good bad and fugle

[jmbullman]

for the good my birthday was tuesday and i recieved a au carbon sabiter, omg i have never had carbon steel before and i am hooked beyond belief. now for the bad, i also recieved (i amd scared to admit) the one knive that will shut this fourm down because there will be nothing to talk about again the Yoshi blade, are all cremic blades this bad? now for the fugly someone sent me a cutco catalog, why are these so expensive, they dont look that great. any imput on the sabitier will be appricated since i have no expierence with carbon steel. thanks.

[Seb]

Why don't you post some pix of the Sab so we can all admire it?

I was thinking of getting a 9" Nogent carbon from TBT to check it out.

[boar_d_laze]

Sabatier au carbone:

K-Sab, TI (****Elephant), or something else?

Most Sabatiers ship with a rough, uneven edge. Most Sabatiers are actually made pretty thin, and it shouldn't be too much trouble to thin at around 10* for the length of the blade. Don't worry too much about the first mm or two of blade at the heel coming from the chin, just get it as thin as you can without making yourself nuts. You can't really use it anyway, because the finger guard will get in the way.

First thing to do after checking for fatal defects is to round the spine over with sandpaper, a stone, or a dremel.

You can sharpen to a slightly more acute edge angle than 15*, but 15* is a good start; and frankly, it's close enough to 10* that you don't really HAVE TO thin.

The knives will take and hold the equivalent of a Naniwa SS 8K's or Kitayama's worth of polish pretty well. They don't have enough scratch hardness to go finer than that, and those two stones along with the Naniwa Pure White are probably the best finishers. You waste a lot of the knive's potential if you don't take it to at least a Takenoko 6K -- so that pretty much defines the sweet spot as well as the ideal final stone choice.

You certainly can sharpen on oilstones. I used Norton Indias and Arkansas stones forever, finishing with a Hall's surgical black -- and that was pretty damn good. On the other hand, the work goes faster with waterstones and you can work up to a higher level of polish.

Plan on using your steel to maintain on a regular basis. If you don't have a good, fine steel, you need one.

What else do you want to know?

BDL

[kml]

omg i have never had carbon steel before and i am hooked beyond belief.

You and me both.....


cheers
ken

[jmbullman]

when this knife arrived i hit it with a messermeister ceramic steel and that made a world of diffrence, it shaves hair and paper better than my shuns already otb, so ur saying if i hit it with my bester and thin it out it might get even more sharpe. dam that will be scary. i was also thinking about purchasing a keyocera or boker ceramic knife just for fun and to complement my already growing collection or should i just save up for the 10 inch sab. any imput would be helpful. brandon i have been reading alot of ur imput on several other websites, you sure know what you are doing. very impressive. if i obtain hlaf of your knife skills and knowledge i will feel like a genius. James . it is the mecier et cie sabiter if that matters. i remember reading on i believe it was chef talk that there were 3 carbon sab's you recomended