Hap40 vs zdp189 vs k390

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Cambertree
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Re: Hap40 vs zdp189 vs k390

#21

Post by Cambertree »

kwakster wrote:
Wed Sep 11, 2019 8:45 am
Although i still haven't tried them, some time ago i bought both a K390 gyuto @ 64 HRC as well as the exact same model in Elmax @ 62 HRC from the Sabol Brothers, up-and-coming custom knife makers based in Slovakia, Europe.
Their Chef knives are already sold through Chefknivestogo in the US.

https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/sab ... t-18917653

The brothers think that their K390 blades should be able to match and maybe even surpass the Kohetsu HAP40 blades regarding taking & holding finely polished edges at low edge angles, while i think that the stainless Elmax blade might do well in comparison to the also stainless Japanese made R2/SG2 blades which many Dutch pro-Chefs here like.
The current plan is to lend my K390 gyuto to a professional Chef-de-Partie i know to see what he thinks of it.
This guys workday consists of cutting vegetables & meat for 4-5 hours per workday, and he's real good at what he does.
His current workhorse is a Takamura R2 gyuto that i've recently hand reground the blade into full convex zero edge @ 22 degrees inclusive for him.
Sounds good, Kwakster. Chef work is a good trial of steels and knife design.

I like to use folders for cooking and food prep to diversify the uses I can put a knife to, and get a better understanding of the design. If I'm in a hurry or doing 'serious' cooking, I'll use the chef knives, of course.

I'll be interested to hear what your chef friend thinks of the Sabol K390 gyuto.

I'm surprised we don't see more Elmax, it seems to have been superseded in popularity as a folding knife steel by M390.

I guess we might see a similar thing happening with the upcoming Seki K390 series compared with the HAP40 run.

Seems like Elmax would be a good choice for chef knives and other fixed blades.
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