Knife Knerd Ep3 Do I Need New Knives?

hello everyone Nate here with SimplySharp and today I want to talk about uh one of the most common questions I get which is what kind of knife should I buy um and the first thing I tell somebody is you probably don’t need new knives um even a cheaper knife if you get it sharpened and use some of the tips in this video series um or my video series on maintenance and Care uh it’s going to be a perfectly fine knife uh in fact there’s a lot of companies out there like um Victor KNX like they make a bunch of knives at professional kitchens use and they’re not very expensive they’re 20 $30 um they’re perfectly good knives they’re knives that are meant like every knife they’re meant to be sharpened um so you can get a great knife not a lot of money um just take care of it and get it sharpened every now and then it’s going to be a great knife uh you can spend $200 on a knife and it’s not going to stay sharp that much longer than a cheap knife especially if you’re not taking care of it so what it really comes down to is um preference and kind of the utility of the shape of the knife right so I’ve got in front of me kind of a handful of of different knives um so first of which this is a a crazy little barbecue knife and I mean you’ll see things like this all the time like this is just a gimmick right um it’s got a beer opener um I guess this little Hook is to like grab something so you can move it around on the on the cutting board or on the grill and then you know it’s just not the best piece of metal at this Edge actually is pretty well worn it needs to be honed at least um but it’s I mean it’s just a weird shape and this thing’s gonna get in the way so yes it would cut just fine but this is just a mess in fact if I wanted this to be a good knife I’d just grind that bit off and then I’d have a a decent enough knife um I’ve got a knife like this so this always cracks me up um you I mean is again maybe for like barbecuing or something where maybe you want to cut a piece of meat while it’s over the fire I don’t know why if you’re doing that you’re cooking wrong don’t do that over a fire it’s a horrible idea um but uh I mean this is from Viking right and this is heavy it’s got this nice woodh scale here um but this is just a cheap piece of metal made in China um this is not going to be a good knife um it’s impractical it’s kind of weirdly shaped um but again you know if it didn’t have this kind of ultr long thing this could probably actually you know get sharpened and maintain and be pretty good um it’s going to be expensive because it has Viking on it like that’s probably 90% of the cost is is right there for those uh what is that six letters um but not particularly great um and on the other end of the spectrum you’ve got like so so doll strong is interesting um a lot of people in the knife Community don’t really like them that much I like them because they’re kind of cool my dad got me this one um again it’s a horribly impractical knife it looks beautiful though I love the handle um it actually feels really nice which is really important when you choose a knife like how it feels um I think that’s a beer opener um you know I think some of the knife people that are a little militant about it would you know kind of say Hey you know that that that’s not real is like you know that’s just etched in there versus actually seeing the folds of some sort of Damascus steel or something um and you know they’re not the best metal in the world but they work pretty well um this again just not super practical this is something I’d see on Star Trek as a weapon I think um but not super practical um cool knife though I see a lot of interesting knives like that that uh that you all have and it just really drives home my point what matters most with a knife is that you like it right um so number one I’d say is how it feels so this is a global um it I like the way this thing feels it’s pretty light it’s really well balanced and the handle feels good in my hand right that’s the most important thing the knife feels good to you and then you’re into like Aesthetics like what’s your style like a lot of people are really looking at these things because it might be a showpiece in their kitchen um they might just be in the knives and they really want a knife so get a knife that looks good right I mean this is an impractical knife but I love this handle I would love to get you know maybe more like it’s a plain old chef’s knife with with a beautiful handle like that um that would be great so when people ask me what kind of knives should I buy that’s the most important thing I’ll tell them uh number one you probably don’t need new knives if you’re happy enough with the ones you have let’s just get them sharpened let’s repair them um and you’ll be good to go but if you really want to buy new knives the the biggest thing is how it feels and then you’re just into Aesthetics what you like um what you want to maybe put as a showpiece out on your kitchen counter or whatever it is um so there you go how to pick a knife