A Few Good Knives

Arrrggg.   I have an Old Hickory chefs knife of about a 10 inch blade which I dearly love but they stopped making it about 4 years ago.  I’d pay a premium to get another one.  Carbon steel which may be one reason they quit because it discolors but that doesn’t bother me.

When I started looking to buy another, I saw that lots of other people were looking as well and I am surprised that Old Hickory doesn’t have a chefs knife in their product line.

They are great knives.  Try looking at Lehman's.  It is an Amish store.  Lots of great stuff.

I bought a couple of these for the lake, got them at Sam's Club cheap.

https://www.amazon.com/Bakers-...ves-pk/dp/B00851GQBS

Not cheap, but I've had my Henckels Pro S knives for over 30 years and they are just as good as new. Never in the dishwasher. Just feel great in the hand and are easy to keep sharp. But I also love my Cutco extendable fillet knife.

Until I purchased the Old Hickory, I was using our decades old Chicago Cutlery knives, purchased long before production moved off shore. Not good to nick the blade on a great knife. Thus, the OH.  Not that they are 'cheap' but just inexpensive and rather nice.

For $30 the Wusthof PRO 4864-7 is my go to knife. (6" curved boning knife)

They have CHEF versions too but I haven't tried them. 

I like a good sharp knife; been using a Chef's Choice sharpener since they first came out.   Here is a link to comparison charts on their sharpeners.  So many to choose from:

https://chefschoice.com/product-comparisons/

I’ve got the Chef Choice 130 model and have been very happy with it.  

I managed (probably through incompetence) to ruin a couple of good kitchen knives using an electric sharpener. Took too much steel off just in front of the bolster. Since then I've been using a Chantry manual sharpener that works like magic on all my knives, including my 2 inch pocket knife. Unfortunately I understand that a new company took over making the Chantry sharpeners, and they are way down in quality. I always liked that the original Chantry, made in England, was on display in the NY Museum of Modern Art.

It is not difficult to ruin a good blade. Been there, done that.

I had such knives, good ones, I used them for a long time

Besides Old Hickory, RADA is another decent knife for all around use. Pretty inexpensive. Made in USA. 

I'm partial to Victorinox.  The big knife is a 12 inch butcher.  These are not really kitchen knives.  I do mostly butchering and meat cutting.

We have a couple of the Vic's in our kitchen but I still go to our Chicago Cutlery for our indoors work.  If I have to do outside cooking and cutting, Old Hickory. 

By the way Bill, I visited your very informative site.  Thanks.