yes–in the school of Hotel Administration.
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Hi alexamnderras,
depending on the features that are improved, the SEU might be no better than the base–or anything up to 5X–in comparisons I’ve made. 5X is the highest I can get. If I still want it, I’ve become a collector. 
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Hi Ray,
Even though Miyabi knives are just mass produced knives, Zwilling did something great with this sub-brand in my view.
I own 4 of the Miyabi Blackwood ZDP-189 knives and 10 Miyabi Artisan knives and my wife loves the Artisan knives to death and I love them too.
The Blackwood ZDP-189 are just amazing for me to use as daily drivers in my kitchen
Some J-knife users find them unbalanced but I find them perfect. Arguably the best knife I’ve ever held in my hand. So I agree with you.
Maserati’s are also mass produced
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Oh I was too soon in giving out post of the day awards! 
But being a European, where can I complain regarding the unfair scoring of CF location?!
Excellent! 
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I am happy to pass my award on to Chem, who is definitely a more deserving candidate
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Nobody said they were bad knives - they are not - just that they were made differently from artisanal J-knives 
Maseratis are mass produced, and there’s no point owning one when the speed limit is 80 kph and all the roads are straight. No wait - that was Ferraris - my bad 
The Ferrari that sat beside me in rush hour traffic yesterday was sad. So is a very expensive knife sitting in its slot while the cook mixes yet another bag salad and rotisserie chicken. If I had a very fine, hence very expensive, knife, I would feel compelled to be using it.
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Agree. Based on the Sabatier thread you have more than one fine knife, and they look like they’re getting plenty of use.
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Alexanderras,
You seem to be lumping here. Artisans make knives one a a time for clients, but they need to scale up to sell knives in quantity–which means they have a whole team make the product in batches. The individual artisan himself is just one part, probably the finishing part–or, he might just roam around and supervise.
As batch sizes get larger and larger, production gets closer and closer to the miyabi shop in Japan.
When I was growing up, I worked in the body shop of my uncle’s dealership under the supervision of a former Ferrari employee in Italy. He taught me the fine art of sanding and fine polishing a car–detail work–just like finish work in Italy. Our customers appreciated that we had a Ferrari artisan running our body shop–even though it was a flunky (me) that was doing the actual work sometimes.
Not all artisans scale - quite a few of them resist that urge.
You’re absolutely right about how the organisation of work evolves with scale - and often mechanisation and automation increases too.
I still think there’s a difference between a knife that was designed with CAD/CAM (to use one of your favourites) and undergoes a series of highly standardised (semi)automated production steps - and a knife created by a single artisan without template and shaped based on experience.
Both are absolutely valid (and potentially great) knives. I just think they’re different “animals”.
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Hi alexander,
If the artist/designer is any good, in these modern days, he will know and take advantage of computer prototyping. I’ve posted already the example of a young American knife artisan who makes knives one at a time–and is quite successful. He started out doing cad/cam engineering.
The biggest transformation is the CAM part–which starts out as largely irrelevant, but soon defines the steps and processes as batch processing becomes more complex.
I don’t think that’s the right measure of whether they’re any good. A lot of great artisans would favour the traditional ways and craftsmanship from before the computer age.
Quite frankly I don’t see much point in CAD if you’re going to make it by hand anyway. I’ll wager you that computers were not involved in the creation of a lot of very good J-knives.
That said, I think it can make sense to use CAD/CAM if you have ambitions to scale from the get go, and your style is to embrace technology over tradition.
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I respectfully contend that in knife making, as in all such crafts, there are artisans producing some of the best of the best who are going about their work largely unaware of CAD/CAM. There are subtleties of feel, textures, etc, that involve fineness beyond the scope of many CAD/CAM systems and operators. Not all CAD/CAM applications are equal. Some embody the principle of GIGO.
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The whole CAD = good knife making is nonsense. I think most people know that. Artisan teapots do not use CAD drawing.
What CAD’s greatest strength is communication. If you have a factory of 100+ people, (not 2-4 people), a CAD drawing definitely help communicate to other what you want and think and reducing the confusion. That is what it really does.
***I do think if the knife marker is any good, then he/she need to learn about my CFHCPQR (Cultural fusion Home cooking Price Quality ratio). Otherwise, they will get a low CFHCPQR score from me.
Some of theses statements are just so far from common sense.
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Maybe if your teapot had been designed with CAD you wouldn’t have had to learn kintsugi
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That is true. What is worse it that I don’t use CAD when I apply my kintsugi. I just “wing” it as I go.
Don’t worry. I live in SoCal. I get a high cultural fusion score at the starting line.
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Stay there if you can. I went to school in SoCal and whatever fusion elements I had developed have all decayed in ATX.
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Sorry to hear about your ATX (Austin, Texas?) lack of fusion. May I ask if you lack home cooking skill too? 
