LOL so instead of a full blade San Mai, only the portion behind the edge has core steel. This means that if you ever use the knife more than the first part, you're left with just 440 steel. That's really cheaping out...
I mean it depends how deep it is. With warikomi, it'd be a similar scenario. Same-ish scenario for Shihan who only quenches the edge (at least for some of his knives)
If you look at the image, I'd estimate maybe 10-15mm max. Also look at the location of that weld. Seems like a silly design to me.
How often you have weared more than 10 mm of VG10 steel? I’m pretty sure that it would be enought for my lifetime.
Personally never.
I don’t think that anybody expects any performance or visual benefits over full San mai or mono VG10. it’s It’s obviously made to cut the costs. These “composite” knives cost much less than Shun’s full San mai Classic line. They offer a high performance yVG10 edge and are even cheaper than their mono AUS10A Kanso line. A higher quality edge with less money. That’s a proper improvemen, right?
I wouldn’t use any skinny high HRC blade for abusive tasks. I also have heard how Shun’s VG10 will instantly chip. Never had any problems. At some point a Shun Classic Nakiri was my main kitchen knife and I used it a lot.
Even that 50 % should outlast many home cooks.
He does it for A2 blade, but A2 is also an air hardening steel so rest of the blade is still on the hard side.
Ah, I didn't bother to check the link to the actual knife. Didn't realize it was their budget line. The way they try to market it seems like they want to present it as such a high end product with a bunch of different metals. There's still a significant up charge for what it is, but if it's supposed to be their low end model then can't complain too much. Don't know that I'd consider vg10 as a separate tier from aus10 though.
It should be fine as long as they do it right, Cleaver king has been doing this for quite some time and they are much smaller operation. This kind of construction is really common in Chinese cleavers, CCK stainless, Dengjia 9Cr15mov cleavers all use the same construction.
I've definitely worn that much vg10.
. Luckily Im not in danger of buying a shun.
They also do western styled knife.
Yeah but by the time you have sharpened up to the softer steel on a honyaki you have removed a considerable amount of material, to the point that it would likely look like a petty knife rather than a gyuto.
I was using a Shun VG10 (VG-Max) knife every day as my main knife many years ago. The blade kept a keen edge for a long time and didn’t have any chipping problems. I needed to remove very little metal to keep it sharp. A quick touch up with a 3000 grit stone and newsprint few times a year was enough to keep it sharp.
Your definition of a keen edge must be very different from most here.
This is what is most surprising to me too. Hard to believe that this is cost effective to Shun vs regular san mai. It must be though if they do this. Just hard to believe they save enough in materials to make the process worth it
