GeeWhizBang
Member
So they are just not expensive enough, apparently, it hardly matters how well they seem to work. I have used considerably more expensive knives that didn't take such a nice edge as these.
The Damascus texture is just rolled or stamped on i doubt that they use lasers and it serves the same purpose as the circular scallops some knives have.
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My impression is that it is intended to encourage sliced items to fall off the knife.And that would be?
My set didn't even come from them. The company I bought them from switched to even fancier looking and far more expensive Chinese knives with side rivets on the handles (not that it really matters) and Vertoku came up on a search when I wanted to buy similar knives for my sister. They never came up on Alibaba, but google seems to ignore listing things from Alibaba. I am here trying to figure out why a knife that takes such a good edge is considered bogus somehow. I do realize that some of their claims about the knives don't hold much water, the company I bought them from insisted that they were actually Japanese, at least Vertoku is honest that they come from China.Does Vertoku pay by the word?
Say it ain’t so! I’m heartbroken, haha. I thinned my 8’ Shun classic gyuto a decent amount and all the damascus pattern remained. Must be a somewhat deep etch/engraving?For what? Marking up a product? Falsifying Damascus pattern, like Shun?
Say it ain’t so! I’m heartbroken, haha. I thinned my 8’ Shun classic gyuto a decent amount and all the damascus pattern remained. Must be a somewhat deep etch/engraving?
So I have found a seller on Alibaba, that has a larger set that what I bought (2 more knives, and the two extra ones look like they'd be useful) for $87 including shipping. The Chinese companies are completely honest about what they are, they are "laser pattern, Japanese-style knives"
To the OP,
FYI, the knife you wanted is not real Damascus, it’s just printed pattern, although a beautiful feather Damascus pattern.
You can get it for $35 on AliExpress or about $50 on ebay.
He just collects things. His entire house is piled high with various things he's bought over the years, he has narrow aisles all over the house, boxes in front of cabinets and the dishwasher, counters piled high with stuff, and half of the huge kitchen cabinets are full of stuff he never uses. And even though he had these beautiful knives they were dull as eff when I first moved in, but boy did they resharpen beautifully. Some of the items are valuable others are just junk like 30 year old calculators. He owns about 300 knives, and other than the Japanese ones, none of them are collector's items. He's just hoarding.Happy you love your knives. If you give a set for Christmas to your friend who collects expensive Japanese knives, let him know he can sell his j-knives here on BST.
He's just hoarding.
Wait, I just bought a parer from Butch on Facebook a couple of months ago. And it certainly looked like him and the knife seems to be CPM154 (still). So maybe it's just "Caveat emptor" and know your source if you go that route.Facebook and basically any social media purchase. Kickstarter has become especially sour lately.
So out of curiosity I ordered a set directly on Alibaba. The whole set of eight knives is $23 in China. It cost another $55 including tax to have them shipped to Seattle.
This is about one third as much as my first set from a vendor even more sketchy than Vertoku. It's a little cheaper than Vertoku's price.
They may not meet the minimum standard of knife afficionados but they still are wicked sharp, with nice rounded handles, and they don't look cheap. I'm going to suggest that they are perhaps not stainless but are heavily chrome plated carbon steel. This explains the absolutely fabulous sharpness, carbon steel has a much finer grain structure than stainless.
It wasn't good when my previous roommates washed them in the dishwasher or soaked them in the sink. The edge corrodes. But if you wash them by hand this doesn't happen.
But as a practical matter these are an absolute joy to use and cost less than a set of mediocre Kitchen Aide knives. They are certainly sharper than my former roommates German and French knives.
Does that include shipping? That's not bad at all for aus10At that price I don’t think it’s real Japanese VG10 or even AUS10 steel. It’s possibly the Chinese made “vg10” type of steel which has 0.8-1% carbon and it could take a better edge than those German x50 steels. For real imported AUS10 the lowest price they can sell a chef’s knife locally in China is about $20. No way they can sell an 8-knife set and shipping to US for only $78.
I’ve bought multiple $40 Chinese cleavers made with Chinese 9cr steel (0.9% carbon) for my families in China and they all love it. It comes a better edge than almost all Shibazi and all regular Zwilling knives (2 most popular brands in China) and it’s kinda thin behind the edge so all my family love it. I think the handmade Japanese knives are not overpriced compared with Chinese factory made knives because it’s an entirely different market (they could be overpriced compared to Western artisan knife makers though), but I agree German Zwilling /Wusthof knives COULD be overpriced for mass family market or commercial market. Even Victorinox, Chinese can probably make a similar preliminated knife using the exactly same Sandvik steel and handle and good HT and sells it for half the price like $15.
This knife series uses real prelaminated multilayer damascus AUS10 steel and the vendor sells it for about $50 for a 210 or $60 for a 240. It uses a nice wood handle and the knife is laser thin. Just want to show you the normal price for a nicely made Chinese knife using real Japanese steels. Still very cheap but not that cheap.
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Yes. Shipping locally in China is very cheap. Like 2-3 dollar so they usually include it.Does that include shipping? That's not bad at all for aus10
I should have known better. Received an email from this company, supposedly based in Portland, OR. They offered a nice looking, Japanese style, 8" chefs knife. The ad crows about VG10 steel layered with 66 layers of Damascus steel. The knife has a nice looking resing/wood handle, reinforced at both ends.
https://vertoku.com/products/damasc...6R2Nk5qB5KBNZpAAD7uKIuAyB5ibqT14aAoKaEALw_wcB
What I received was nothing like what was advertised. I received a kirtsuke blade, 1/16 in thick steel plate, definitely not Damascus. There was a laser etch on the blade to fake it up. I have Damascus blades from Rajasthan, Shun, and Bob Cramer. The handle isn't anything like what was advertised, no bolster reinforcement, no endcap. It was some sort of molded plastic.
The ad was too good to be true. The site is loaded up with faked reviews. The only ones you can believe are the negatives. Not one verified purchase.
To return the item you are required to return it to Jinhua, China. Untracked and tracked USPS will run you 30% and 60% of the purchase price. I thought I could deal with this but it just isn't worth the aggravation. What a POS!
It's almost like there is some need to spend impressive amounts of money in order to feel like you've bought good knives.I don't recommend six knives at that price.
Yep... if you had to make a lower cost recommendation personally I'd lean towards V'nox or one of the other brands mostly catering to professionals as well. Because they work...and you can buy a thousand of them and they'll all come out of the package the same way. Want to pay a bit more? Go for something like a Tojiro DP...Victorinox fibrox all the way.
I would like to check out the Victorinox knives. My roommates vast packrat collection did include a lot of very expensive $100+ per blade knives, but only the ultra expensive Japanese ones he had were better than these cheap and cheerful ones.Did you ever even touch an actual good and/or sharp knife? Because what I'm seeing is mostly someone who lacks a proper frame of reference.
Using knives like Global and Henckels as a benchmark to compare against is rather hollow considering most of us here don't have a high opinion of those knives either - and no, not because of the lower cost.
When I was new to knives I also thought my cheap made in China VG-10 stuff was the bees knees and came superduper sharp. A few years down the road I'd give the same knives a very different evaluation. What most lay people consider 'sharp' is just a rough low grit belt finish that feels sharper than it really is.
And that's apart from the bigger problem plagueing a lot of the Chinese stuff; lack of consistency. The most well-known example is Misen (where knives came out with heat treatments vastly different from advertised), but I've also seen this with other Chinese knives, where even within the same line from the same brand there was a significant variation in both grind and heat treatment.
I would like to check out the Victorinox knives. My roommates vast packrat collection did include a lot of very expensive $100+ per blade knives, but only the ultra expensive Japanese ones he had were better than these cheap and cheerful ones.
As for consistency all three of these including the direct from Alibaba ones seem to be identical other than the logo / no logo
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