15 inches overall, heavy, beastly even. Pre-war Dexter 4898, a.k.a. The Broadsword. It’s got this convex cross-section that shoots carrot-coins across the counter, they just sort of pop off the thing like it’s electric. Pretty as hell, too. A softer metal than the Sabatier blades, polishes up nice and smooth.
This was another five-dollar thrift shop purchase, made scary-keen for another five. I was hoping the guy at the knife shop would be impressed, but he’s more of a samurai-sword guy, and had nothing to say. These things go for fifty or more routinely on eBay though, I just looked that up like ten minutes ago and I’m all proud now, as though I somehow made a smart purchase instead of an impulse buy. I am the sort of man (boy) who impulse-buys vintage carbon steel knives. Ladies line up at my door, because they know this about me intuitively.
This thing was five dollars at a Goodwill, and I liked the heft of it and thought it looked cool. I polished it up later, and it looked even cooler.
TL-29 is a designation or whatever for an electrical engineer’s knife, contracted by the Army in the 1930’s. Shittier versions with plastic handles and stainless-steel blades are still made today, for some reason or another. An hour of research and the most interesting thing I could find about it was this blueprint, which is probably cooler to have than the knife itself:
I haven’t actually used it for anything. This purchase indicated to me that this knife thing was getting out of hand, so I keep it in a desk drawer to remind me of my excesses.
I love French knives. Light, fast, stiff, well-balanced. The four-star-elephant Sabatier is, I believe, from the 1960’s, when forges used freshly-made European steel instead of recycled stuff from elsewhere (the quality has never been the same, they say). 8-inch blade, wide enough to keep my knuckles off the board, easy to hone and sharpen. Along with the smaller 6-inch (with a handle skillfully replaced by a local cutlery shop some years ago), picked up for five dollars at a thrift shop, these are knives 3 and 4. They constitute my main cuttin’ tools, right now.
Recently professionally sharpened, the 8-inch Sabatier is so crazy sharp it can thin-slice delicate oyster mushrooms, and cut an onion without any tears. Roomies don’t want to touch it, even if I’d allow them to.
Mom gave me the 8” Wusthof when I moved out. Rosewood handle, riveted, with a full tang and a light-weight bolster. It had been a wedding gift, she said. It was my only knife for years, carved up dozens of pounds of chicken and bell peppers. I even cut bread with it, though it would give the crumb this weird, smooth finish.
A cutlery shop in downtown Portland gave the 8-inch an amazing edge a week before they shuttered. The narrow end of the bolster has this mirror-finish even four years later. Guy who ran the place chatted with me for 15 or 20 minutes about San Francisco, and Japanese knives, and how he couldn’t compete with larger kitchen store chains and their shelves of awful, metal-eating do-it-at-home electric sharpeners. The place is a venue now, bought by the bar next door and affectionately dubbed “The Knife Shop”.
I bought the 6-inch at a thrift store for three dollars, making it knife number two, and it’s just as good. Made me realize I needed a proper chef’s knife, though - something with a wider blade. My knuckles were always hitting the cutting board.
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