# Korean kitchen knives?



## EdipisReks (Oct 28, 2012)

i can't post the ebay link, but if you search for "korean kitchen knife made by master artisan who made daejanggeum knife" you'll find it. looks pretty good, though a bit round on the belly. anybody use a knife like this?


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## Zwiefel (Oct 28, 2012)

interesting....roughly the profile of a deba...with some kind of KU type finish. Said it's made of railroad steel though?


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## cclin (Oct 28, 2012)

what is "railroad steel " made of??


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## EdipisReks (Oct 28, 2012)

cclin said:


> what is "railroad steel " made of??



iron and carbon and stuff. sounds like a recycled steel from railroad ties, or something.


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## Zwiefel (Oct 28, 2012)

that's what I was assuming as well. I've seen railroad ties used to build houses, so why not knives from the rails themselves?


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## Benuser (Oct 28, 2012)

Looks great, but would find the tip too high,


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## Johnny.B.Good (Oct 28, 2012)

Interesting, but don't think I would shell out for one.


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## EdipisReks (Dec 3, 2012)

i bought one of these, and it arrived today. crude doesn't even begin to describe it, but it is robust and takes a decent edge, so i think it'll work for what i bought it for: butchery that i don't want to risk my good knives on, but which i want a better edge for than i'd get with some piece of crap Furi, or something.


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## franzb69 (Dec 3, 2012)

yep. they're good for what they can do and for the price. from what i can see. they're all just a bunch of cheap and crude, possibly ripoffs of japanese knives.

i was gonna contact the seller coz it was so darn cheap and wanted to ask them if the deba and the slicer also came in for lefties. sadly they're not. even said the santoku can't be used by a lefty.

ah well.

here i thought, i was gonna be able to get a bunch of cheap knives i can use and play with. lol. saw these a couple days before.


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## EdipisReks (Dec 3, 2012)

this knife is more or less 50/50, i don't think it matters if you are a lefty or not, with it.


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## franzb69 (Dec 4, 2012)

my mistake, for not mentioning that i contacted the seller already. he did say that none of those korean knives were lefty friendly. i think he was a bit miffed coz i asked the same question for all three items, the deba, the slicer and the santoku.

i know the santoku should be more or less 50/50, but it might be the handle that's not lefty friendly. i dunno. maybe it's a korean thing. i'm not very familiar with koreans and their ways.

but if you say it's lefty friendly, then i might have a stab at one. lol. 


@edipis, 

would you happen to know if the deba and slicer are asymmetric bevels? i'd wanna get those as well if they were lefty friendly. shipping kinda costs more than the actual thing so i'd wanna get something else along with it so i can "save" on shipping.

thanks.


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## sachem allison (Dec 4, 2012)

EdipisReks said:


> i bought one of these, and it arrived today. crude doesn't even begin to describe it, but it is robust and takes a decent edge, so i think it'll work for what i bought it for: butchery that i don't want to risk my good knives on, but which i want a better edge for than i'd get with some piece of crap Furi, or something.



That's funny. I have a bunch of these that a Marine neighbor of mine brought back from Korea in early 70's. They are peasant knives and they are rough but, the people just need strictly utilitarian knives. a few of the ones I have got the same makers marks. I also have some no namers. They take a good edge and are sanmai construction. steel core and iron cladding. Unknown metals. They may have been made from war scrap not just railroad scrap. They are what they are, a good tough as nails knife. Not high performance and you can use it as a prybar, shovel or hammer if you need to.lol Maybe I'll clean them up and put them up. We make very similar knives in Vietnam.


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## EdipisReks (Dec 4, 2012)

franzb69 said:


> my mistake, for not mentioning that i contacted the seller already. he did say that none of those korean knives were lefty friendly. i think he was a bit miffed coz i asked the same question for all three items, the deba, the slicer and the santoku.
> 
> i know the santoku should be more or less 50/50, but it might be the handle that's not lefty friendly. i dunno. maybe it's a korean thing. i'm not very familiar with koreans and their ways.
> 
> ...



the handle is just a round piece of wood, neither friendly nor un-friendly for righties or lefties. no idea about the deba and slicer, i only have this one.



sachem allison said:


> That's funny. I have a bunch of these that a Marine neighbor of mine brought back from Korea in early 70's. They are peasant knives and they are rough but, the people just need strictly utilitarian knives. a few of the ones I have got the same makers marks. I also have some no namers. They take a good edge and are sanmai construction. steel core and iron cladding. Unknown metals. They may have been made from war scrap not just railroad scrap. They are what they are, a good tough as nails knife. Not high performance and you can use it as a prybar, shovel or hammer if you need to.lol Maybe I'll clean them up and put them up. We make very similar knives in Vietnam.



that makes sense. i think this knife will be great for breaking down birds and cutting around bones.


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## franzb69 (Dec 4, 2012)

i might as well bite and get one of them and probably just check on what else i can get with it.

thanks edipisreks.


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## Noodle Soup (Dec 4, 2012)

i'm a sucker for plain jane working knives from far off places. Have two of these on the way now. Thanks for the link.


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## franzb69 (Dec 4, 2012)

same here. different brands from the same seller. lol. the 170mm and the 200mm. sadly, with the way my national post works. it'll get here in 4-6 weeks.

i wonder how they compare to 1095 steel. looking to compare these to what we have locally at our wet markets where the local fishmongers use a 1095 hand forged steel fillet knives, that share the shape of a deba but double bevel. gotta talk to those fishmongers and ask how to get one of those. =D


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## Cutty Sharp (Dec 4, 2012)

As far as I can tell, I'm the only member actually living in Korea, so I should know more about knives here but I don't. Anyway, the knife you see in the link above is definitely the all-purpose traditional kitchen knife (don't know the name) from what I know, and you'll still encounter it being used for all-around purposes here, but more commonly as a heavy duty knife for fishmongers or butchers for which it appears to do well. I don't own one, but as you can see it looks like a big rough deba and should do well at some things. They say in the past any town would have a blacksmith making these, and you can still encounter them here and there in the markets, but as far as I can tell it's no big thing or point of interest; nothing like neighbouring Japan. I do have a chance through my job to talk to the odd chef and I ask about this stuff, but so far I haven't uncovered too much which is of note, which is why I've never posted stuff about it on KKF. Still I'm hoping for some interesting discovery sooner or later.


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## rdm_magic (Dec 4, 2012)

To anyone who has these, how does the steel hold up after sharpening? How sharp can you get it?


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## EdipisReks (Dec 4, 2012)

rdm_magic said:


> To anyone who has these, how does the steel hold up after sharpening? How sharp can you get it?



mine quickly became shaving sharp. no idea how well it will retain an edge. the grind is wavy, and there are plenty of hammer marks, so one has to grind a tall bevel first, in order to put an even edge on, but it's easy enough on a diamond plate. no holes in the edge on mine, which was nice. these really are very rough, rustic knives, so i hope nobody has ordered them thinking they are getting a $15 Takeda, or something. i bought it for partitioning fowl and butchering around bones, and it'll be just dandy for that. maybe cutting some frozen foods, as well.


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## Noodle Soup (Dec 22, 2012)

My Korean knives showed up today. Not bad for the price but they certainly have a nasty burr on the edge. No big deal, I can hone that off in a few minutes.


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## franzb69 (Dec 22, 2012)

i ordered a couple "santokus" from him a couple weeks back.

might even consider the "sashimi" knife also, gonna have to wait for the knives to arrive first.

with this extremely slow post office we have and the fact that it's christmas season, it might as well just not arrive in the next 4 weeks.

ah well.

lol.


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## Justin0505 (Dec 23, 2012)

The "Korean kitchen knife made by master artisan who made daejanggeum knife" in the op does look kinda interesting. Reminds me of a Korean Bob Kramer blade shape with that high tip and tall heel. 
I found this: http://www.anvilfire.com/article.php?bodyName=/FAQs/rr-spike.htm about railroad spikes. I'm guessing that he uses the spikes, because the rails themselves would be much lower carbon. Still, the spikes don't seem like they're super-great cutlery steel either. I'd be temped to purchase one of these if they where $100 or less, but at more than 2x than that, I think the price is a bit too high.
The video is kinda cool though: 
[video=youtube;Tiix1CNkaIo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Tiix1CNkaIo[/video]


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## Noodle Soup (Dec 23, 2012)

Ok, so now where can I find one of those wide, curved blades the lady is using in this video?  She makes it look very useful.


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## Notaskinnychef (Dec 23, 2012)

I saw this retailer when I first started looking for a knife and was contemplating getting one of the cheap chef knives just for the hell of it, but one of the pics of the connection of the blade to the handle looked mighty rough and I was worried it would get loose. I am interested in trying a cleaver but don't want to spend much on it as i don't know how i will like it, these guys have a few of them with varied symmetry, anyone know of a dirt cheap cleaver i could try without investing much? Ebay is bound to have plenty lol


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## chinacats (Dec 23, 2012)

Notaskinnychef said:


> I saw this retailer when I first started looking for a knife and was contemplating getting one of the cheap chef knives just for the hell of it, but one of the pics of the connection of the blade to the handle looked mighty rough and I was worried it would get loose. I am interested in trying a cleaver but don't want to spend much on it as i don't know how i will like it, these guys have a few of them with varied symmetry, anyone know of a dirt cheap cleaver i could try without investing much? Ebay is bound to have plenty lol



Go to your nearest Asian market, you should be able to find a cheap carbon or stainless cleaver without much difficulty.


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## franzb69 (Jan 7, 2013)

well the knives I ordered from ebay finally came in. 




















































sorry for the picture heavy post. lol.

so anyway, these guys are hollow ground, the smaller "santoku" had a thick coating of varnish on the blade, probably the same varnish that was used on the handle. and the larger one had none, the handle on the larger one was bare and unfinished as well. doesn't come as sharp as i'd like, but then i bought it for peanuts so you get what you pay for.

the larger knife arrived bent, which is depressing. it didn't have packaging or a box or anything. both knives came in wrapped in bubble wrap and in a carton box. it arrived pretty fast though, it arrived december 20 (about 15 days) but i only got the claim stub last friday coz of my grandma's sister (long story).... 

haven't cut anything up with these yet.


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## franzb69 (Jan 7, 2013)

so i went ahead sharpening them, so i'm not sure if it's coz of the hollow grind or the "rustic" finish on the knife or it's just my bad sharpening skills.

some parts of the edge of the smaller knife almost became a bird's beak so i had to flatten it down and fix the whole grind and all that. i feel that these knives are gonna be pretty tough stuff. they're harder to sharpen than my aritsugu kyoto santoku. they have an incredibly toothy edge. they get a burr quite easily. who knows what hardness these guys clock at.

here's my incredibly uneven sharpening, lol:


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## chinacats (Jan 7, 2013)

Guessing that might be uneven grind rather than bad sharpening...looks all wavy.


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## EdipisReks (Jan 7, 2013)

chinacats said:


> Guessing that might be uneven grind rather than bad sharpening...looks all wavy.



the grind on mine was definitely uneven.


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## franzb69 (Jan 7, 2013)

> the grind on mine was definitely uneven.



i would want to believe that myself. =D

coz i don't sharpen that badly to make even my grind on the edge to get to look like that. lol.

=D


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## Lefty (Jan 7, 2013)

They're cool. 

The grind is obviously horrendous. I had a knife that had a low spot and I tried for about 2 hours to even up my bevel. Then it clicked, I made fun of myself for being so dumb, and I continued to use it, knowing that eventually it would get sharpened out or disappear from my sight, never to be seen again, until my wife asked why I have a drawer full of knives in my nightstand.


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## EdipisReks (Jan 7, 2013)

they are cool. my big knife takes a keen, if uneven edge, and excels at what i bought it for: cutting the crap out of chickens.


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## Lefty (Jan 7, 2013)

You could always wait until they lay eggs, but I guess a knife can do that too.


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## EdipisReks (Jan 7, 2013)

heh


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