What is the "Laser" I keep hearing and reading

A lot of videos, specially when talking about a great grind, compare them to "Laser" is this a case of a hand ground knife as compared to a knife cut with a laser for its edge ?. just curious

 

Guess I also should have asked, is one prefered over the others, will you typically find one on a higher end knife over another ?

 

No, they aren't knives that are cut using a laser.

"Lasers" are blades that are ground very thin that give the sensation of "falling through the food" with little effort. Examples are the Tadatsuna Inox wa-gyuto, or the Suisin Inox honyaki.

 

Budget and personal preference come into play. Most of them are $250 and up.

 

dangit,... looks like eventually Ill need another knife now (that sounds way to nice to not have). Secretly I was kind of hoping it meant the knife had a laser guidance system in place to help cut up onions at a furious capcom game kind of pace. Always like collecting the combo bonus points

on the plus side this should be cheaper then that would have been

 

Lasers are fun to play with, but they usually have serious stiction issues because they are too thin to put much convexity in the grind. I wouldn't want one as my only gyuto.

 

what about outside of a gyuto, in something smaller, or maybe a carving knife. Id think harder veggies like potatoes or sweet taters would really benefit from a laser edge, or in a carving knife since its one glide through a roast some more delicate meats would have a great time with them, or even in a pull through it will grab ?

Oh and are they typically on a single bevel, or they also are found on double bevels ?

 

The lasers do very well with things like sweet potatoes and hard squashes.

On a carving knife there is little advantage, since the sliced portion falls away and the blade won't wedge anyway.

For all around use, a gyuto that is properly thin behind the edge will give you most of the benefits of a laser. The Shigefusa, Yoshiaki Fujiwara (Kato), Heiji and Kochi gyutos are good examples.

 

Noted, thanks

 

Rick is always so quick to reply... I'm not complaining. He sums it up better than I can.

I love my laser. It sucks for chopping parsely but everything else I use it for, it does it well. Its also light enough to use all day and not have a tired hand at the end of the day.

 

Respectfully, I have to disagree on lasers doing well on SP and hard squashes. I have found I have to exert more pressure using a laser for these types of items and prefer a med. weight gyuto of cleaver instead. The only thing I readily use a laser for is soft produce and proteins.

For carving, RB, Ham, non-sushi, I prefer my edges to be convexed near the edge (almost a thick edge), this seems to make the protein fold away from the knife. Agreed that a med weight gyuto that is thin "er" near the edge is the best multi use knife.

 

What technique are you using to cut the sweet potatoes and squash? Just "powering through", or are you slicing as you go? Makes a lot of difference.

 

I tried a laser class knife (kono) on sweet potatoes and a midweight (tanaka sekiso) and found the tanaka did better than the laser kono hd did. I try to push down and forward, which seems to work the best for me in SP, but the laser wedged more, the Tanaka seemed to spread the SP apart more so it didn't wedge as much. Once I got the SP down into slices, cubing it into chunks went easily with both. The depth of the cut has a lot to do with it I think. My Tanaka Nakiri's (sekiso and Kurouchi) outcut the 2 gyuto's in sweet potatoes and they are lasers, go figure?