Simon Maillet Gyuto Passaround

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I mean, I'm not gonna say no to the opportunity for a $250 Maillet ...

Edit: that said, I suppose I'll wait my turn before formally putting my name in the mix
 
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I have at least two people who have expressed interest as of now, so in the interest of fairness, I'll hold off until the knife gets to Bico and then organize a random draw between everyone interested.

@kpham12 - have you received the knife yet? Please keep us updated.
Received on Thursday, will post my thoughts after some more use!
 
Received and in good condition. First impression are wow this thing is light (especially compared to the Blank Blades M2 workhorse gyuto that arrived at the same time haha). The aesthetics are so interesting too, never seen kurouchi like this before. Looking forward to using it this week!

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Initial impressions from the wife (I haven't been able to use it yet): very nimble, ghosts through onions and other soft produce. A little wedgy with carrots. I cannot corroborate but hopefully will use it a bit more later this week and over the weekend before sending it off early next week
 
Initial impressions from the wife (I haven't been able to use it yet): very nimble, ghosts through onions and other soft produce. A little wedgy with carrots. I cannot corroborate but hopefully will use it a bit more later this week and over the weekend before sending it off early next week

Interesting. I didn’t find it wedgy in carrots when I had it. But I try to use the forward half of the blade to start my cuts on denser stuff. I’m interested to hear your take once you’ve used it!
 
This passaround is really interesting, thank you for doing this :)

I am curious how your experience has been so far with the low bevel of Maillet in dense vegetables such as carrots or sweet potatoes? Would be awesome if you guys can share your thoughts.
 
Sorry for the late write-up. Thanks so much to @Dave for organizing this passaround. Maillet has been on my list to try for a while but I always miss the drops or am too slow on BST. Aesthetically, this is a really nice knife. I thought the blotchy KU/nashiji finish looked a little weird in pictures, but in person, it looks really cool and has good texture. Geometry wise, the knife has low bevels but the shinogi is pretty soft and the thickness of the knife where the shinogi is seems on the thinner side. To me, it is similar to something like a regular grind Raquin. Kind of a light middleweight with above average food release, good profile without too much belly. The knife was a bit dull when it got to me, I touched it up on natural stones, took just a couple light pressure passes to get a clean paper towel slicing edge, less than a minute of actual sharpening. The core steel feels nice and abrades easily but is still very crisp with nice bite. I tried the knife on onions, carrots, peppers, tomatoes, cabbage and sweet potatoes. It's not really bad at anything, my only complaint would be that it could use a little more weight behind it, but I know Maillet makes more workhorse grinds. One other note I would make is that the bevels are a touch flatter than I would like, but they seem very well ground. I think that it would take less than an hour on something like a Shapton glass 500 to knock off the microbevel and add some convexity and it would make the knife just a bit more precise when cutting.
Overall, this knife seems to me like very good value for the money. Very well constructed, good geometry and balance, stone ready bevels, easy to sharpen and looks cool on top of everything else. Comparable work to what a lot of other western smiths are doing with a lower price tag and Maillet's knives still seem pretty attainable if you want one.
 
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