ZBlog, the blog of zknives.com

Today ordered new, white steel Ikkanshi Tadatsuna(Tadatuna) made Usuba Kamagata, or Kamagata Usuba. Called both ways. Anyway, Takeshi - aframestokyo.com has great respect for that maker and so do other folks on knifeforums.com. Good enough a reason to try the new knife. Why not, always fun. Besides, I don't have usuba, and last year Tadatsuna stopped making knives out of white steel, because one of the blacksmiths left. They may renew production, but for now it's a rarity. I'm hunting for his 270mm white steel gyuto, it's the thinnest I've ever seen. No luck so far. But, this one is a welcomed addition to my collection.

Monday, March 2, 2009 19:27:28

Parties are good, hangovers are bad... Considering that last night's party went till 3am or so, I have a pretty bad hangover today. Oh well, I'll live. Not in the mood to do serious stuff anyway. Just did a few fixes, grammar checks and other updates. That utility hunter is one of the best cutters I've ever seen, and as such, remains in my favorites top list since I've had it.

Sunday, March 1, 2009 21:47:56

Phil Wilson made it few months ago, picked it up on BAKCA show. CPM-125M knife, the only one in my collection. I've used it several times, pretty intensive cuting. Well, it's a superb cutter from a very exotic steel too. Unfortunately, looks like CPM-125V was discontinued. No other makers is willing to work with it either. Too hard and wear resistant, literally eats through the belts. Originally designed for dental equipment, but turned out too hard to make equipment out of it. Makes a very good knife though. Anyway, there will be new steels and there will be new knives :)

Friday, February 27, 2009 20:39:46

This weekend is Aritsugu A-Type gyuto training time. Singe bevel knife, super thin, ~12 deg. edge. Because of the single bevel and concave back side one needs to pay extra attention and use correct grip to make straight cuts. No biggie once you get used to it, but does take some practice in the beginning. I finally got things right this month, and now I don't wanna loose my skillz :) Besides, it's always a joy working with a sharp knife, especially with a superb performer like this Aritsugu.

Friday, February 27, 2009 15:32:32

I don't really watch Top Chef show, not as interesting as Iron Chef and chef's themselves aren't that big yet. Anyway, they are still celebrity chefs. Last night, Stefan Richter made sashimi, the trouble was, he froze it first. Why? Because he couldn't get a nice, thin and even slice with the dull knife. Obviously, that didn't go unnoticed and he lost. For something as stupid as a dull knife. How can a chef show up with a dull knife, especially when he's on competition show, on TV, is hard to comprehend. So, yeah chefs are chefs, but they aren't the best knife users. Still better than Bobby Flay opening the can lid with the Shun chef's knife.

Thursday, February 26, 2009 20:35:58

I figured it was time to give that review a final overhaul. Lots of facts and info in it were clearly outdated. Plus, during those years since I wrote it, I've gained new perspective on kitchen knives and their performance. Well, that's it for that particular review. No more updates, especially that the knife is discontinued and technologies used in it were replaced with modern ones, by Henckel.

Thursday, February 26, 2009 18:17:23

Finally got around to finish this one. In between the repairs of the broken radiator fan blade and smog checks. Had to spend few hours fixing the car with my friend, all because of one dumb mechanic who used a cheap plastic zip-tie to fix the radiator fan shroud in place. That place gets, hot, there's lots of vibration, how hard is it to guess that it will break? Oh, well, it's fixed now, so all is good. Not much fun removing the radiator and replacing the fan blade, plus it was 90USD for the new fan blade. Anyway, review is up. Good stone, good price, good performance. Also, I've tried to clarify the confusion with the stone grit, some stores sell it as 12000 grit, others sell it as 8000 grit. Read the review for details.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009 00:03:41

Mondays suck. Especially rainy Mondays. Anyway, added few new terms to Japanese Kitchen Knife glossary. Fixed bunch of syntax errors and typos, improved linking to relevant pages. Hope this helps when reading the reviews or shopping for your next Japanese knife ;)

Monday, February 23, 2009 14:22:48

After using it for around a month I figure it was a time to summarize my experience with it. It was my first natural whetstone and worked out about excellent. No complaints from me. It is a medium grit stone, Nakato or Nakagato in Japanese classification. Sharpening speed is really high for its grit and what's also very nice, it can produce very fine edge for its grit. Not a perfect brick, which is why I got it at a discounted price. I guess, the perfect whetstone of that kind would cost few hundred. pretty expensive, but sharpening with it is much more pleasant experience compared to synthetic whetstones.

Sunday, February 22, 2009 13:25:01

Finally managed to get the black handle 320mm Gude bread knife. You'd think that a bread knife with a price tag well over 100$ shouldn't be hard to buy, but no. First one I had to buy from Europe, nowhere to be found in US. And that place in Denmark had only olive handled Gudes. Now, finally I found one in US, thanks for the tip to knifeforums folks, who else :) Interestingly, this one is thicker a little bit, mainly in the tip area, and it was duller too, out of the box. However, unlike Dutch version, US specimen came in a nice box. The whole thing is messed up somehow. Same model, same maker, still differences. That's in 7-8 months period. Anyway, I'm glad I got it. It's the kind of knife that lasts lifetime. Already sharpened it. Goes through the loaf of bread at half of the blade length. Gotta love this monster.

Friday, February 20, 2009 23:54:36