KKFora Passaround?

I have this safely in hand. Thanks David for the smooth handoff!

I am looking forward to putting it through the paces this holiday weekend! Farmers market beware!

 

Thanks Adam! I'll be looking forward to hearing your thoughts!!

 

Sorry for the delay in posting my impressions, but it has been a bit crazy in my universe. I will be sending this along to Mark in the next week or so and will provide updates as it moves along.


My impressions of this gorgeous knife follow below. I am doing my best to provide constructive criticism wherever possible, so as to provide some meaningful feedback. This knife is outstanding, but I am not a laser guy. As you will see below, I still feel that way, even after using this knife.


This is the knife as I received it. She’s a beaut!










This is the knife after Memorial day weekend. I put it through the paces in a home kitchen, cutting everything and anything I could get my hands on, including onion, pepper, grapes, strawberries, celery, carrot, tomato, as well as sausage, chicken, etc. Let’s just say the family ate well this weekend, and the knife was well used.
















On receipt, I found the edge to be good. I did not want to do a full sharpening session, so I just stropped on diamond loaded felt. The knife performed well, and responded well to the felt, but was still not quite where I wanted it to be. I did a very quick stropping touch up on Jon at JKI’s 6k diamond plate, and the resulting edge was sublime. The knife gets very sharp – very easily.


Positives:
I think this is a very impressive knife, good slicer and dicer, super sexy aesthetics, excellent fit and finish as expected, comfortable in hand, nimble for its size, and is longer than I expected. The steel takes a nice patina and quickly becomes non-reactive. Hamon is beautiful. The handle is very comfortable, and really well finished. I found above average food release for a knife this thin as well, which was surprising, but speaks to the thoughtfulness of the grind, particularly in such a thin knife. The steel appears to be well treated, and takes and holds an edge well. Honestly, if anyone is in the market for a custom top of the line laser, they should buy one without hesitation – this knife is a truly unique piece of functional art.

Negatives:
I clearly personally prefer thicker spined, heavier weighted blades, and this knife didn't change my mind, even though I kind of hoped it would. I didn't get the same level of effortless falling through food that I like with sturdier knives, particularly in the front 50% of the blade. The knife benefits from a sturdy hand and a slicing motion. The blade was somewhat less flexible than I expected given its size, but still flexes more than I like in a gyuto, particularly towards the tip. IMO, the flexing doesn't effect the actual cutting, but the user’s perception of cutting and confidence in using the tip and front half of the blade. Again, this is just my feeling and preference, so not something I am prepared to say is any kind of flaw, just something I do not prefer in knives, probably due to my own technique issues. I am also confident/concerned that many owners will chip the tip of these knives, and it will not be an insignificant chip as it may be on a thicker spined knife. The tip of this knife is brutally thin! I would definitely recommend that these knives should require a saya, whether complementary or as an add-on. I would not want to store this knife without. (The leather saya included is simple but attractive, sturdy, and effective.)

Overall:
I wish I loved the knife, because it really looks like something I want to love. I enjoyed it enough that if Cris ever makes a thicker heavier version with same basic aesthetics as this vision, I would definitely give it a good hard look. But this knife is not in my wheelhouse due to my own preferences rather than any functional deficiencies of the knife. I also think that your cutting style will play a large role in how you feel about this knife. I think this knife will excel in draw cutting, push cutting, and slicing, but struggle somewhat with straight chopping motions, or weight through product cutting. As I said, if you like lasers, take a long hard look at this man’s work. It is truly one of a kind.


This is the knife as it sits now after my cleanup. It cleans up really easily using the gear provided, although the patina is not completely erasable without more work. I suspect this knife will only continue to develop more character as it moves across the land. Also, shipping is a pain, as this is a big heavy wooden package to ship!










Cris – thank you. Your generosity in sharing your work with this community is fantastic. Your work is truly unique and impressive. I appreciate the opportunity to handle your art. I enjoyed myself.


Please fire away with any questions or comments.

 

nice write-up Adam! I'm still pulling my thoughts together, so I'm glad you were able to get some feedback up so quickly.

 

Great review. It will be interesting to follow this and see how the ppl involved either love the super thin or like yourself want a little more heft.

 

Nice write up, Adam, thanks for posting. :cool1

 

Thanks for the quick review Adam!! I definitely appreciate the feedback and critique!! I'm currently working on a few ways to make my blades heavier without sacrificing what I feel is a mandatory minimum of cutting performance. It's been an interesting road lol. As you can see, I've worked hard to try to get acceptable food release into a very thin piece, but adding weight without lead plugs is a different kind of challenge lol. I've figured out the balance thing to a large extent as well, as this knife has more forward balance than any I'd made before it (most of my knives balanced just in front of the ferrule).

One thing for everyone to keep in mind on this knife, is that the thickness of the spine is in no way an indication of the thickness of the knife overall. I think, being used to judging a given knife by the distal taper in the spine has people looking at this knife with a few preconceptions. My knives are ground in such a way that this isn't really possible.

Anyway, thank you again Adam! I most definitely appreciate the time and the great pictures!!

 

Oh, also!! Thanks to both you and David for working so diligently to get the knife into a such great condition for the next person! I was kind of worried that it would be difficult at best to keep the hamon and polish presentable, but you guys are doing wonderfully!

 

Very nice write up!

 

I had the honor of being first on the pass-around list. The knife and accessories arrived on the Friday of the ECG weekend. They arrived in a vault. A vault that put Fort Knox to shame

Suffice it to say that if I were to pack up and ship my 2-year-old – who is one of the absolute most important things in my life -- chances are the protection wouldn’t hold a candle to what Cris provided for his baby.

First Impressions: Wow, a well-executed 'line knife' profile. An amazingly thin spine at the heel tapering to a vanishing tip. Definitely a bit more svelte then I expected. Did I say thin? I meant THIN! And the hamon was more beautiful even in person then in the pics. The fit and finish on this knife were absolute spectacular. I would go as far as saying flawless, although I really did not take a magnifying glass to it. The hamon popped, the handle was beautiful, all edges were eased/ rounded to perfection, etc. So while the price point of this knife may seem high for a monosteel knife, there is no question in my mind that Cris takes care of all the details to ensure you feel like you got a bargain at that price and don’t have any regrets.

In hand, the knife was far lighter then I envisioned. And while the handle seemed a little funky to me (sorry about using a Guy Fieri phrase), it actually felt very comfortable. Granted I was just fondling it and not cutting with it at this point, but our relationship was just budding and I wanted to be a gentleman.

By the time I successfully breeched the vault, extracted the knife and admired its, uhm, body, it was time to head into DC to meet up with some KKF members. Unfortunately it wound up being limited to ChefCosta, but he was stuck working the line at Zaytinya that night and gladly took the knife – along with Carter and Mareko gyutos – back into the kitchen to briefly put them through their paces. He came back a short time later with a smile on his face. Unfortunately it was due to the Mareko, as he thought the handle was one of the most comfortable he had used. In fact, he brought out a Rader slicer to show me, and indicated he thought the Mareko handle was even more comfortable. As far as Cris’s knife was concerned, he seemed to think it cut well but he was not a fan of the handle. Okay, that may sound bad, but it was still #2 on the list and the Carter gyuto was the least favorite, which I think is saying something.

ECG: Fast forward 1-1/2 days. Mucho Bucho was kind enough to take a bunch of my knives to a JKI touch-up stone (6k?), as he touched up the pass-around knife as well, in preparation for the ECG. When we arrived I spread out a bunch of knives on a couple cutting boards, and people wandered around trying them out. Before much time passed Cris’s knife was appropriated and moved to marc4pt0’s table, and repeatedly put through its paces with onions and potatoes. The feedback I heard was very positive. Dennis, Marc and Rick (Theory) gave it the most use. Marc is on the pass-around list and should be receiving the knife any day now, so any comments from him are best left until he has really had a chance to use the knife in a professional environment. But he did seem to enjoy using it. But overall from ECG attendees the consensus was:

1. "Wow, that's thin"
2. "Wow, that's light"
3. "That really is a great knife"

The blade looked pretty good at the end of the day, with minimal patina. The only issue was I never got the chance to use the dang thing!

My Home Use: Finally, it was time for me to start using the knife. While I was first on the list, at least a dozen and a half other people had already gotten to use it a bit, so I was itching to get some time in the kitchen free from distraction by our 2-year-old. Oops, never mind – my wife beat me to the punch and used it to prep dinner while I was still at work. She primarily cut onions, sweet potatoes and carrots. Usually anything over 225 is too unwieldy for her, but she found the knife to be quite nimble and easy to control. She said it was great on the onions, and had almost no wedging except a little on the sweet potatoes, where she needed to press down on the spine a bit (although a lot less then she is used to doing with other gyutos we have). Also, she thought the handle was very comfortable. For comparison, she often uses my DT ITK AEB-L gyuto and a HHH mid-tech gyuto, and prefers knives in the 210-220 length. I passed on this feedback to Cris, who indicated using a slight push helped him get through sweet potatoes with almost zero resistance.

Fast forward another night or two, and it was FINALLY my chance to start using the knife. I diced up piles of potatoes, sweet potatoes and onions. The onions parted like buttah. It was an almost sublime experience. Same with the russets. Very little sticktion whatsoever; the onion and potato pieces came right off the blade. One thing I did notice was the knife seemed to cut best on the front and rear 1/3s of the blade, and required a little more effort in the middle 1/3. I initially chalked this up to the light sharpening on the use at the ECG.

The sweet potato was bit more of a challenge. This was not a long, thin sweet potato – it was almost the shape and size of a softball. The required cutting effort was about the same as with most of my other gyutos. Nothing was out-of-sorts here, it just that the knife did not surprise me the way it did on the onions and russets.

I found the handle to be quite comfortable during use, and a good fit for my hand size. Nothing about it interfered with the cutting duties.

The one thing that caught me off guard during the use was the reactivity with the onions. The knife slightly blackened the onions and the blade darkened quickly. It was surprising because blackening was not apparent at the ECG. I’m not sure what the issue was, as I wasn't exactly being careless or negligent -- I was wiping the blade after dicing each onion half. In comparison with some of my other knives it was a not-too-distant cousin of Shigifusa's cladding. It definitely was more reactive then Devin Thomas's 52100, which is no slouch in this department either. At this point I was expecting a Shigi-like battle to combat discoloration of acidic foods, but in another surprise to me it stabilized (due to the hot-water washes maybe?) and did not get any worse with further use of the knife over the next week. Additionally, acidic foods were no longer getting discolored. So after a day of discoloration issues everything became ok, although there was some patina on the blade that would have Cris’s ODC (see what I did there?) keeping him awake at night.
I had a chance to attack more onion and potatoes later in the week, as well as lemons, tomatoes, garlic, apples, steak and some other odds and ends. The knife was a joy to use each and every time I had some prep to take care of.
The key items that became apparent to me during this use were:
1) The very thin tip (really the end 1/3 of the blade) was great for slicing and mincing. It was very nimble even though the tip was so far from the handle (see pics below for comparison of length to a collection of gyutos).
2) The back 1/3 of the blade (towards the heel) excelled at chopping. In a ‘fell right through it’ kind of way.
3) The overall thinness of the blade (see pics below for some spine comparisons – the Fowler is the only gyuto that is remotely similar in blade profile and thickness) did not result in too much flex or instability. In fact, the knife felt quite stable, even on harder items such as the sweet potato. I chalk this up to the relatively low blade height. The combo of thinness and low height ‘just works’.
4) The middle 1/3 of the blade really did not get much use. Overall the blade was long enough that chopping a large onion only required the rear 1/3-1/2, and slicing tomatoes, lemons, etc. and mincing garlic only required the front 1/3. MAYBE the lack of weight of this knife resulted in the middle 1/3 being slightly more awkward to use because there just wasn’t much weight behind it. I am very interested to see what other pass-around participants think of this aspect. But to me, based on my limited home use, you could take one inch out of the middle of the blade and I would not have missed it. Odd thing to say, but at least with my cutting style the middle part of the blade just did not get used much.
Conclusions: I found this 'line knife' profile punched well above its weight class. The blade geometry and grind allowed it to perform more like a gyuto when chopping, and the suji-like height made the knife far lighter and more nimble than I anticipated. The only 'negative’ of the profile was the limited blade height meant it did not do that well as a 'scoop' for the cut product; a pair of cupped hands got the job done quicker.
Cris has the profile and grind down pretty well, and he deserves a big ‘congratulations’ for reaching that point so quickly! To me, the fit 'n' finish is definitely worth of the price point and the handle shape definitely works.
If I were to own and regularly use this knife I would probably sacrifice the hamon visibility and work to get a good patina on the blade, but then again I am not a polish kind of guy – I like seeing patina on carbon blades. And I’ll bet when Cris reads that statement he’ll get a nervous twitch
All-in-all using this knife was a revelation for me. I had seen photos of Cris’s knives, and figured using one would be like trying to cut a bowling ball with an overcooked piece of spaghetti. But nothing could be further from the truth – the relatively low blade height helps keep the blade much more stable than one would expect (at least in my experience). And the handle – which I thought would be awkward – proved to be very comfortable for my hand size/ shape. And even though the blade is on the long side, the knife is so nimble the tip got a lot of use. No need to drop the gyuto and reach for a petty with this one!
The overall lack of heft and *possibly* the grind resulted in me not utilizing some of the middle portion of the blade, although with more time I likely would figure out a tweak or two to my cutting motions to help with that. But like I stated earlier, you could take one inch out of the middle and I probably would not miss it. That’s really the most negative thing I have to say, as my overall experience was extremely positive/ favorable.
The photos below illustrate the range of gyutos I use, so you can see where the pass-around falls in relation to some DTs, a couple Markos, a HHH midway, a Fowler, a Carter, a Catchside, a couple Japanese blades, and probably one or two others. Some of the spine shots show how the dang thing is even thinner along the spine than my 210mm Takeda suji(!) and DT ITK 150mm petty(!!).
Cris, thanks for letting me try out your knife! Your work is already exceptional, and is only going to keep getting better.

The Vault:


Finally breeched!!!!!:


Gyutos for comparison:


Gyutos, suji and petty for comparison:


Pared down gyuto collection for comparison, Fowler on far right:


Spine shot for collection in last photo; Fowler and Mareko are closets in spine thickness/ taper:


Yeah, but while they are the closest, they are still not in the same league!:


Dang thing even makes DT 150 petty and takeda 210 suji look fat!

 

Thank you David for the VERY thorough review!!

To clarify a few points for everyone.

First!




My daily use gyuto...the first one I ever made lol. See the patina!!

This was what it looked like when new btw, lol.



The only reason I'm concerned for the patina on the passaround is so each person gets a chance to use it in 'like new' ish codition lol. For example, the reactivity you experienced, I never have. Since it wasn't an issue at the ECG...maybe others will, or won't...and we can see how it goes, lol. Plus, like you said...the hamon's cool and I'd like everyone to get a chance to see it.

Second! Stiffness. Stiffness and 'stability' are a factor of geometry to some extent, rather than thickness. In addition, the spine isn't the thickest part of my knives...so there's more to consider than an overhead comparison. That said, even at the thickest point that knife is still most likely thinner than any of your other knives shown lol...just not quite as dramatically as your pictures indicate!! To illustrate...the thickest part of that knife that that could by any stretch effect cutting would be over the heel...and is right at 2mm. The spine over the heel isn't that thick however. Midblade the thickest point is only 1.67mm. There's a lot more going on in that blade than how tall it is or isn't, and how thin it may be .

Finally, I'd like to say...there is no need at all to thank me!! As a matter of fact, I am going to thank you. Both for putting the knife through its paces, as well as for taking the time to share your thoughts about it with me and everyone else. It's nice to know that I'm on the right track with what I'm doing, both in performance and ergonomics. It's also good to know that the aesthetics of the knife are appreciated, even if they don't give any indication of the way the knife will perform, lol. I never would have thought of a 'wet noodle cutting a bowling ball'...but man am I glad it was able to prove you wrong lol!!

 

We just need to figure out a specialized sweet potato cutter now.

 

Haha! You know I'm working on it!! Thin enough not to crack it at the bottom of the cut, with enough geometry to eliminate suction wedging. Challenge accepted!

 

David - great review - thanks for that! Excellent comparison photos as well. I am currently "wrapping" the box to go to Marc. Looking forward to continued progress and reviews!

 

I needed one at the last job... would have loved one!

Looking forward to this knife coming to the smokehouse someday soon!

 

Man, I'm enjoying this thread and like a good Michener novel, I know there is tons of reading in store for me!

 

i should add that Cris was very responsive to any questions I had, and he had sound reasoning for every design element of the knife. I think that is critical for being a top-tier knife maker.

 

Ok, review to come soon, but I just wanted to make sure that Son was next up for gettin' this gem. Son, or Cris, can you door me your address? I leave for Chicago again and I'd like to get this in the mail prior to that.

I will say this, twice now I've been more than tempted to just pack this knife alone for my Chicago trip. Yet both times I decided not to, solely based on my not wanting to be responsible for it getting lost (either via airport trolls or sticky fingers of strangers).

And this concludes my glowing review of your knife, Cris.

 

That's high praise indeed Marc!! Knowing what you own makes it mean that much more .

I'll text Son tomorrow morning and make sure he's still in. If he doesn't want the responsibility of it with everything going on right now, it'll be going to @John Fout next and I'll get you two squared away.

Thanks again brother! I'm going to be getting back to your girl tomorrow night. If you liked the passaround, you're going to love what I'm cooking up for you here .

 

Wheeee!