It beats WA on UI in most cases (especially on desktop), has open source client, much better groups/channels for one-to-many, many-to-many communications. Has bots support like I never seen on WA.
Yes think of it as a more powerful electric toothbrush. There are actually already toothbrush sized ultrasonic knives you can buy online. This just applies the same tech to what largely looks like a normal chefs knife.
Interesting idea, but I would say that it is orders of magnitude harder compared to having an integrated system. Vibration in such a compact space with a very sharp blade... I want this system be stable around me.
I would say, if this idea becomes popular, knife producers can create their own versions in the new models, or retrofit old knives at the shop.
Yeah, I'm already somewhat skeptical of the whole concept, having DIY'd a vibroblade out of an X-acto knife and a SonicCare toothbrush and finding it to be completely ineffective.[1]
I think trying to make an ultrasonic vibration add-on for regular knives would be even harder to make into a useful product than an integrated knife/transducer.
If the handle is rigidly fixed to the blade, there would be very little vibration. So it seems like the only way to make an add-on would be as a sleeve over the regular handle. That would make for a bulky handle, and it seems like it would need a counterbalancing weight at the back. So the result would be very unwieldy, like one of those electric turkey-carving knives that are basically kitchen hedge-trimmers.
I'm waiting to see what skilled chefs think of this knife. The idea of an ultrasonic vibroblade has always seemed like a neat one to me, and I'd be happy to hear that someone managed to make one that was genuinely useful.
I don't use knives in my kitchen. My romantic partner does. Yesterday I decided to cut some tomatoes only to find out that all knives are dull.
She never said anything, I didn't know it. Why?
Because she is just "used" to it and to her these knives were just fine. So she never thought about sharpening knives in the first place.
I will take those knives to a pro and he will sharpen them for me, as in a rental I stay in, I don't have the tools to do that and as I said in another comment - I don't have a pain free process to do that as I don't do it often.
You don't really need "tools" to sharpen knives. You just need a harder surface and some experience. It's one of those things that once you learn you can accomplish with a variety of "tools" because you're just trying to achieve an end goal. There's zero reason you can't sharpen a knife in a rental, lol. You don't need a belt grinder or anything.
People get way too caught up in buying into systems and being told how to do things because it alleviates some anxiety of trying something new. Sharpening knives hasn't really changed much in the last few centuries. Watch a few guides and learn to do it. There's no substitute for experience here. It's also a very transferable skill so it's one that used to be taught in schools but no longer is.
When I was in school (in seventies), all boys at least tried to learn how to use and take care of all sharp tools and machines with one up to wood and metal lathe. When I was in school now as a teacher, scissors were the only somewhat sharp things kids were allowed to use. Risk tolerance is so low in our society nowadays, sense of responsibility of children is nonexistent etc.
A semester of machine shop taught me an immense amount, and based on my experience with a lot of techies, 95% more about how the world (and tools) work than 95% of the population.
when I was poor I used to make pricy shaving blades last for months longer than they should have by rubbing them on some old jeans. I don’t remember where I learned it but my roommates thought I was crazy til they tried it.
If she's not used to sharp knives you're not doing her a favour by getting them crazy sharp.
Just get a cheap knife sharpener (not a whetstone) with good reviews and sharpen them a bit once every few weeks, it takes a minute, gets good results, and you can work with her on how sharp they should be.
Most of the time knives that are too sharp are much more dangerous than knives that are too blunt. The people worrying about your knife slipping into your finger have never actually used a knife imo. If it's dull enough to be slipping you'll get a welt before you get cut.
> Most of the time knives that are too sharp are much more dangerous than knives that are too blunt.
With a sharp knife, you cut through food very easily so you use very little force. You also use techniques that prevent you from getting hurt, such as the claw ( https://www.thekitchn.com/knife-skills-the-claw-75998 ).
But if someone has used a dull knife for most of their life, they may not have cultivated these skills and may hold their knife in an unsafe way and or use a lot of force when cutting.
For someone like that, a sharp knife could be a lot more dangerous, but if they're trained/using it properly, a sharp knife is a lot more safe as it reduces effort and chance of the knife slipping.
My thought process was that anyone who is trained or interested would seek to get them sharpened.
I've been in this position and my partner at the time decided to use a separate set of knives from me, as my sharp knives made her focus on the danger and pulled her out of her zoned out cooking-with-a-glass-of-wine mood.
Fair enough, how she approaches tools isn't my decision.
Respectfully, proper technique is just a matter of searching and reading for 2-3 minutes followed by a bit of practice and repetition to get fast. You can skip the getting fast part if you want. Nobody needs "training" to become proficient with a kitchen knife.
She doesn't care. It's not possible to force someone to be a gear nerd.
She cooks, she enjoys it, she does it with a medium sharp knife that doesn't slip because that's not a real thing, and isn't scaring her because it's just medium sharp.
How do you not use knives? Do you use some other cutting instrument, that has the same problem as knives (cutting edge needs sharpening at times), do you only purchase pre-sliced food, do you only order take out, or only eat food that never needs cutting, or do you eat food that many or most people would cut in some way (oranges, apples, celery, etc.) by refusing to cut but using your teeth to separate out parts.
Do you not use butter knives or have you removed those from the category knives as their purpose is not really cutting (although I use butter knives to cut cherry tomatoes and garlic as they have no problem with that task)
I'm not trying to harass here, I am just incredibly interested by this statement as I don't think I've ever seen a kitchen without knives (excepting apartments that did not have any residents at the time)
As the parter who does most of the cooking, I'd be pretty annoyed if my parter took it upon themselves to get all my knives sharpened (unless they asked me first and I enthusiastically agreed).
>> I will take those knives to a pro and he will sharpen them for me, as in a rental I stay in, I don't have the tools to do that and as I said in another comment - I don't have a pain free process to do that as I don't do it often
Do you also replace your elderly relatives' Windows XP with linux distros, because linux is a better OS?
The moment you return the sharpened knives to your partner and she starts using them, she'll cut herself, with a small probability for a serious cut that will leave permanent damage to her hand.
DMT Diamond Sharpeners are fun, especially the ones where you have a milled steel plate that's very flat to which the diamond abrasive is fixed via some nickelplating process. Use one thats "extracoarse" on one side and "fine" (600grit) on the other plus another onsided one with extra fine. Finish with japanese whetstone (synthetic one) and or polishing pashe on a strap of leather. Takes almost no space, can be done at the kitchen table. The equipment costs some, so its probably mostly worth it if you like doing it - sharpening has a meditative quality (wear theowaway gloves)
Yes. These are awesome. They have ones that fold up inside an attached plastic cover (like leatherman) that are great for apartment living, and will sharpen pretty much anything, from filet and paring knives to axes.
This is all very defeatist. Learn to sharpen your knives for your own sake and your... romantic partner. It's a very basic life skill that you should know.
I've never seen a knife like that where I live, in California. The only small serrated knifes people here have are stake knives and on rare occasions sausage knives.
It's strange how two relatively similar cultures can have such oddball differences.
This is while living in California's Central Valley, where a third of the world's tomatoes are grown, so it's not like tomatoes aren't a major part of the culture here.
I wonder if it's because most of California's settlement was within the last 200 years, with modern metallurgy making it common for knifes to hold their edge long enough to easily cut tomatoes with only occasional sharpening, negating the need for a special knife just for tomatoes.
Nationwide advertisements for knives show people using straight-bladed knives for cutting cucumbers and tomatoes, despite stated stake knives being extremely common, so tomato knives are likely rare throughout the country, not that much of the country is any older than California.
You can't sharpen a serrated knife, though. When it becomes irritating to cut tomatoes with my straight knife, I know it's time to sharpen it—that's how I avoid getting used to a dull knife.
It’s kind of tedious, but you can do it with a tool like the DMT Diafold Serrated Knife Sharpener. On most serrated knives, you will also want to lightly sharped/deburr the other face at an extremely shallow angle using a whetstone that either you don’t care about too much or that is extremely resistant to scratching (e.g. a DMT-style flat stone). If you do that part on something like a traditional Japanese stone, you will make a mess.
I admire you. You are a minority, you know that, right?
I don't have time in my schedule at the moment, which says "sharpen the knifes". So for me - it would be amazing if someone solved this problem in a radical way.
Sporadically I would sharpen the knives and since I don't have it in my "skills" section of the brain, I always have to "figure out" sharpening process.
You know you can buy a <$5 gadget you drag the knife across a few times for 10s that gets it about 95% as sharp as a professional job? Zero skill or attention required.
Dont have time in your schedule...jeeze. Sounds like learned helplessness to me. That or spoiled rotten. The comments in this thread help me understand the general animosity towards the tech industry from much of the population.
I have one of those "roller" sharpeners, in theory a "good" one, it's from Global (the Japanese knife brand) not just an AliExpress knockoff.
It works reasonably well and is definitely quick. But its not even close to "95% as sharp) as when I spend 10 mins with my Lansky sharpening kit (which is really just a small set of graduated whetstones with a jig to keep the angle right while using it).
Would I recommend everybody spend $70 or so for a bottom end Lansky kit or similar? No. Not even close. But if cook a lot, and you're going to buy "nice" knives that you intend to keep for decades, and you notice and care about the difference between sharp and dull knives - then I'd suggest you at least consider it.
Admittedly I have not made a comparison but I've seem some youtube vids where they compete various sharpening gadgets vs the pro way. They all seem to do very well even at bottom barrel prices. I'm sure defects are higher though.
That lansky looks awesome I think I'll pick it up. I think the crowd on here will see this basic life skill as too much "work".... so thats why I recommend the cheap drag through's. Safer than a dull knife at least... Weird how so many people here have no issue churning thorough another JS framework but spending 10 min to learn a life skill is too hard.
The roller/drag-through thing is worthwhile owning, I use mine a lot more often than I get out the Lansky kit. It's probably a couple of times a month I'll find my usual knife is smooshing ripe strawberries or tomatos a bit instead of effortlessly slicing them, and a few swipes through the fine wheel on mine will make that knife slice nicely again. Mostly I get out the Lansky tools when I've damaged a knife, then I'll sit at my workbench will all my knives and spend an hour or two in a Zen knife edge grinding trance making everything stupidly/dangerously sharp. The ultra-fine ceramic hone in my kit does an amazing job, but you need to work up to it through the coarser grade hones - especially if you've been using the roller sharpener on that knife for a bit - I'm pretty sure they don't get the edge angles right in a way the the ultras fine hone can take advantage of.
I really like my Lansky kit. In retrospect I might have shelled out the extra for the set with the diamond sharpening stones - but I doubt I'll ever come close to wearing down the regular stones with my use patterns.
> I always have to "figure out" sharpening process.
Get the Worksharp fixed angle sharpener for about $70 (about the price of 2 decent stones). If you're really interested, get the leather strop add on for about $10. Get on with sharpening your kitchen knives. Put it in your closet until next year.
Is it "great"? No. If you want to be a knife nerd, it's not for you.
If you have a couple of kitchen knives you need to sharpen once a year, it's absolutely fine. And you don't have to "get the feel" of sharpening again before you can get sharp kinves.
Even with the stones and equipment I have, it is way more mindless and a lot less messy to simply use a fixed-angle sharpener. Sure, you won't get "The Ultimate Hair Whittling Edge(tm)", but your knives will quite readily Julienne your vegetables.
Reiterating that any sharpener with the ability to set the angle is really all anyone needs if they don't want to invest in the time of learning how to sharpen.
I have the ruixin version and it works fine. I like that I can use the stones without the system.
Sure. Most fixed angle sharpeners work to some degree, I just recommended one that isn't sold by "Random Letter Chinese Shop" and that I have bought and know personally works.
In addition, for the moment, the stones used in the system I recommended are reliably decent and have been analyzed by a bunch of the YouTube knife nerds. The other fixed angle systems can be hit or miss with the stones.
If someone is sufficiently interested that they want to use the stones without the system, they've started down the path to being a knife nerd and have outgrown my recommendation.
In Japan I could just drop my knife in a nearby house's box with $6, they'd sharpen it and phone me to pick it up within a few hours. Cheap enough that I never bothered to do it myself.
I was interested in this as well. The site is awesome and beautiful. And, I wished the SVGs were built in a way that (from my limited interaction) is basically just swapping new SVG in for each tick. It's really pretty, but I wished there was a bit more interaction and composability.
It beats WA on UI in most cases (especially on desktop), has open source client, much better groups/channels for one-to-many, many-to-many communications. Has bots support like I never seen on WA.