Hello everyone, this is Che! I can see a lot of you are wondering about the pricing and the process of making this knife so I will do my best to address these concerns. The knife is aimmed at professional chefs and is designed to be comfortable and durable for sustained use such as in a professional kitchen. Cooking enthusiasts can also buy it if they wish, just like how non professional drivers buy sports cars. The knife is made with AEBL mono steel, and orange G10, I order the materials from the US. All of the process is made in house and takes about 50 hours per knife with the heat treat, cryo and hand satin included. It a long knife at 240mm which is also considered in the price. The spine and the choil are rounded off, the tang and the blade are tapered for maximum balance and the handle is hand sculpted for grip and comfort. Every bit of this knife is meticulously inspected and worked on during the process to be as close to perfect as possible. With that in mind, I am a full time knife maker but my workshop is not a factory, I work alone and it takes time, experience and expensive tools to make high quality knives. If you like my knives but consider the $700 price tag too high you can check out some of my other work. I make San mai chef knives at a lower price point. Thank you and I hope this answers all of your questions. - Che
I did test this knife even more off camera for edge resiliency. Tweaking it on purpose through a sweet potato and sweep chopping nuts to test edge resiliency. In both cases, no issues. No chipping. Still great performance afterwards.
This video brings up some interesting ideas. A couple things up front, I haven't discussed any of Che's processes, time invested, or material cost. So this is just a mental exercise. Hypothetically if (If) he spent 75 USD on materials (scales, steel, abrasives, adhesive, facility costs) and invested 25 hours into making the blade then essentially he would be "paying" himself $25 USD per hour. Debates on value of labor aside, you raise a good point on how much value does the knife have to the customer? From my own perspective on restoring knives (the majority of which are of unclear origin) often times I end up charging much less per hour for labor to get the cost to a price point that is attractive than I earn in my regular job. Sometimes the value of what I restore diminishes the perceived value because some buyers prefer things in the original condition. Because this is a passion of mine and not my livelihood I can make that choice. My personal advice to Che is if he is looking to gain customers worldwide is to find materials that will allow him to get the price point he needs as the time spent making a knife is reliant on the process far more than the materials.
There are of course materials that do take significantly more time (magnacut, sheffcut, laminating steel, mammoth, and certain very dense woods, and those would potentially increase perceived value but will certainly increase the labor costs.
All excellent points. I think that is where my barrier lies. Even to non-makers, to hear a readily available stainless steel, forged as a monosteel (some speculating maybe stamped) is at that price point raises eyebrows. If one is incredibly well renown you can get away with it. If one is using extremely rare materials, even at the same number of hours spent on the knife, the increase in perceived value goes up. In the absence of both these cases, the issue becomes that the public who has a sense of cost with these things, can easily estimate the price of materials. However what they can't assume correctly, is how many hours went into this, how much is the smith happy to take away as profit. This is one of the reasons I love Leszek's knife posts, as he included the number of hours spent on a knife. If that number is 5hrs, and he sells a knife at $500 with x materials, the buyer is the one who can decide if it is worth it for them. Same if under the same conditions the knife is now 5k. But when the perceived cost of materials is seemingly lower than a lot of what is available in the knife making world, and people have no sense of how much work went into the knife, the minds wander on the negative side more than the positive. They don't see like I mentioned that the handle, though appearing simple, is really beautifully crafted and sculpted. The spine appearing sharp, is subtly polish, etc. SOOOOO much goes into our assessments. Which is why I love this niche I've found myself in 😀
I don’t think anyone could argue with the instant visual comparison with a low cost line cook chefs knife. Even within the length of the video my mind flipped from dislike to…actually I get it. It makes sense. It’s missing a few things you would want as knife enthusiast but has everything you need as cooking enthusiast/professional. There’s even something quite cool about pimped up basics. Aimed at that market….its very overpriced though.
The psychology of price on our perception of worth is a topic I find very interesting. Cost vs value vs worth. Three financial concepts with overlap, but different enough that the min and max can be thousands of dollars from each other. Here the issue most people are having is that the perceived cost is estimated to a certain level of close accuracy likely, even pending price of materials in say Thailand. Value is compared to other similar products, and so most people see the price and think not worth it.
@@KitchenKnifeGuy now my head is spinning. I feel like I’m standing in the sea naked and the tides going out. May I politely step aside from this topic. It’s complicated and I’m simple. Great knife, great content. 😂
Wow, a car manufacturer had a slogan: Form follows function. This defines that, IMO. I love the sleek, durable look that looks like when you hold it it tells you it's time to work & it's made for it. To me, when you have a mic close to what you're cutting, yeah, that tells us a lot about how it cuts, the edge, behind the edge, how it feels, the feedback, I Love It! $700 USD for it though? Not in this lifetime for a homogenous steel and just for use at home. But, as you said, line cooks, chefs, professionals in general would benefit from this knife.
Thanks man for sharing your opinion. Means a lot. Which car manufacturer was that do you recall? And absolutely, this is a great example of form follows function. I will absolutely be grabbing for this knife when I need to feel like I am putting a knife to work. Because not only can it handle it, it excels in areas I didn't think it would. Because I, like many, make assumptions based on looks but it outperformed my expectations.
@@KitchenKnifeGuy Mercedes Benz was the manufacturer. Incidentally, your comment of "Because I, like many, make assumptions based on looks but it outperformed my expectations." reminded me of my bar life. Thanks for that (sarcasm intended 🤣).
$700 is crazy. As someone who's made some knives, this is just a stock removal, which is basically as easy as it gets when it comes to knife making. Get a sheet of metal, cut to shape, heat treat, set geometry and some final polishing. The actual raw materials of the knife is south of $75 (im being generous). I feel like the maker just slapped a price and wonders if it'll hit or not. Can't hate on that, but this is seriously overpriced for what is is and therefore probably not attainable for any line cook (which is prob the audience for this is like you said). I agree with you Franco, this price point is rough.
I am hoping he will revisit the price after watching this video. If so, I’ll try to get the word out on IG or something so that this isn’t the only thing people takeaway from the video. But it’s hard not to. Great performing knife otherwise and very comfortable in hand.
Ashi Hamono Ginga Yo handle seems like better knife for lower price. Hitachi GIN-5 is japanese AEB-L equivalent. Grind is their famous thin laser convex. Micarta western handle with bolster is simple but charming. True japanese artisanal beauty hidden in functionality. You can buy harder version (61HRC) under JKI's Gesshin Ginga brand for 290USD. Most knife fans know Masamoto KS. Actually KS is made by Ashi for decades.
Thanks buddy. Appreciate you as always. I love doing the Head2Heads. Have one incoming shortly I filmed a long time ago. Two actually. As for your request I can most certainly aim to do that in 2025. But maybe I knock the Jiro out of the line up and go Fujiyama FM instead since it too is a 210 😉 Then for 240s we can go Jiro, Uchigumo and um, Tetsujin kirituske gyuto maybe?
Yes, this knife is bound to be more appealing to a professional, having a comfortable well made knife, that also doesn't scream steal me, has a lot of value. I can't imagine a line cook bringing a Jiro to work.
Thanks Grant for always taking the time to watch and leave a comment ☺ I am hoping the price will be revisited. In the end, if he sells these power to him, and I do wish that. I just feel the average person is at a lose for the price.
@KitchenKnifeGuy I'd say if I knew a few more details, like is the spine rounded off, is the choil rounded off? Are there any hot spots? If all that was a yes, maybe $250 at most. The knife isn't special at all, so the price just doesn't work. And if you like the handle, check out New West knifeworks u.s. They make better knives than this for cheaper.
@@KitchenKnifeGuy I have top knife makers here in italy that do 300-400 for an AEB-L knife with cryo. 700 is just going over the top with it. Some do 600-700 but with custom multiple cryo so on so forth. For simple AEB-L just buy a Miyabi or Zwilling ( discontinued 🥲🥲🥲🥲 )
Unfortunately, I know of a very renowned Japanese maker who produces an AEB-L series that is stocked by only a few shops worldwide (all also of fairly good reputation), at a much lower price point than this knife, and everything about that series, or the AEB-L gyuto that most closely matches Che's knife, trumps this knife, so it was underwhelming. Anyway, just a small input FWIW.
Not unfortunate IMO. There is competition left, right and centre. To have no complaints about the knife ergonomics or performance. I care about the makers and so my concern about the price is that unrevised I’m afraid it’ll harm him actually selling lots of these. A revision to the knife packaging and price and he’d now be more competitive with knives of similar style, and choice of materials.
Hello everyone, this is Che!
I can see a lot of you are wondering about the pricing and the process of making this knife so I will do my best to address these concerns.
The knife is aimmed at professional chefs and is designed to be comfortable and durable for sustained use such as in a professional kitchen. Cooking enthusiasts can also buy it if they wish, just like how non professional drivers buy sports cars.
The knife is made with AEBL mono steel, and orange G10, I order the materials from the US. All of the process is made in house and takes about 50 hours per knife with the heat treat, cryo and hand satin included. It a long knife at 240mm which is also considered in the price. The spine and the choil are rounded off, the tang and the blade are tapered for maximum balance and the handle is hand sculpted for grip and comfort. Every bit of this knife is meticulously inspected and worked on during the process to be as close to perfect as possible.
With that in mind, I am a full time knife maker but my workshop is not a factory, I work alone and it takes time, experience and expensive tools to make high quality knives.
If you like my knives but consider the $700 price tag too high you can check out some of my other work. I make San mai chef knives at a lower price point.
Thank you and I hope this answers all of your questions. - Che
I did test this knife even more off camera for edge resiliency. Tweaking it on purpose through a sweet potato and sweep chopping nuts to test edge resiliency. In both cases, no issues. No chipping. Still great performance afterwards.
This video brings up some interesting ideas. A couple things up front, I haven't discussed any of Che's processes, time invested, or material cost. So this is just a mental exercise. Hypothetically if (If) he spent 75 USD on materials (scales, steel, abrasives, adhesive, facility costs) and invested 25 hours into making the blade then essentially he would be "paying" himself $25 USD per hour. Debates on value of labor aside, you raise a good point on how much value does the knife have to the customer? From my own perspective on restoring knives (the majority of which are of unclear origin) often times I end up charging much less per hour for labor to get the cost to a price point that is attractive than I earn in my regular job. Sometimes the value of what I restore diminishes the perceived value because some buyers prefer things in the original condition. Because this is a passion of mine and not my livelihood I can make that choice. My personal advice to Che is if he is looking to gain customers worldwide is to find materials that will allow him to get the price point he needs as the time spent making a knife is reliant on the process far more than the materials.
There are of course materials that do take significantly more time (magnacut, sheffcut, laminating steel, mammoth, and certain very dense woods, and those would potentially increase perceived value but will certainly increase the labor costs.
All excellent points. I think that is where my barrier lies. Even to non-makers, to hear a readily available stainless steel, forged as a monosteel (some speculating maybe stamped) is at that price point raises eyebrows. If one is incredibly well renown you can get away with it. If one is using extremely rare materials, even at the same number of hours spent on the knife, the increase in perceived value goes up. In the absence of both these cases, the issue becomes that the public who has a sense of cost with these things, can easily estimate the price of materials. However what they can't assume correctly, is how many hours went into this, how much is the smith happy to take away as profit. This is one of the reasons I love Leszek's knife posts, as he included the number of hours spent on a knife. If that number is 5hrs, and he sells a knife at $500 with x materials, the buyer is the one who can decide if it is worth it for them. Same if under the same conditions the knife is now 5k. But when the perceived cost of materials is seemingly lower than a lot of what is available in the knife making world, and people have no sense of how much work went into the knife, the minds wander on the negative side more than the positive. They don't see like I mentioned that the handle, though appearing simple, is really beautifully crafted and sculpted. The spine appearing sharp, is subtly polish, etc. SOOOOO much goes into our assessments. Which is why I love this niche I've found myself in 😀
I don’t think anyone could argue with the instant visual comparison with a low cost line cook chefs knife.
Even within the length of the video my mind flipped from dislike to…actually I get it. It makes sense.
It’s missing a few things you would want as knife enthusiast but has everything you need as cooking enthusiast/professional. There’s even something quite cool about pimped up basics.
Aimed at that market….its very overpriced though.
The psychology of price on our perception of worth is a topic I find very interesting. Cost vs value vs worth. Three financial concepts with overlap, but different enough that the min and max can be thousands of dollars from each other. Here the issue most people are having is that the perceived cost is estimated to a certain level of close accuracy likely, even pending price of materials in say Thailand. Value is compared to other similar products, and so most people see the price and think not worth it.
@@KitchenKnifeGuy now my head is spinning. I feel like I’m standing in the sea naked and the tides going out. May I politely step aside from this topic. It’s complicated and I’m simple.
Great knife, great content. 😂
@rockchopknifeco 😂
Wow, a car manufacturer had a slogan: Form follows function. This defines that, IMO. I love the sleek, durable look that looks like when you hold it it tells you it's time to work & it's made for it. To me, when you have a mic close to what you're cutting, yeah, that tells us a lot about how it cuts, the edge, behind the edge, how it feels, the feedback, I Love It!
$700 USD for it though? Not in this lifetime for a homogenous steel and just for use at home. But, as you said, line cooks, chefs, professionals in general would benefit from this knife.
Thanks man for sharing your opinion. Means a lot. Which car manufacturer was that do you recall? And absolutely, this is a great example of form follows function. I will absolutely be grabbing for this knife when I need to feel like I am putting a knife to work. Because not only can it handle it, it excels in areas I didn't think it would. Because I, like many, make assumptions based on looks but it outperformed my expectations.
@@KitchenKnifeGuy Mercedes Benz was the manufacturer.
Incidentally, your comment of "Because I, like many, make assumptions based on looks but it outperformed my expectations." reminded me of my bar life. Thanks for that (sarcasm intended 🤣).
$700 is crazy. As someone who's made some knives, this is just a stock removal, which is basically as easy as it gets when it comes to knife making. Get a sheet of metal, cut to shape, heat treat, set geometry and some final polishing. The actual raw materials of the knife is south of $75 (im being generous). I feel like the maker just slapped a price and wonders if it'll hit or not. Can't hate on that, but this is seriously overpriced for what is is and therefore probably not attainable for any line cook (which is prob the audience for this is like you said). I agree with you Franco, this price point is rough.
I am hoping he will revisit the price after watching this video. If so, I’ll try to get the word out on IG or something so that this isn’t the only thing people takeaway from the video. But it’s hard not to. Great performing knife otherwise and very comfortable in hand.
very cool knife
You’re a cool knife
Ashi Hamono Ginga Yo handle seems like better knife for lower price.
Hitachi GIN-5 is japanese AEB-L equivalent.
Grind is their famous thin laser convex. Micarta western handle with bolster is simple but charming.
True japanese artisanal beauty hidden in functionality.
You can buy harder version (61HRC) under JKI's Gesshin Ginga brand for 290USD.
Most knife fans know Masamoto KS.
Actually KS is made by Ashi for decades.
Masamato KS has a laaaaarge fan base.
Great video again Frankie.. Tou should do a head to head betwzen the denka the hado and the Jiro :) those are some heavy hitters
Thanks buddy. Appreciate you as always. I love doing the Head2Heads. Have one incoming shortly I filmed a long time ago. Two actually. As for your request I can most certainly aim to do that in 2025. But maybe I knock the Jiro out of the line up and go Fujiyama FM instead since it too is a 210 😉 Then for 240s we can go Jiro, Uchigumo and um, Tetsujin kirituske gyuto maybe?
Yes, this knife is bound to be more appealing to a professional, having a comfortable well made knife, that also doesn't scream steal me, has a lot of value. I can't imagine a line cook bringing a Jiro to work.
Thank you for the review as always. I have a hard time understanding his pricing.
Thanks Grant for always taking the time to watch and leave a comment ☺ I am hoping the price will be revisited. In the end, if he sells these power to him, and I do wish that. I just feel the average person is at a lose for the price.
$700 usd? Ouch, especially for an "upgraded line cook knife," which is like $40 usd. The price is crazy.
Yeah 😞 if you didn’t know the price would you be interested in a knife like this now that you’ve seen it perform?
@KitchenKnifeGuy I'd say if I knew a few more details, like is the spine rounded off, is the choil rounded off? Are there any hot spots? If all that was a yes, maybe $250 at most. The knife isn't special at all, so the price just doesn't work. And if you like the handle, check out New West knifeworks u.s. They make better knives than this for cheaper.
700$ for an AEB-L knife ? damn, LOL.
for 700 I will get a super steel with custom cryo HT
Why not making it 3000 ? lol
I hope this will be revisited, the price I am talking about.
@@KitchenKnifeGuy I have top knife makers here in italy that do 300-400 for an AEB-L knife with cryo.
700 is just going over the top with it.
Some do 600-700 but with custom multiple cryo so on so forth.
For simple AEB-L just buy a Miyabi or Zwilling ( discontinued 🥲🥲🥲🥲 )
@dimmacommunication trust me I get your point. As you saw in the video I had a hard time not talking about the price.
@@KitchenKnifeGuy Yeah man I just writing my toughts 👍🏻
@@dimmacommunication appreciate you
Unfortunately, I know of a very renowned Japanese maker who produces an AEB-L series that is stocked by only a few shops worldwide (all also of fairly good reputation), at a much lower price point than this knife, and everything about that series, or the AEB-L gyuto that most closely matches Che's knife, trumps this knife, so it was underwhelming.
Anyway, just a small input FWIW.
Not unfortunate IMO. There is competition left, right and centre. To have no complaints about the knife ergonomics or performance. I care about the makers and so my concern about the price is that unrevised I’m afraid it’ll harm him actually selling lots of these. A revision to the knife packaging and price and he’d now be more competitive with knives of similar style, and choice of materials.