# Global Chefs Knives



## yennar (Oct 20, 2010)

Would someone who uses this knife in a kitchen where you use your chefs knife all the time every day tell me how the knife is doing in general? How does the handle feel? is sharpening easier or harder when it has that razor styled blade? Is the lack of a heel at all awkward? I remember working with some very old japanese style chefs knifes with no heels and the edges where the heel ought to have been would tear my fingers up.

This is the kind of knife if anyone has any personal input on this brand

http://www.cutleryandmore.com/global-knives/hollow-edge-chefs-knife-p113419


----------



## gnnairda (Aug 7, 2009)

I used the chef knife for sushi for awhile. its a sharp knife and feels nice in my hand. the blade rolls easily so you need a ceramic honing rod. I find the spear - paring knife extremely awkward to hold when you wanna do stuff like peeling or carving. vegetable cutter is decent though imo kind of pointless to have if you got a chef knife ( came in a 3 piece knfie set ( chef , paring, veggie cutter. go figure).

Personally I wouldn't recommend it solely because  of it's ability to hold a edge . You would find yourself doing a couple of slices then having to hone it again. I own a victorinox 10 inch and I find it more convenient to use. Though not as sharp as a global it holds the edge better and is just a fraction of the price..

Btw what do you mean by "razor style" ? if it is the lack of a guard then I find it much easier to sharpen then. ( whet stone)

the way you saying tear your finger up makes me worry how you hold your knife!

Personally the next time I'm going to  buy a knife within that price range I might go with Mac Pro since I hear nothing but good things by our knife expert BDL. Only problem I would have with MAC is the name and look just doesnt look sexy compared to having japanese caligraphy lol.


----------



## tylerm713 (Aug 6, 2010)

I have a Global 8" chef that I use pretty much every day. The handle took a little while to get used to, but now I really like it. I got mine for under $80, and I think it's a pretty good deal.


----------



## yennar (Oct 20, 2010)

I'm quite talented at holding a knife..  friction cannot be avoided when in a rush.

Theres three kinds of edges to a knife, a razor style which is easier to sharpen and is in my opinion the most durable and true of an edge seeing as the geometrics of the blade do nothing but allow cutting.

Then there are the edges most commonly used I forget the technical term but its Beveled or something, which means the knife reaches an angle and then the edge is a smaller sharp angle that you actually use for the cutting,  the sort of knife you sharpen at 45 degrees, it's something I try and avoid when purchasing any sort of a high use blade.

Then theres the japanese knifes, which are only sharpened on one side, very similar to the razor style however, not very good for years and years of sharpening.


----------



## boar_d_laze (Feb 13, 2008)

Originally Posted by *Yennar* 


> I'm quite talented at holding a knife.. friction cannot be avoided when in a rush.


Could you explain what you mean by friction?


> Theres three kinds of edges to a knife, a razor style which is easier to sharpen and is in my opinion the most durable and true of an edge seeing as the geometrics of the blade do nothing but allow cutting.


Are you calling a "V" edge "razor style?"

There is no single best "geometry," every for ordinary kitchen purposes. Different edges do different things better, work with particular blade geometries and alloys better, etc. 


> Then there are the edges most commonly used I forget the technical term but its Beveled or something, which means the knife reaches an angle and then the edge is a smaller sharp angle that you actually use for the cutting, the sort of knife you sharpen at 45 degrees, it's something I try and avoid when purchasing any sort of a high use blade.


Do you mean a double bevel? Or perhaps a convex bevel? Multiple and convex bevels work great on some knives. I especially like them for blades which take a lot of abuse.

A great many modern sharpeners "thin behind the edge," in order to get an edge strong enough to avoid collapsing but thin enough to avoid wedging. It's pretty much a double bevel also. You don't believe in that either?


> Then theres the japanese knifes, which are only sharpened on one side, very similar to the razor style however, not very good for years and years of sharpening.


Millions of professional sushi chefs are wrong? Have you told them?

No offense, but you may not know as much about this as you think you do.

_*As to your question about the Global:*_ 

The "hollow ground" "grantons" don't work very well.
The knife is light and agile but unfortunately it's also thick and tends to wedge.
Globals are truly neutrally balanced (by sand in the hollow handle), which is quite rare. If you care about balance you may find that good or bad.
A lot of professional cooks fall in love with the handle at first touch and buy the knife, then fall out of love with it and end up finding it small, slippery and uncomfortable. On the other hand, lots of pros love them forever.
It takes a decent but not a great edge. The steel is soft as modern Japanese go, and as Tyler said it takes a lot of steeling to keep the edge going. It's very stain resistant, and durable in other ways as well. Comparable to a German knife, but -- as I already said -- lighter and more agile.
It was one of the knives which lead the revolution towards high-end Japanese manufactured blades in the kitchen, but since then others have come along which are similarly priced and much better.
_*Recommend Forget It.*_
BDL


----------



## chrislehrer (Oct 9, 2008)

Hi Yennar,



> Then theres the japanese knifes, which are only sharpened on one side, very similar to the razor style however, not very good for years and years of sharpening.


This is imprecise. You're talking here about what are usually called "single-beveled" knives, which is one of the more traditional grinding systems for professional-grade Japanese knives. Most of the Japanese-made knives discussed around here are not like this; if Global makes knives like this, it's news to me, and I'd be fairly surprised, because I'd have thought they'd get murdered in that particular market.

Single-beveled knives are slightly concave on the back, and have a single steep bevel on the front. Sometimes that bevel is slightly curved (clamshelled, _hamaguri_), and occasionally a microbevel is added right down at the edge, but in general it's easiest to think of them as having a single flat bevel. You can sharpen these for many, many years, with great pleasure and effect. Indeed, it is normal in professional Japanese kitchens where these knives dominate to sharpen them daily. On the whole, knives like this have a tendency to chip and are fairly finicky and hard to learn really well; they are also very expensive, and pretty much all the good ones are handled in untreated wood with carbon-steel blades. They are unquestionably delicate by comparison to standard-issue Western-style knives.

Double-beveled knives, most of the made in Western styles (chef's knife, slicer, etc.), are a major business among Japanese knifemakers these days, and their products are currently kicking the tails of pretty much all comers. Early entrants were people like Global and Shun, which are second-rate mass-produced knives by high-end Japanese standards, but are by comparison to most Western-made knives (e.g. Wusthof, Henckels) light and inclined to take a superior edge. Now that people into knives know about all this, they're inclined to sneer at Global and Shun in favor of the immensely superior knives made by people like MAC, Masamoto, Aritsugu, Konosuke, etc. All of these are Japanese knives, and yet they are also all double-beveled.

That said, many people do choose to profile such knives asymmetrically, which has some advantages and some disadvantages. Whichever way you slice it, though, these knives are double-beveled: single-beveled knives are a different breed altogether, and you can't make one into the other without doing horrendous, catastrophic damage. A true chisel-edge, such as is seen on old-fashioned nakiri, is a double-bevel --- it just happens that one of the bevels is set at 0 degrees.

The business about the heel being sharp is just something you get used to, or don't. If you ding yourself on it regularly, you can always round it off; a fat finger-guard like on a Wusthof does indeed make sharpening trickier.

Normally speaking, the principal single-beveled knives are the usuba, yanagiba, deba, and takobiki, also kiritsuke. Almost all the rest -- gyuto, honesuke, garasuke, sujibiki, etc. -- are double-beveled and based on Western models. The nakiri is native Japanese but double-beveled, and the santoku is a hybrid, again double-beveled.

As I say, I've never heard of a single-beveled Global knife. The vast majority of the market for such knives is with people who do professional, fairly serious Japanese cuisine of one kind or another, and most of those folks buy from reliable mid-high-end "artisan" manufacturers, not mass-producers like the folks who make Global and Shun. Shun has tried to edge into this market, but principally, as it appears to me, by selling to Western hobbyists rather than professionals.

Hope that's helpful.


----------



## boar_d_laze (Feb 13, 2008)

Just a note of explanation for people who read Chris's and my posts and may be confused by ambiguous terminology.

Chris referred to edges sharpened on both sides as "double bevel," and edges sharpened on one side as "single bevel." While I call those "V" and "chisel" respectively, and reserve "double bevel" and "single bevel" for different things. Neither is more correct than the other. I'm not correcting Chris, just making sure everyone is on the same page.

This picture, easily worth 1,000 words, illustrates how I used the terms:



BDL

NB. I could as easily find a similar illustration labeled according to Chris.


----------



## tylerm713 (Aug 6, 2010)

ChrisLehrer said:


> This is imprecise. You're talking here about what are usually called "single-beveled" knives, which is one of the more traditional grinding systems for professional-grade Japanese knives. Most of the Japanese-made knives discussed around here are not like this; if Global makes knives like this, it's news to me, and I'd be fairly surprised, because I'd have thought they'd get murdered in that particular market.


As far as I know, this is the closest Global gets to a true chisel.

http://www.chefknivestogo.com/globyansaskn.html


----------



## chrislehrer (Oct 9, 2008)

Has anyone seen one of these in the flesh? I have searched the web, and can't see any photos of the back, so I can't tell whether this is a single-bevel or otherwise.



tylerm713 said:


> As far as I know, this is the closest Global gets to a true chisel.
> 
> http://www.chefknivestogo.com/globyansaskn.html


----------



## chrislehrer (Oct 9, 2008)

boar_d_laze said:


> Just a note of explanation for people who read Chris's and my posts and may be confused by ambiguous terminology.
> 
> Chris referred to edges sharpened on both sides as "double bevel," and edges sharpened on one side as "single bevel." While I call those "V" and "chisel" respectively, and reserve "double bevel" and "single bevel" for different things. Neither is more correct than the other. I'm not correcting Chris, just making sure everyone is on the same page.
> 
> ...


Yes, quite right. I don't like this terminology, for one main reason: serious Japanese knives marked "chisel edge" here aren't so. But some knives are just exactly "chisel edge" in this system.

Basically if you have a chisel edge, according to BDL's diagrams, and you hollow out the flat side just a little bit, you'll have a straight up-and-down part down at the edge, then a concavity toward the bevel, coming back up right near the spine. That's not how you grind it, but that's the ultimate effect. This is a VERY different beast from a "chisel edge" pictured here.

Many old-fashioned nakiri knives were (and sometimes are) chisel-edged in this system here. My impression is that this is a matter of el-cheapo grinding: have the passing tinker guy, or whoever, just grind one side on a wheel until it's sharp.

Serious professionals' knives, like yanagiba and so on, are not made, ground, or sharpened this way, and so they really should be separated out. I suppose what this boils down to is that there should be another column in BDL's diagram. How about this?


----------



## tylerm713 (Aug 6, 2010)

ChrisLehrer said:


> Has anyone seen one of these in the flesh? I have searched the web, and can't see any photos of the back, so I can't tell whether this is a single-bevel or otherwise.


Yes, I have held one in the store, and I can attest to it having only one bevel.


----------



## bellybones (Oct 4, 2010)

Stainless steel, in my experience, is good for lining elevators and blenders, but

has no right being used for edge tools.


----------

