Sadly, I don’t the experience to compare. 
Zwilling still offers the Meiji line, so if you want to splurge…!
These knives are pretty and they sit in a box 80% of the time, because I hate the thought of wearing them down with every day use. Perhaps I should buy a fancy stand like the person in the website photo.
Hi Vecchiouomo,
The “grabbable” knives I’ve purchased for my home kitchen have all been chosen along the way to facilitate cultural fusion–not look beautiful–but many Japanese knives achieve that purpose through surrounding a very hard core steel with softer cladding. This “package” can be made lighter, sharper, with an edge that can be retained much longer compared to some mono steel knives–and it can facilitate ghost like images.
I have enough of them to know that that “ghost” is quite different looking on different knives, but they seem to be part of the fusion I have in mind–so I’m happy.
Interesting. I am the antithesis. I enjoy knives that represent specific cultures, especially French, be they Sabs or Opinel folding knives. Of course the number one and nonnegotiable requirement is that they perform well and hold up well, not just edge but also balance, weight, and other smaller details.
My mind set has been to appreciate the food culture around me, and find ways to integrate it into my American world. I started out teaching myself basic American cooking skills in college, first coming in contact with French cuisine during my Cornell years, when I had access to two test kitchens.
Once I moved to California, the European presence began to recede–even the groceries I used to count on were not so available any more–and I began to work with a Japanese collaborator with very different knife skills.
I still can do preps for European cuisine, but I do it differently now: I’m much more a push cutter, using chopping when it works best.
My chopping is done with cleavers, using skills I’ve learned this year.
Mostly, the limitations of my prep work have much more to do with my (lack of) skill than the quality of the knives.
I almost didn’t buy my 8" Miyabi birchwood because I felt myself unworthy, finally relying on Eiron’s encouragement to get over the hump.
I wasn’t worthy, but I’ve gotten better since.
Let me guess (I’m ignoring)… Has “cultural fusion” reared its head again?
The way I have developed my “batterie” is to either adapt the knives I have, or update to meet new challenges. An important aspect of that is adapt to changing demands–and availability of materials–according to cost-benefit realities.
My “founding” knives were very inexpensive–so I could easily justify an upgrade at first: my Wusthof Classic Ikon Chef’s knife cost $100, but I was able to justify it for the broad range of tasks it could afford.
There were any number of knives that could be upgrades to my Seki Magoroku nakiri in cost, but I felt that I could team it with my Wusthof adequately through repurposing. So, from the beginning, it was repurposing or upgrading within a budget:
Ray
I once thought Damascus knives implied a better quality knife - now I know it only means a more expensive knife.
The number of damascus layers has exactly nothing to do with the quality of the steel used in the knife.
Some think a knife look more fancy with the damascus patterns in the steel, I partly agree - but it also makes it more vulnerable, when you sharpen the knife because you might risk scratching the pattern, when sharpening the knife on a stone.
I own 18-20 knives with damascus patterns or damascus like patterns (My 10 Miyabi Artisan knives have more of a hammered look than real damascus patterns)
I now find knives to be attractive and have more characteristics with that rustic unfinished black look:
The subtle and realistic hammered traced pattern that wasn’t fully polished away.
Shiny and beautiful hammered pattern from knives like Miyabi are nice too, and my friends love them. However, let’s be real… those patterns are not “real” – they were not part of the process in making a knife. They were put on later just to look better.
It is a little bit like putting grill marks on a burger after it has already been cooked. It makes the burger look good.
Hi Claus,
There are only three true damascus knives presented on this thread, two on the OP, and one, the Shun Hikari, presented by Shrinkrap.
The others, like the ones you own, are “damascus effect,” and differ pretty radically in appearance from each other.
All the “damascus effect” knives I own are very nice knives. The Miyabi Birchwood, in particular, is my favorite knife of all.
What’s yours?
Ray
Leaving the scale on from the heat treat conveys utilitarianism. It also is a decent indicator of putting the edge bevels on by hand.
From the maker’s standpoint, the soft blank is shaped down to a point were the heat treat will not create stress risers and cracks (The rule of thumb is to leave about a 1/16" “flat” at the cutting edge). Then the portions of the edge bevels necessary to thin to attain the cutting edge are ground down. After hardening, removing all the scale up to the spine is superfluous.
The Damascus pattern knives I own, whether real Damascus or not, are from these lines:
Shiro Kamo Arashi SG2 - 2 knives
Kramer Meiji - 5 knives
Kramer SG2 - 2 knives
Miyabi MCD 5000 67 Black - 4 knives
Miyabi Artisan - 9 knives
Probably most fake Damascus and more like ‘dressed up to be Damascus with makeup cladding’, but all the above knives are solid work horses in my kitchen.
I use them all as my daily drivers in my home kitchen.
I honestly prefer the balance of my Kramer Meiji over my Kramer SG2, but prefer the SG2 steel over the FG10 steel.
If I was to advice a guy/gal getting into knives what knife to get, I would advice to buy either a Miyabi Artisan or a Kramer Meiji. They are decent value knives and they both perform very well with a nice balance and both can be made very sharp, the Meiji being the dullest of the two with its thicker profile and FC10 steeled blade.
I don’t know who stands behind the definition of real versus not so real Damascus, but I would be interested if you can explain why a true Damascus with a several layer core base should/could have better performance than a knife with a solid one piece core and then cladded with ‘make up’ layers of fake Damascus.
Hi Claus,
A true damascus, like the two I presented in the OP, doesn’t have a core. The Shun dual core weaves the two together all the way to the edge. The dual core santoku has become Dr. H’s main knife.
We’ve compared it to my Miyabi birchwood and my Shun Kaji santoku on various tasks, and it’s performed very well–even though it’s Rockwell score for hardness is lower.
The way Kai Shun weaves the two steels together gives them a very special appearance, and Kai Shun has been further developing the potential of this dual core style for many high end customers:
If I didn’t already own my birchwood gyuto and my Kaji santoku, I might have purchased the Shun dual core kiritsuke.
Since I didn’t when I could, the ebay price has jumped over $100.
Ray
Hi Chem,
Once a company decides to protect high Rockwell steel with external softer steel cladding, damascus can be a relatively low expense add on. That’s the thinking I believe the Zwilling engineers took in creating the Miyabi lines.
Beyond that, I’m not sure about anything except that various large scale manufacturers implemented different “damascus effect” solutions. So far, my experience has been that the ones I’ve chosen work very well in my home kitchen.
Ray
This is very interesting to me. I had not thought of the cutting edge being many layers, which I guess is basically a “serrated” edge, albeit at a micro level. I do not own any Damascus blades, and really for my cooking, since I don’t mind fairly frequent sharpening, I have only ever giving passing thought to them. In my mind, I thought that
Damascus made sense for a sword, less for a knife. I am curious to know if you feel that you get better performance than a good quality forged knife.
I’m always learning when I read a knife thread!
I may have asked about this here before, but I can’t find the thread. Maybe it was on Chowhound.
Anyway this discussion is making me curious about one of my knives above, which a friend brought back from a trip. I’m pretty sure it was to Japan, but it was many years ago. He gave it to my husband and I didn’t get to ask questions.
It’s special to me regardless, but if anyone can tell me more about it I would appreciate it. I tried to sharpen it once, and vent the tip by pressing to hard on the stone and haven’t tried again. I’m going to send the Shuns to Shun for sharpening ( thanks for reminding me of that option @drrayeye ), but I m not sure who else to trust.
Last time I asked, members said the stamp was from a place they make a lot of knives, but I don’t remember comments about cladding.
Hi Fahrquar,
My Japanese collaborator uses his dual core santoku as his main knife. It sort of is his “dream” knife.
We tried his santoku out together on various kitchen tasks compared to really high Rockwell knives I already own and agreed that it performed at least as well and felt really good–but this is knife is already well known, so no surprise.
Ray
Hi Shrinkrap,
Dr. H just left my house, or KI would have gotten his translation, but next time we’re together, I’ll try to get back to you.
Ray
I don’t have a lot of experience using true damascus kitchen knives. However, the damascus folders I’ve used have been superior.
Personally, I think quite a bit about the cored knives is fictional. It makes sense for swords, of course, and camp, field and survival blades, but kitchen knives don’t take the torsional and ballistic stresses of those. And if you consider the tests to qualify as a master bladesmith, those are all monolithic blades that are plenty strong, flexible and hold a fine edge.
Finally, consider the photos already posted in this thread. Look at the flats and see where the core steel ends and the cladding begins. It’s popular to drone on about how the “soft”, flexible cladding “supports” the “hard” core (supposedly to prevent chipping out), but is this really true? When the core is exposed a 1/4" up the flats, there’s really nothing supporting the edge. If the droning were true, these clad knives would throw very large chips.
Yeah, I think what I wanted to say is that … a lot of these hammered and dasmascus patterns were once considered as “side effect”. They were things to be removed. Back then: Who would want a knife with ugly hammered marks? People would polished out these things before selling the knives (or cookware). Now, people would intentionally add these things back into a perfectly smooth knife or cookware.
I just found this photo. You can tell this was a perfectly smooth stamped wok, and then they intentionally pound/hammered the woks at evenly space for looks.
This too:
Hi Claus,
How do you like the Kamo knives? In which sizes/shape do you have them?
I don’t own any damacus pattern knives, but in case I would want to try them, that Kamo line would be high on my list.
