The Definitive Knife Maintenance Guide 

Audio sounds much better! Congrats on the new studio.

Seasons greetings from The Netherlands. I hope the festivities are going well in Canada. You've made a really good instructional video. It's really useful. I'm a retired cook/chef. I have a variety of ironclad Aogami #2 knives. I love them all. For me, Aogami #2 tempered to around 61-62 HRC, is the ideal everyday high carbon steel. I totally agree with you when you say, the added maintenance that high carbon, reactive steel requires is well worth the extra effort. There's nothing like the stuff. It's marvelous! On my wooden handles, I use multiple layers of Tru-Oil made by Birchwood-Casey. If you don't already know, this is a gunstock finishing oil, used by high end shotgun makers. It dries to a hard, super tough waterproof, glowing finish. The grain of the wood really pops and looks gorgeous. As a bonus, it's dirt cheap to buy too. It's so good, I also use it to finish the necks and fretboards on my 3-String Cigar Box Guitars. It really makes hardwoods, like cherry, maple, oak, mahogany, olivewood, Bolivian rosewood, ebony etc, look totally spectacular. For an additional piece of maintenance, I made a leather strop from an old belt that I cut to size and glued with contact cement, to a piece of scrap wood. The thing works a treat. A few passes on the strop and my knives are back to atom splitting sharpness. Thanks again for the really cool video. It's going to help a lot of people get to grips with their lovely Japanese knives.

Got my first Kiritsuke last month. It's an 240mm iron clad with carbon steel core. Love this thing, but no one else in the house is allowed to touch it. Thanks for the information, I will put it to good use. I think I'm hooked.

Thank youfor contributing to general education on how to treat knives! Really enjoyable video and this is going to last..... I will ask my kids to watch this when they inherit my knife collection. Thank you and kind greetings from Germany!

Many good points here. Excellent advice.

Jake the hand model! I love the little captions in the vids, too.

Thank you Gage for the helpful review on knife care!

Nice video. Congratulation to the new studio place!

A great video. Thanks

I usually just keep a $20 mercer in my bag for all those "things you shouldn't do with a knife" tasks.

Thanks for the videos!

Could you please show in some of your videos your knives with developed patina? I keep hearing on every single RU-vid video that if you choose a carbon steel or say stainless clad knife it will develop patina overtime (which apparently some people are fans of) but no one ever shows an example of how this patina covered knife would eventually look like. I am particularly interested in stainless clad. Still don’t get if I should be afraid of patina or go into carbon. Thanks in advance

Nice video! As a knifemaker I also recommend very fine steel wool ( not a steel sponge) to remove the rust even sunshine cloth can do it with some elbow grease.

Hey, thanks for the video! What knife is the iron clad one (santoku with brown/blue handle) ?

Could you maybe make a video on using honing rods on Japanese knives. From what I see that’s a controversial topic and many people are strongly against it

Thanks!

More ppl needs to watch this, ppl around me IRL that claim that they worked in a restaurant and prepped veggies but still they drag the edge over no matter what the cutting surface is, When telling them to flip their knife 180 degrees when picking up stuff.. they seriously don't understand "why". Later.. them: Can I barrow your knife? I look over and see that they wanna cur a chicken in half and are asking for my Nakiri.. Like.. "yeah sure here use a 260 dollar knife aimed to be sharper than crocodile teeth but to cut stuff weaker than my noodle in a cold bath..And you wanna drive over bones with it?" FYI ... that person above is using the meat slicer for veggies and veggie knife for meat. . .

I've been using a hand made end grain bamboo cutting board. I've not noticed any issues with my very thin nakiri. For heavy duty work I use maple and another wood board with appropriate knife. Also light oil on my knives that need it. Nothing special just olive oil. Then wipe off.

It's gonna be the best knife for your board ;)

Do you use somekind of oil for your ironclad knives and/or your wooden handels?

Might be a dumb question but is there a certain type of towel that you recommend to wipe your knives with ?

good video

White vinegar works as well and I would do that before anything abrasive

Hi there.. I do have s Gyuto 240mm with a Wa handle. I find the handle too big for my hands and s bit uncomfortable. This is just an idea, but how far does the steel reach into the handle. I am thinking about cutting of 10mm from the back.. is this a good idea? thank you very much

I like the video's way more if the is no pushy music in the background ! Way to go !

3:33 a stainless steel knife has 13% or more chromium content (in the United States). But this varies by region, the US is under the SAE standard, Japan JIS, European Union EN, Germany DIN/EN. Basically each country or region has there own standard. Depending on where a knife is made the definition of stainless steel changes. Some places stainless steel is as little as 12% or less, other places stainless steel is 14% or more. So not all stainless is equal.

Nice video, really helpful! Quick question. Do you cut through onion's root with your japanese knife or is it considered too hard?

How do you keep these wooden handles sanitary when cutting raw meats.

What is the knife second from bottom, with the deep edge and Buffalo handle?

Where can I order that knife stand ?

How do you like barkeepers friend to clean knife?

Hi soft cutting boards are also perfect for super sharp knifes Specially for Japanese knives

Why is bamboo a bad choice for a cutting board?

You say not to drag the knife edge over the cutting board as it will rapidly dull the knife. But knives have two edges! So would dragging the NON-cutting edge over the cutting board cause any problems?

Can’t you just put barkeepers powder or mineral oil to get rid of the rust? Just use that and wipe with rag. No scratches .

Not all Japanese knives are multi layer.... there are tons of monosteel knives in both stainless or high carbon

What is the knife in the thumbnail?

Hey gage you seem very tired or upset. Hope everything is fine and thank you for the video. Cheers

mono carbons

3:04 bamboo is definitely a suitable cutting board material. It's definitely on the softer side, so you'll be replacing it more often than a hardwood cutting board, but baboo is 100% sustainable. Bamboo can be harvested in as little a 2 years. While deciduous hardwoods like black walnut can take up to 60-80 years to harvest. It's entirely unsustainable, if everyone wanted a hardwood cutting board there literally wouldn't be any hardwood trees left.

I can't believe nobody else in the comments is here to find the best knife for their board like I am.

could you use these knives to cut through a watermelon ?

To shave 14 minutes off a 14:36 video just hand-wash, rinse and dry your tools, all of them, every day after use. It takes about two minutes to do so. Respect your tools.

sorry bro "carbon steel" which, quick detour, is the term you are using to describe both actual carbon steel, ie. white steel, which are non alloyed steels, hence why they're called carbon steel because they're just carbon and iron, and low alloy tool steel, ie blue steel, 52100, etc, does NOT have more "edge retention" than stainless steel. That is a myth and in fact the opposite is true. Carbon steel has less. A lot less. Literally the most "edge retentive" low alloy steels, say super blue at 65 rc don't even have as much edge retention as basic stainless steels. That's not my opinion, it's a fact. Second, you can't have both more edge retention and ease of sharpening. these are literally opposite sides of the coin. more of one literally means less of the other. Think about. The same mechanism by which the edge gets worn down and dull, ie abrasion, is the mechanism used to make it sharp again... that's what sharpening is. Abrasion. So how can something have a lot of edge retention and then be easy to sharpen? If it's easy to sharpen then guess what Einstein? It's easy to dull. This is fact that delusional knife bros just refuse to face. The steel of a kitchen knife matters so little it's beyond words. Like. it just doesn't matter much at all. What makes one kitchen knife cut better than the other is the grind geometry. The only steel I would avoid is white steel. It was never intended for knives and using it in knives is dumb. It's a rust bucket but I don't even mind all that, the real issue is the stuff has zero edge retention. Loses "bite" aka cut initiation aka acuity of the apex, aka the thing you'd measure with something like a BESS test, it loses that faster than any other steel by FAR. No clue why anyone makes or buys kitchen knives in white steel. Anyone that's actually put carbon or low alloy steels and stainless steels on a sharpening stone and grinded them by hand will know that one takes a lot more effort to the grind than the other. Like a lot. That difference in abrasion resistance is exactly how much MORE edge retention the stainless steels have.

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