Types of knives | Best Knife Brands | Kitchen Knife Buying Guide | Santoku Knife

Types of knives best knife brands kitchen knife buying guide, santoku knife falls in line with a book I read surrounding the same topic. The Santoku knife for example, makes for a great knife among home and restaurant kitchen chefs. Unlike other knives which have a pointed tip; the santoku does not. It’s very sharp and makes the job of cutting and mincing herbs, veggies and meat a quick and easy task. It’s no wonder that this is a favorite among chefs everywhere.   I like this book because it talks about a passion for knives, knife collection and knife collecting. The name of the book is Pocket Guide to Selecting the Perfect Knife:Here is an excerpt.

My Story I have always had a knife as far back as I can remember. There is a story my parents like to tell of me, just walking good, demanding in a loud voice to have a Barlow pocketknife like dad carried. Well mom would have none of that. But I insisted and so to shut up my crying she relented, with conditions of course. Knife had to be dull and no sharp points. So dad broke both blade tips and dulled the edges then handed me my very first knife. Well I would have nothing to do with it after he ruined it. Knives after all must stab and slice. This one did neither. So it was no longer of interest to me. This still applies to my thinking today. A knife must function as a knife or it is no longer a knife. As a kid I would buy a knife when I had some money to spend, birthdays or Christmas, chores or wherever the money came from, it was knife money. The knife I remember most was a Frontiersman folding lock back knife with a leather belt pouch.

It was made in China I  had a great knife as I recall. It skinned many swamp rabbits from the woods behind our house. After the Frontiersman I got a five inch lock back Old Timer folding hunter with imitation bone delrin handles and a carbon steel blade. The Old Timer was the first knife I was able to sharpen to hair shaving sharp. You would have thought I had conquered the known world when I showed dad and he sliced a smooth patch of hair from his arm, a very proud moment for both of us.

After high school, I went to work in construction so I could have; you guessed it, knife money. I was always buying knives. Case was a company who benefited from my employment greatly. I enlisted in the Air Force not long after high school and soon discovered the BX sold knives…at reduced prices. I certainly made use of that. It was there I discovered Bear & Son and Gerber knives. After almost ten years in the Air Force I went to work as a traveling superintendent for a national construction company and then my knife habit exploded. I was making more money so I started buying high-end custom knives. Worked on some projects in Savannah Georgia for a year or so and there I found a custom knife store, spent many bonuses there. After several years in the construction management industry I stopped counting knives at 600. I had two large gun safes full of all kinds of knives. I had every kind of knife and shape you could imagine. I even had the elusive Ray Mears Woodlore, several Chris Reaves knives, and the list goes on and on. In 2010 I lost my job and the commercial construction market stalled for almost two years. I survived by selling my knife collection on eBay. Now I only have a few knives left. The remaining knives aren’t worth anything but I was able to treat most of my collection as an investment and survive; although it almost broke my heart to see some go.

My earliest memory of making a knife was taking aluminum tent stakes and flattening them into knife shapes, sharpening the edge with a file and wrapping one end with masking tape for a handle. Imagine my parents fury on the next camping trip and it was discovered the tent stakes where missing. Of course the metal was so soft that each attempt at using them would result in bending. Straightening them became too much of a chore so I moved on. I think I was the only one in high school metal shop to actually make a knife. Try and do that today. My shop teacher was very excited to help because that was the first and only project assigned that I actually did. He helped with the heat-treating process and as I recall it was a functioning blade. Handle was a piece of hickory from a broken hammer handle. Sadly I lost that knife many years ago. When I lost my job in 2010 I was mentally and physically exhausted.

I did search for another job but there just wasn’t anything in my field. I sold all my knives as stated above and went through my savings searching for another job but deep down I was really ready for a change and felt it was time. I just didn’t know what that change should be. My parents were of the age where they needed some help and I was single so I left the Austin area and moved back home to east Texas and in the house with my parents. I have discovered in my life when I don’t know what to do, it is best for me to do nothing and just wait. While waiting I began searching for a quality crooked knife like I had seen Ray Mears use in his building a canoe video and a couple of other videos. The only knife I could find was from a supplier in Canada so I ordered one. I was very disappointed in the blade after I received it. The blade was too thick and to short to use as a draw knife like Ray Mears did in his videos. With no other options I decided to take matters in my own hands.