The paring knife from hell

Oh got some ultra thin cutoff disks for angle grinder.  There is just wee bit flex and I wondered how they would work for thinning knife blade.  Actually pretty well.  I thinned both the Old Hickory cooks knife and some more on the Winco.

Finally hit the sweet spot where the Old Hickory now cuts easily and with finesse.  No wedging and pleasant to use.  Oh the blade is lot lighter weight than I would prefer, but it cuts really well now.  Short of reforging it and drawing it out wider, grinding it to narrow full flat grind blade is best you will do.  By way carbon steel thins a whole lot easier than stainless.

And little more improvement on the Winco cleaver.  At this point I really like the feel of it, though obviously what its like now is no where near the clunky thing that came new out of the package.  Could only recommend it for somebody looking for a project.  CAuse new, it needs a lot of modification to be decent knife that I actually want to use.  The Old Hickory too, its pretty clunky new out of package.  Both had sharp edge, but wedged above the edge like crazy.  Traditional cheap knife.  Good chef knife either needs full flat grind plus distal taper or full width hollow grind plus distal taper.  These shallow skandi or sabre grinds found on lot cheaper knives suck for a chef knife or vegetable cleaver.  And most knives, its no simple project to thin a knife that doesnt start out with a full flat grind.

Got a vintage Hong Kong HO CHING KEE LEE vegetable cleaver out of curiosity, had read they were full flat grind with distal taper.  And this one was offered to me for little over $20 shipped.  Of course no pics of spine before buying.  So was surprised how thick it was at spine and how heavy.  You will find self described "meat cleavers" that are lot lighter than this.  It is full flat grind which is very nice.  Some distal taper. Slightly crowned flat edge curve.  Old so carbon steel.  Somebody had taken good care of it majority of its life, then some asshat got a hold of it.  Pounded on spine with a hammer, etc.  The handle was just jammed on, assume original disintegrated and this is off some el cheapo.  I will make a more comfortable one and epoxy it.  Though interestingly the edge wasnt rolled or chipped, dull but not damaged.

Despite being full flat grind, took while to get it thinned and truly sharp edge on it.  I suspect this was more used as a meat cleaver at least in recent decades.  You tend not to want super sharp edge on a meat cleaver, but you do on a vegetable cleaver.  Anyway, this is probably a number two cleaver.  Number four cleaver is the thin light weight one for slicing vegetables.  I have a #3 Atlas cleaver and its thinner spine than this and slightly lighter than this, but lot heavier than my #4 Atlas.  Seriously for slicing veggies, you really probably want a #4.  Thin blades best for slicing veggies.

But once sharpened, other than being super heavy, it cuts fine.  Its a well made cleaver with good carbon steel and good engineering.  No markings on it indicating #1, #2, #3, or #4.  So if you are wanting a #4 cleaver try to get photo of the spine. 

Ah tried searching for a numbered cleaver.  Nope, apparently a deprecated system to differentiate cleaver sizes.  Now its lot vague descriptive words instead of a universal standard sizing, so you gotta look for actual blade thickness and hopefully spine/choil shots to tell you if its just price point crap or some actual engineering involved.  This sort info rare as hens teeth on more inexpensive cleavers.  You can make ok knife out of el cheapo cleaver like I did the Winco, but its a LOT of work.  Full flat grind and distal tapering is something lot easier to engineer into knife at factory.  Trying to transform a slab of hardened steel with a skandi edge into an effective knife is lot more work.  Requires removal of a LOT of steel.  Something that is whole lot easier before the steel is hardened.

Ok, the Ho Ching Kee Lee cleaver will do horizontal cuts in onion for dicing better than that $160 knife.  Oh its very heavy and obviously wasnt really designed for cutting up veggies.  I do think its a #2 cleaver though that term seems deprecated and kinda meaningless if you arent aware of the old standardized system for cleavers.  Still quite an impressive chunk of steel by today's standards.

Gotta say after the resent thinning of the Old Hickory cooks knife, it has finally turned into a rather pleasant veggie slicer.  Quite improved over clunky half sabre grind it came with from factory.  Its taken several bouts of thinning to get to this.  Maybe could even tolerate another thinning though its already lighter weight than I like in chef knife.  The manufacturer could have so improved the design, it really needs to come from factory with much wider blade and full flat grind, more like their older no longer made, 10" chefs knife.  It was a real chefs knife.  I dont think it was full flat grind either but much better than the 8" cooks knife.  There were many older commercial carbon steel chef knives that were full flat grind.  That Dexter 48910 being my all time favorite chef knife.  I think the Old Hickory and Forgecraft and others with the half sabre grind were done like this to keep cost low.  Both were sold lot cheaper than most knives, but out of good quality steel.  The traditional peasant farm tool, made to be functional and last, but lot of finishing details left to the purchaser to make them cheaper.  Lot older tools, probably not knives, were even offered minus handle and unsharpened to keep cost low as possible.

Playing with my perpetual box of junk knives.  Got out a santoku that has a handle like a 4star Zwilling.  The markings are long gone, so clone or real deal, no idea.  Heavier knife, whatever it is.  And the Chroma, this back when they made cheap knives.  The Chroma is supposedly stainless but had couple rust spots.  And couple paring knives and one of those nasty el crappo "forged" laser knives. 

Oh and my little Utica cleaver.  I was mostly interested in grinding further on the Utica to see how close I could get to a nakiri, its carbon steel.  I thinned it and gave it distal taper, still not thrilled with it.  But sometimes one just has to do multiple rounds of thinning and tapering to hit the sweet spot in geometry for that knife.  It cuts but not quite there yet.

The santoku, ok gotta say those annoying gratons or dimples or whatever you call them make thinning lot easier since lot metal already removed at factory.  Thinned and gave it some distal taper.  Well it outperformed the little cleaver.  I really cant see there would be any advantage to a nakiri, many of them have a sort of sabre grind, not full flat grind.  Though sure high end high dollar one might have advantages, probably never know.  Not going to buy one and its not something show up cheap used. 

And the Chroma, thinned it, though blade is relatively thin and stiff already, but it has what looks like a skandi grind for some reason.  Well like say this was a cheap knife back when it was new.  Wow, that thing can cut, great slicer, though honestly probably not that much better than the thinned santoku.  And the santoku has thicker spine so could probably handle denser foods better.  Hmm, have to maybe buy a sweet potato and butternut squash, just to observe how the knives do on it.  Carrots and onions only push a knife so far.  Trying to remember knife I used last time I had a butternut squash.  Probably one of the Zwilling 4star chef knife.  Those when sharp (and thinned above edge if needed) are near perfection in their geometry.  But my knife sharpening has progressed quite a bit since then so yea need to try.  Maybe get a tomato too.  Cant eat tomatoes anymore, they zoom my blood sugar, but be interesting, though really doubt any of my knives have a problem.  Any knife that can cut copy paper smoothly (make it rain) should easily handle a tomato.  Honestly not sure any kitchen knife needs to be sharper than that unless one is doing sushi or some fancy vegetable garnish.  Things like squash and maybe sweet potatoes need a sharp knife that can pierce the skin and not wedge when cutting.  Thats why a super strong thick knife not maybe best choice.  One guy I knew said he used his bandsaw.... LOL

I gotta say that a thinned santoku kinda grows on you, well the heavier wider (edge to spine) versions.  Do wish they were longer than 7-in but still ok.  Yea they are so much easier to thin with the grantons factory ground into the blade.  Less metal to remove.  Those grantons are pure gimmick, stuff sticks to side of knife with or without them.  And I always thought they were ugly, but hey like say easier path to a thinner knife.  After I got through with the Zwilling four star santoku, some of the grantons looked pretty shallow.  I gave it more distal taper too, something you dont see lot in santoku.

Oh was looking what santokus going for.  Got offer on a Spanish Henckles, whole dollar off if I remember, but its a good deal, even full price was under $20 and didnt have any serious wear, just few scratches.   Oh and same with a ten inch Old Homestead knife.  I like those and they sharpen easier, better if you thin them as they come with el crappo skandi grind.  But the steel is decent, not some super high end steel but the usual Japanese molybdenum-vanadium steel.  And it does cut wear, they arent super easy to thin.  Oh you can get the transition from skandi edge to upper part smoothed, but trying to transform one to full flat grind takes work.  That steel resists being worn down.  Whats weird you never see one of those 60s/70s era Japanese knives properly sharpened.  Too bad, they are worthwhile middle of road kind of knife.  I like the ten inch edge curve lot better than the 8in and its wider blade too.  So if I needed a knife, either of these two would be good choice.  I just dont need more of same.  Dont need any more knives but if I find interesting one cheap,  did see an 8-in Ergo Pro knife.  Its got that Kramer knife shape and thats mostly why its interesting, never used a knife with that shape.  And it has the grantons so be easy to thin.  Its just that I REALLY dont need it.  Once I experienced it all nice and thinned and sharpened, probably lose interest.  Only little over $20 but I dont really need to pay that to experience it.  I am curious why Kramer chose that shape.  Downside to it is that with lot sharpening, it will get shorter and shorter, just cause the front half of knife is so much narrower than the rear half.  On other hand I imagine it could be well balanced, that would lower weight of the blade.  Oh noticed both the Zwilling versions of Kramer and the newer version of the Ergo Pro both have less sloping both the handle and the blade, they look more typical chef knife.  Assume the shape was bit offputting to typical buyer not really aware of the Kramer.  People tend to buy what they are used to unless given a big marketing sales pitch and a cheap price compared to similar price point knives.