Ken
04-07-2005, 03:03 AM
Many times before, we kitchen knife nuts have discussed the possible performance benefits of premium stainless steels such as Cowry X and ZDP-189 compared to the normal high quality steels like VG-10 and Acuto 440 that we more commonly see. The advantage of these premium steels is that they can be hardened up extremely high levels of hardness, thus increasing their wear resistance (and, therefore, their edgeholding), while still maintaining a functional level of toughness, at least in the kitchen. The disadvantage of knives made from steels like these, of course, has been the prohibitively high cost.
I finally bit the bullet on one of these expensive suckers, and today I received from UPS the 4" utility from the William Henry Carbon Fiber Kitchen Collection. My initial impressions are incomplete and somewhat mixed.
http://www.knifeforums.com/ubbthreads/files//628058-WH%201.JPG
http://www.knifeforums.com/ubbthreads/files//628059-WH%202.JPG
http://www.knifeforums.com/ubbthreads/files//628060-WH%203.JPG
The 4" description that William Henry uses is a bit of a misnomer, as the cutting edge of the blade is only about 3 5/8". The sizing discrepancy clearly displays the company's history of making mostly sporting and utility knives, where blade lengths are typically measured from tip to handle, as opposed to kitchen knives, where blade lengths are typically measured by the length of the cutting edge on the blade.
This makes the William Henry kitchen knives even shorter than their already undersized lengths. For the rest of the line, this made me completely lose interest, but in this utility knife's case, the blade length is almost ideal for a paring knife.
Fit and finish are near-perfect. The carbon fiber (my favorite handle material on knives due to its appearance and durability) handle is slender and sleek, comfortable to hold, and although the carbon fiber is a bit polished, it's not so slick as to make the handle slippery. The edges of the handle are radiused very nicely, and there is no noticeable gap between the tang and scales. I would have preferred mosaic pins to stainless ones, but what's there is done very nicely, as the pins are perfectly flush with the scales and radiused over very smoothly.
However, it is impossible to assess performance of the knife at this time. Out of the box from William Henry, this knife is as dull as can be, particularly from the midpoint of the blade back to the heel. I am not aware of the proper technique for sharpening sporting and utility knives, but I am convinced that it is very different from that used in sharpening Japanese-made kitchen knives, because I have never seen a sporting or utility knife maker or manufacturer other than Kershaw put an edge on a kitchen knife that equals or betters the factory edge you get on most production gyutous. I tried chopping some small vegetables with it today while preparing udon, but it was a prohibitively laborious task due not to the small size of the blade, but to the dullness of the edge. It looks like I will be giving you guys impressions on the difficulty of sharpening ZDP-189 sooner than I expected.
So, the jury is still out. However, I do see some fine potential in this knife if I can put a nice edge on it, and hopefully, we'll get to see how well the ZDP holds it.
I finally bit the bullet on one of these expensive suckers, and today I received from UPS the 4" utility from the William Henry Carbon Fiber Kitchen Collection. My initial impressions are incomplete and somewhat mixed.
http://www.knifeforums.com/ubbthreads/files//628058-WH%201.JPG
http://www.knifeforums.com/ubbthreads/files//628059-WH%202.JPG
http://www.knifeforums.com/ubbthreads/files//628060-WH%203.JPG
The 4" description that William Henry uses is a bit of a misnomer, as the cutting edge of the blade is only about 3 5/8". The sizing discrepancy clearly displays the company's history of making mostly sporting and utility knives, where blade lengths are typically measured from tip to handle, as opposed to kitchen knives, where blade lengths are typically measured by the length of the cutting edge on the blade.
This makes the William Henry kitchen knives even shorter than their already undersized lengths. For the rest of the line, this made me completely lose interest, but in this utility knife's case, the blade length is almost ideal for a paring knife.
Fit and finish are near-perfect. The carbon fiber (my favorite handle material on knives due to its appearance and durability) handle is slender and sleek, comfortable to hold, and although the carbon fiber is a bit polished, it's not so slick as to make the handle slippery. The edges of the handle are radiused very nicely, and there is no noticeable gap between the tang and scales. I would have preferred mosaic pins to stainless ones, but what's there is done very nicely, as the pins are perfectly flush with the scales and radiused over very smoothly.
However, it is impossible to assess performance of the knife at this time. Out of the box from William Henry, this knife is as dull as can be, particularly from the midpoint of the blade back to the heel. I am not aware of the proper technique for sharpening sporting and utility knives, but I am convinced that it is very different from that used in sharpening Japanese-made kitchen knives, because I have never seen a sporting or utility knife maker or manufacturer other than Kershaw put an edge on a kitchen knife that equals or betters the factory edge you get on most production gyutous. I tried chopping some small vegetables with it today while preparing udon, but it was a prohibitively laborious task due not to the small size of the blade, but to the dullness of the edge. It looks like I will be giving you guys impressions on the difficulty of sharpening ZDP-189 sooner than I expected.
So, the jury is still out. However, I do see some fine potential in this knife if I can put a nice edge on it, and hopefully, we'll get to see how well the ZDP holds it.