341–350 of 697 posts
You obviously don't apply flat pressure on a tomato until it breaks, you slice it by sliding the blade forward as you push down. It's unclear to me that this blade offers any improvement over proper technique, and feels disingenuous to even offer that comparison.
To 99% of people, “just sharpen your knife regularly” is about as realistic as “just set up a Linux FTP server with rsync and…”
I personally watched Scott spend years working on the project and obsessively iterating on the steel, the vibration pattern, the circuitry, the handle, and the form factor. Scott is a hacker, one of us for sure. I mean, the guy built a custom robot just to measure cutting efficiency... The knife is amazing and exactly as shown in the video. Rand Fishkin has a nice short on LinkedIn trying out the knife too. I think h…
Even the best tend to struggle with consistency and can only go so thin due to all the friction. An ultrasonic mandoline that can overcome all that would probably fly off the shelves and better match the original industrial intent.
Why is it people here seem so unusually sceptical? It's expensive (but not really, only compared to knives - a $500 GPU isn't expensive). It's probably mostly good in certain niches and using a $10 knife that's sharpened properly is probably 95% as good in almost every application, and using a $10 knife that is only reasonably well sharpened is probably 90% as good. Slicing stuff for hotpot or yakiniku or Korean BBQ…
Why is it people here seem so unusually sceptical? It's expensive (but not really, only compared to knives - a $500 GPU isn't expensive). It's probably mostly good in certain niches and using a $10 knife that's sharpened properly is probably 95% as good in almost every application, and using a $10 knife that is only reasonably well sharpened is probably 90% as good. Slicing stuff for hotpot or yakiniku or Korean BBQ…
We don't like "buzz" and "hype"... if it's truly a great technology we can buy one a year from now. Not trusting a commercial to be honest isn't undue skepticism.
Well said.
Honest question, does it aerosolize pathogens that cause food-borne illness?
That's good point, aerosolized raw chicken meat water doesn't sound like a good time.
Why is it a good point?
Do you get disease at a rate we care about from smelling a fart? Or smelling raw chicken? Or cooking chicken and the aerosolize particles off that?
The tool seems to melt going off similar tech - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNwHDWlA7gE
Why does you brain think it's a good point other than you want to be negative? Because nihilism is cooler than thinking?
Dentists do ultrasonic scaling, which a ultrasonic water spray and are not dropping like flies.
What is the good point here, tell us more, love to hear it.
Probably not great, otherwise they would have shown it, but being able to cut frozen food properly would be a game changer. The only things I found working are saws, and they are messy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Knives are already high tech and the GP’s point that you don’t need an ultrasonic knife is valid even if “QVC product” is inaccurate. They’re not just hunks of steel. Sharp knives can be dulled by abuse which something that vibrates will be vulnerable to as well. This is akin to the already established very expensive powdered steel knives. Do you need this to have a sharp knife? Nope. Is anyone wrong for wanting it?…
This product isn't about not having to sharpen your knife. It's about a knife that is ~equivalently sharp to begin with, but slices with less force and less sticking, and can therefore slice things more exactly/easily than otherwise. Of course you don't need it, but it's fundamentally different from existing knives, which you seem to not be acknowledging. When you say this is akin to "powdered steel knives", no it is…
Powdered metallurgy, to parry your point, is not about hardness but about having the most precise composition of a metal. I.e you can have better wearing 440C, better machinable 440C, etc. most of this was intended for manufacturing high end industrial equipment. For kitchen knives it’s unnecessary even if it’s cool. It’s incrementally better but like this product it’s not necessary.
Similarly this isn’t “new technology” aside from the packaging of industrial technology into a chefs knife. You can get X-Acto knife sized versions of this already. Ceramic blades came from industrial alumina production. Cool, not necessary, but nothing wrong if it’s your jam.
The classic “QVC knife” is the Ginsu knife which has a lot of the same claims/qualities from a far. It’s an implementation of pattern welded steel and when you use a microscope you’ll see its thousands of serrated edges. Their ad shows the user cutting a can and then thinly slicing a tomato. Works fine until the edge gets rolled and since it’s cheaply processed steel (lacking the points of good construction I mentioned above), that’s usually what happens. I’d expect the company this whole discussion is about doing a lot better here since they’re not trying to sell a three knife set for $29.95 with free shipping.
My point about things being easily damaged with mishandling is that most people simply don’t handle knives well enough to see a benefit from high end knives, not that they aren’t nice/better/valid/different/etc. All of that can be true and the knife no longer cut because the edge is damaged. A Ferrari is a technologically complex car but not a very good car if the tires are all flat. If this thing doesn’t have an edge it isn’t going to cut well.
This is a point they make on their own site:
> Is the knife dishwasher safe?
> Updated 13 days ago
>
> No, but neither is any sharp knife. Dishwasher detergents contain micro-abrasives that dull and chip away at knife edges. If you enjoy using sharp knives, never put them in the dishwasher!
This is actually a more strict take than I have on edge retention, but I wouldn’t complain if my cutlery were treated this way.
Like I said a few posts up, I have knives that cost several hundred dollars. I keep the cheap ones out so I don’t cry when they get lobbed into a sink with the dirty dishes. When sharp they all cut very well. The expensive ones are better at edge retention and can be made a little sharper. After a friend helps clean or cuts some cheese on the cheese board the knife that was used is dull and not a great tool, be it the $30 food service knife or the $400 Henkels knife. You just can’t cheat physics.