A dozen or so years ago I bought an 'H brand' kitchen knife set at Costco... great knives, except very soon after buying the set my wife started talking about her 'favorite' knife (the 8" Chef knife) not staying sharp very long... so I got into a routine of using a sharpening stick pretty much every time she wanted to cut something . An Eon or two later I decided to find a better knife... I found a review site https://www.foodandwine.com/lifestyle/kitchen/best-chefs-knife with knives from $170 down to the 'best budget' knife for under $40 being the Paudin brand from Japan (oops... steel is from Japan, knife is made in China) . I clicked the link on the review page (as well as several other links to learn more about kitchen knives) and read Amazon customer reviews... and also clicked the link for the 'better' forged https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07VXJBZJZ Paudin knife made using the 'folded layer' Damascus process . Some other information I found while searching & reading . All good kitchen knives are made from stainless steel using two processes... stamped knives are cut out of a sheet of stainless steel and then finished by having the edge ground on the cut blade... a forged knife starts with the cut blade and is then heated 'white hot' and quenched in water to make the blade stronger and harder . The hardness of a blade is measured in 'Rockwell units' with a 'good' knife having over 50 units . The 'H brand' knife set I bought is 'consumer grade' and 'consumer priced' (I think about $50 when I bought it back a Zillion years ago) and I could find NOTHING about the Rockwell rating for stamped knives (my 'guess' is that a company only advertises the Rockwell rating when it is worth mentioning to attract buyers) . I found a current forged 'H brand' Chef knife (with their self described 'four stars' in the product description) with a 57 Rockwell rating (aha! they want to brag so mention the rating!!!) . With a $20 coupon on Amazon I decided to buy the '67 layer' Paudin knife, which has excellent 'fit & finish' for a beautiful looking knife... it has a 60 Rockwell rating... wife LOVES the look and feel and sharpness of the 'Damascus' blade... with a 60 hardness rating (we always use on a bamboo cutting board) she should stay happy for many years . PS - 'H brand' is Henckels... not allowed to use other brand names for Amazon reviews
The set I bought has a serrated 'bread knife' that I sometimes use... wife ONLY uses the 8" Chef knife, and she is REALLY happy with the Paudin's super sharp edge
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