maintaining stainless as with having both open to you gives us all so many choices.

I know that was long, but thanks to the folks here who wore me down, told me not to stress about the rust issues so much, and got me to try this out.

👍
 
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I patinate my carbon-steel monosteel and single-bevel awase knives before their first use for exactly this reason. (They look a lot more boring, but more of the hassle is taken away.)
 
Especially with a healthy patina they are pretty robust. That is until you come back to it 2 months later and find some unexpected pitting.
 
While not exactly semi-stainless, Blue #2 doesn't rust as readily as a pure carbon knife. Like @HumbleHomeCook, I find that it isn't as unforgiving as some people make it out to be.

With White #2, my experience has been that it rusts readily and easily, much more so than Blue #2. It sort of starts rusting every time my neighbours open their kitchen tap… (When I sharpen my White #2 Deba, I see the stone turning reddish brown while I'm sharpening. That's mostly the swarf on the stone corroding rather than the knife itself. But it shows how easily White #2 will rust.)

Still, leaving Blue #2 with tomato or citrus juice on it for ten minutes is a bad idea—it will start to rust in that time. Whenever I put the knife down and know that I won't be using it again in short order, I wipe it down.

From a pragmatic perspective, I also have a preference for stainless or semi-stainless steels. But, for ultimate sharpness, carbon steel is hard to beat.
 
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Michi said:
While not exactly semi-stainless, Blue #2 doesn't rust as readily as a pure carbon knife. Like @HumbleHomeCook, I find that it isn't as unforgiving as some people make it out to be.

With White #2, my experience has been that it rusts readily and easily, much more so than Blue #2. It sort of starts rusting every time my neighbours open their kitchen tap… (When I sharpen by White #2 Deba, I see the stone turning reddish brown while I'm sharpening. That's mostly the swarf on the stone corroding rather than the knife itself. But it shows how easily White #2 will rust.)

Still, leaving Blue #2 with tomato or citrus juice on it for ten minutes is a bad idea—it will start to rust in that time. Whenever I put the knife down and know that I won't be using it again in short order, I wipe it down.

From a pragmatic perspective, I also have a preference for stainless or semi-stainless steels. But, for ultimate sharpness, carbon steel is hard to beat.
Click to expand...

Again and admittedly, I still have a ton I need to experience and I'll need to get some White steel to see how we fair. I know it is much more reactive and if it is more than I want to deal with, I'll just check it off the list. :)
 
In my experience, you can sort of forget about monosteel carbons once they're gotten a decent patina for a while and not see anything too alarming (assuming you're not in Miami or Hawaii). Iron clad knives on the other hand, will leave you feeling very regretful if you leave them alone for too long.

The only iron clad knife that was the exception was the Kochi migaki I got from JKI. The cladding on that was pretty tame.

Carbon is king, but that is a very personal opinion.
 
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