Cooking For Engineers

bob_shiltz · Joined: 21 Mar 2007 Posts: 6

I like the idea of a knife block. We had one at my old apartment, and it was a joy to use. After posting here (thread) and doing some reading, I ordered the fibrox Forschners. (8" Chef, 10" Bread, 3" paring). I assumed that ChefsKnivesToGo's 8" Forchners Chef was the 2" wide variety, but it turned out that it is roughly 2 1/8" wide instead. The 10" bread knife is also a little wider than normal at a hair more than 1.5" wide. Anyway, I picked up the only empty block my area LNT sells, and neither knife fits in the appropriate slot. I've been doing some reading, and even the Henckels blocks online stop at 2" slots, forcing users to put wider knives in the cleaver slot.

I'm guessing that a fair number of regulars here do own Forschner knives, and if so, I'm wondering what you use to store them. If anyone has found a block that can accomodate wider chefs knives, can you provide me with a link? I don't currently own a cleaver, but it'd be nice to know that I have room for it when I get around to acquiring one.

Edit: I forgot to add- I've seen the Kapoosh block, but I've read that sharper knives start cutting away at the plastic rods themselves. I'd like to not have to examine my knives for stray pieces of plastic before cutting, so that block is kind of a no-no.

GaryProtein · Joined: 26 Oct 2005 Posts: 535

Have you checked out the Wusthof knife blocks? I think the Shun blocks may have a wide slot, other than for a cleaver.

SirShazar · Joined: 30 Jul 2007 Posts: 89

Have you thought about other options? Like a magnetic knife strip?

Also, how was the service from chefsknivestogo.com? I blindly recommended it to you, but I never ordered from there before.

DrBiggles · Joined: 12 May 2005 Posts: 356 Location: Richmond, CA

bob_shiltz · Joined: 21 Mar 2007 Posts: 6

Ordering from ChefsKnivesToGo was pretty typical. I received my shipment about 5 business days after placing the order, everything was there, etc. There were other competitors that offered individual knives for cheaper, but I also wanted a pair of shears. For total pricing for my order (8" Chef, 10" bread, 3" paring, take-apart shears), CKTG was the best.

I thought about using a saw blade, but in order to widen the slots enough, I'd be coming very close to the beginning of an adjacent slot. There's too much risk for me damaging the block I bought to justify a DIY. And it looks like any other block I order is going to be expensive enough that I won't want to take a saw to it.

I looked into magnetic strips, but they don't really fit my needs. There's a good chance that I'd eventually nick the blades, and I'm weary of having knives hanging over my counter like that. I don't want to put them in my drawers because drawer-space is kind of precious right now, and I don't want to stack things on top of them.

The other thing I've found is the Henckel's drawer block. It might work because I wouldn't have a problem throwing stuff on top of knives if I know their blades are protected. The problem is I'd still end up devoting a whole drawer to 5 knives.

DrBiggles · Joined: 12 May 2005 Posts: 356 Location: Richmond, CA