GT Knives

Anyone bought the Voodoo Knife Block set?

Is it worth the money? I don’t want to spend all that if the knives are no good. Would anyone recommend it?

Don’t but it. And don’t buy a set in general, unless somehow you know for sure, you need all of the knives in that set, which I have never seen so far. All the sets including that voodoo include at least 2-3 knives that you’d never use.

Whenever the maker uses something good, or at least acceptable steel, they as usual state that clearly. It’s part of the promotion. Mostly makers state knife Rockwell hardness of the steel too. Anything below 54HRC is too soft to hold any acceptable edge.

As for the Voodo knives, I’d be very suspicious of any Kitchen Knife that doesn’t state the steel used in it. “Stainless Steel” or “Surgical Stainless Steel” is very vague and as usual refers to crappy 420J mark steel or worse. Of course there can be good surprises, but not at that price.

Overview of kitchen knife steels is here – http://www.zknives.com/knives/kitchen/misc/articles/kkchoser/kksteel.shtml

Western kitchen knives are relatively soft – 54-56HRC on Rockwell scale. Those are pretty easy to sharpen compared to much harder Japanese Knives 62-67HRC. So, I wouldn’t be worried about sharpening about those, just the thing is the edge won’t last long.

For 70-100$ you can buy 2-3 pretty good kitchen knives and you can pick exactly the ones you need, not wasting money on extras that you will never use. Minimal set in home kitchen would be small 3-4″ paring knife for delicate tasks, 8-10″ chef’s knife(some prefer 6-7″) for general cutting and serrated Bread Knife. You can get all that under 100 and use them.

Sorry, but the way things are today you won’t buy good 5-6 knives for 69$ or even 100$.

Oh, and if you are on the market for kitchen knives, don’t fall for marketing hype(BS) about fully-forged-fully-tanged-bolstered knives.

Good kitchen knife doesn’t require neither of those, you just pay extra money. Global Chefs Knives are stamped,w/o any bolster and they will outcut forged Western counterparts any day. Plus they cost cheaper than premium Western Knives. And Globals aren’t really high end knives either.
If you like a knife that’s one thing, but don’t pass on the knife because it’s not forged or doesn’t have a bolster or a full tang. Those don’t define a good knife.

For more on how to choose kitchen knives – http://www.zknives.com/knives/kitchen/misc/articles/kkchoser/index.shtml
There is a section that lists some pretty good knives from price/performance standpoint too.

Throwzini

Knife and Fork by Stan Ridgway

Filed under: Knife Chatter