Usage, 30° edge
- I've used Tojiro Flash paring knife with its original edge for 6 weeks or so. Not a huge amount of time, but reasonably long enough to assess its cutting and edge holding capabilities perfectly well for my own use and purposes. Since I try not to use quality kitchen knives outside of their designated purposes, this particular paring knife was strictly limited to paring and peeling jobs such as: peeling various fruits, save for pineapples, mainly due to their size, removing the eyes on the potatoes, stemming strawberries (love them) and some other cutting chores requiring delicacy and(or) extreme precision. For all that, paring knife works superbly. The only times I've had problems was with larger fruits or vegetables. It's not convenient with small knife to fight pineapple or something of that size. I've done a few experiments, but nothing exciting there, bigger knives do it faster and easier, which also means safer too :).Initially I was very cautious with the edge, since it was my first VG-10 knife with 62HRC blade. I wasn't sure how delicate the thin edge would be with the core that hard. In other words I was afraid of chipping it. I'm happy to state that everything turned out just fine. After all this time I don't have a single chip or a roll on the blade. Bear in mind, I've thinned down the edge later on. I've said many times in other reviews and here as well that I am not using knives for the cuts they're not designed for. Of course accidents happen, vegetables can have embedded sand particles in them, fruits can have hard core seeds and you just might hit the bone unintentionally. I don't recall any of that happening to my paring knife, but obviously things happened, simply I didn't notice it(or them) :) Such is life. Anyway, point is VG-10 at 62HRC is nowhere near as fragile as I was afraid. It worked just fine even on much larger 180mm(7") Tojiro Santoku, so 100mm(4") long knife had no problems whatsoever.
Usage, ~24° edge
- As I said, 6 weeks after using this knife I felt comfortable enough to regrind the edge on this knife to lower, ~12° angle per side. -3° may not seem much, but translate that into percentages and you get -20% :). A significant decrease. Again, I was more cautions in the beginning, but overall I've felt much more confident with this knife, since it worked without a hitch for 6 weeks with 30° edge. I haven't changed much in terms of the use. I still use this knife for exactly the same cutting tasks as before with more obtuse edge. Obviously, the increase in cutting efficiency is very noticeable. Which is the beast part of it. Other than that, no problems so far whatsoever. I'm using the same maintenance cycle as before and can't tell that I've noticed any significant edge holding degradation because of more acute edge. Seems pretty much the same. I really don't have to sharpen it more often. So, thinning down the edge was a win/win move in the end. Alas, that isn't always the case :)Maintenance
- It was and is as usual: couple passes per side on a smooth steel before using it and half a dozen or so passes per side after using it. Once in every 2-3 weeks instead of using a smooth steel I use a fine ceramic rod after cutting. So far I've sharpened this knife seriously only once. When I've lowered the edge from 15° per side to ~12° per side. That was done to improve cutting efficiency, not because the knife went significantly dull.Conclusions
- Only positive ones at this point. As most of the knowledgeable people will tell you paring knife is one of the three must have knives in the kitchen, the other two being Chef's knife or Gyuto if you're into Japanese knives and a serrated bread knife. Tojiro Flash in my opinion is as close to perfect paring knife as it gets. It has very nice and functional design, lots of eye candy(damascus clad blade, flash handle), very good handle ergonomics and durability. It is a stainless steel knife and not so knife enthusiast users can worry little bit less about staining them. Doesn't mean you can stick your Tojiros in a dishwasher or leave them dirty for couple days though. However, they won't discolor in 15 minutes after cutting a lemon :) Price of course is high, as I write this (12/08) review average price for the 100mm(4") paring knife is ~80$. I know a lot of people will consider this too expensive for a knife so small, but you do get what you pay for. I am not saying one 80$ paring knife will replace or outperform the 15 piece knife set you can get for the same 80$ or even less, but it will definitely outperform paring and other small knives in that set and outlast all of the knives in the same set, no questions asked. Very obviously Tojoro will hold a lot better edge for a lot longer and cut very significantly better than any of the knives in 80$ set :) Is it all worth it? Up to you to decide I guess.Specifications:
- Blade - 100.00mm(3.94")
- Thickness - 1.80mm
- OAL - 200.00mm(7.87")
- Steel - VG-10 62HRC
- Handle - Micarta/Stainless Steel
- Acquired - 06/2008 Price - 90.00$
Related reading:
- Watanabe Small Knife Review
- Global GS-40 Paring Knife Review
- Global GSF-15 Paring Knife Review
- Watanabe Small Nakiri Knife Review
Last updated - 05/19/19