Gibby;
Thanks for the reply, I appreciate it.

To my way of thinking - currently anyway - it's very much a different knife/steel that I want in a general hunting blade as opposed to one used for meat cutting and then food prep knives can be different again.

For gutting, skinning duties I like a bit of a "toothy" edge on the blade, so sometimes I'll quit at 1500 grit on the edge polish to keep it that way and sometimes I'll go further on an MDF wheels doped with different polishing compound grits. That little Gerber folder - an early run Gatormate in 154CM - is one that works better if I don't polish it up too, too much.

When we're cutting meat, especially boning out leg bones, I've come to prefer a softer steel which I can touch up with a butcher's steel easily. So some of the "better" Forschner blades are actually a tad on the hard side and the Hook Eye made in Portugal and the wood handled Dexter are my favorites because a couple swipes on the steel keep me going.

For food prep, I don't mind a really hard, even brittle blade, because I'm not using it as a cleaver. Honestly Gibby I even traded into one of the Japanese made boutique sorta knives just to see what the fuss was about.

[Linked Image]

That one has a VG10 center laminated into 420 or 440 sides, can't recall which at present - sorry. Anyway besides the whole knife being about 2 sizes too big for my taste - way too big for vegetable prep, but works great for slicing hams, roasts and turkey - I believe the laminated blade idea has some merit. In a food prep kitchen knife application.

My good wife of almost 36 years calls my pursuit of the "ultimate knife" a sickness and I suppose truly it is..... blush

Anyway sir, thanks again for the kind reply and letting me share what I believe I've learned over the years. All the best to you this summer.

Dwayne

The most important stuff in life isn't "stuff"