Modern Plane Irons

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Australia is essentially a socialist society insofar as the social benefits are huge - unemployment benefits, Medicare, free state housing, benefits for students, etc etc. Taxation is high to cover all this. 45% of my income goes in tax. On top of this there is 2% for Medicare on the taxable income. Private health care is needed if you want prompt attention. The medical services are excellent but costly.

The health system is changing around Australia, and moving to centralised management. The bean counters have moved in and have new theories about keeping costs down. Strangely, this has not happened! :shock: I am so relieved that I left the Health Department (17 years ago) and moved into private practice. Many of my colleagues live by the month not knowing if they will have a job after that.

Here in Perth a couple of new hospitals have gone up. One was budgeted at $2 billion, and ran $300K over. By the time it was complete, the equipment was out of date, such as air filters, and many wards remained empty because they no longer met standards. Interestingly, there was one point in time when the only people employed are the administrators as there was no funds left for the medical staff.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Trafalgar]

Ours haven't gotten that bad yet. We still have private for-profit hospitals the notion of which some people abhor but I think is good. I mentioned the hospital my wife had our child in. Well, the competing hospital corporation in town built their own version of a women's hospital to an even higher standard, so now the other one is upgrading. On the micro level, this is good for patients. There is really brisk competition for a woman to have her baby in one or the other. Obamacare could and probably will put somewhat of a damper on all of this. Most of these wheels were in motion before it was firmly implemented.

The highest marginal tax rate in the U.S. is 39.6% for taxable income over $413,200. Ours is a graduated bracket so dollars are taxed at different rates depending on one's taxable income. Your first $10,000 of taxable income (roughly) is taxed at 10%, the lowest rate in the bracket regime.

 

[D_W]

I wonder what it would take to get this back to plane iron discussions. Or if we're done with that.

 

[Jacob]

Ours haven't gotten that bad yet. We still have private for-profit hospitals the notion of which some people abhor but I think is good. I mentioned the hospital my wife had our child in. Well, the competing hospital corporation in town built their own version of a women's hospital to an even higher standard, so now the other one is upgrading. On the micro level, this is good for patients. There is really brisk competition for a woman to have her baby in one or the other. Obamacare could and probably will put somewhat of a damper on all of this. Most of these wheels were in motion before it was firmly implemented.

There has been an attempt to introduce competition into public services in Britain but it's been a dismal failure across the board - inefficient, wasteful and expensive. Public opinion is turning and there is a lot of pressure for re-nationalisation and other forms of rationalisation with control firm back with the people/state.
Oddly enough the big sell-off didn't exclude foreign nationalised industries and large sectors are now run by them - EDF etc.

 

[Trafalgar]

Pretty hard to set up competition in health care in less than a couple decades I would think.

 

[Trafalgar]

I wonder what it would take to get this back to plane iron discussions. Or if we're done with that.

Don't know how much there's left to say David. The best high carbon steel Japanese irons,chisels, etc. pretty much put everything else to shame in most people's reviews. The problem with the super steels is in the sharpening and the initial quality of the edge. All the usual trade-offs are still very much in play. Nobody has yet to overcome molecular physics, again, as Jacob so aptly pointed out much earlier in the thread.

Maybe this will get it back on track.... :wink:

 

[AndyT]

I wonder what it would take to get this back to plane iron discussions. Or if we're done with that.

I think it's going for some sort of record for the longest, most off-topic ramble yet seen.
And why not?
I for one am quite impressed by the way it has skirted round controversial areas but remained reasonably factual and well mannered.

How's your garden looking at this time of year?
Ours is quite nice but the fig has not done as well as we hoped, despite being in a sheltered spot by a sunny wall.

 

[Trafalgar]

I wonder what it would take to get this back to plane iron discussions. Or if we're done with that.

I think it's going for some sort of record for the longest, most off-topic ramble yet seen.
And why not?
I for one am quite impressed by the way it has skirted round controversial areas but remained reasonably factual and well mannered.

How's your garden looking at this time of year?
Ours is quite nice but the fig has not done as well as we hoped, despite being in a sheltered spot by a sunny wall.

We're having trouble with our basil. We harvested a lot of leaves are are going through our repertoire of dishes that require fresh basil. We're freezing some of it and those who didn't know you could do this, now you know. The plants have been cut way back and we'll see.

The culinary arts are my first love. Let's don't even get started.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Charles, now we can discuss knife steels.

David knows something about this, at least the cut throat type.

So, Japanese steel or not?

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Trafalgar]

You'll not be surprised one bit that I use plain old Dexters with the hygienic handle. I did notice that a few of the newer ones are made in Japan so there's your answer. When these knives get a dinged tip or some other something that rankles you just buy a new one. They get plenty sharp. If I cut a lot of fish I might go up the ladder a little. Otherwise, you don't need to.

Now, my vintage E. Dehillerin tin lined copper pots and pans are another matter altogether.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Wusthoffs or J A Henckels.

 

[Trafalgar]

We have 3 Wusty Classics.... stay in the drawer. Handles are too slick when wet or greasy (chicken fat, etc.). My wife cut herself horribly with one.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I have a beautiful Wusthoff Cordon Bleu, the edge of which swmbo buckled trying to smash three deep frozen beefburgers apart. All she would say was that knives are meant to cut things.

 

[D_W]

In the kitchen, of regular used knives, I've got a wusthoff paring knife and two chef's knives, one japanese stainless and the other a friodur. I'd say something derisive about the friodur and the wusthoff, but you can steel them and that counts for something if you're being abusive or an abusive person uses them.

I've got two other japanese knives, but they're carbon steel and they scare the wife. I get them out when we have the inevitable guest who talks about how sharp they like their knives and about how they're not sure I'd know what that means. Every single one of them has felt unsafe with a blue steel knife that has nearly no secondary bevel and they go back to our regular stash and never talk about sharpness again. the lone japanese knife that I have out elsewhere is a pedestrian western style knife made of VG10 steel and hardened to about 61 according to its brochure. It's less expensive than the german knives, but far better for anyone who can use a finish stone once a month and avoid things that chip knives.

The remainder of mine (which I don't generally use) are soft forged chinese knives with a western brand stamped on them. I can use them just fine, they are just soft, even a little soft given that you can steel them (which is saying a lot).

Razors - I prefer plainest steel possible, and proper hardness which means not too soft and not too hard. Too soft, a razor can't hold an edge. Too hard, a razor can't hold an edge AND it doesn't respond correctly to a leather strop. When a razor is made properly and ground with skill, it can be used for a year without ever seeing abrasives. (the razor community is an overly fascinated oversharpening community, one that generally doesn't get the subtlety of taking care of a razor with some horse leather and true linen without abrasives). There are some really hard japanese razors that do work fine with a strop, made of yasuki labeled steel, but they are very expensive and more a demonstration of skill and technology than practical gain. The real skill that is lost these days is the ability of the cutlers to accurately execute a double hollow grind to paper thin on the blade, make the razor dead straight by eye by tapping the spine straight while grinding and then finish a razor so it looks like it never saw a grinding wheel in the first place. the finest finisher I've ever seen was a japanese man named tanifuji (expensive, again), but there were a ton of guys in solingen that also did wonderful work.

The amateur market of shavers now is enamored with heavy "custom" razors that cost several times as much as a new old stock old razor and that are not ground as delicately because that part of the art is not so easily duplicated.

There, that's my contribution

Just like old irons, there are lots of older irons around for a fair price, some NOS for half the cost of a new razor, and better. The difference between razors and tools is that anything with big carbides is out, powder metal is out (because it tends to be brittle at the finest of edges and low angles), and shavers don't want a razor to be overhard because it makes them less functional.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

I wonder what it would take to get this back to plane iron discussions. Or if we're done with that.

I think it's going for some sort of record for the longest, most off-topic ramble yet seen.
And why not?
I for one am quite impressed by the way it has skirted round controversial areas but remained reasonably factual and well mannered.

How's your garden looking at this time of year?
Ours is quite nice but the fig has not done as well as we hoped, despite being in a sheltered spot by a sunny wall.

The tomatoes didn't come to much, being late-cropping and rather less juicy than usual, but the blackberry bush cropped earlier than usual and heavily. We've enjoyed several blackberry and apple crumbles, and there will be bumper quanties of blackberry gin this Christmas.

Sorry to mention plane irons, but way back in about 1860 (or so) it was discovered in Sheffield (and maybe elsewhere) that adding about 1% of Manganese to a cast steel melt, usually in form of ferro-manganese or spiegeliesen, helped to de-gas the melt and improve the steel quality. It was the first 'alloying agent' added to cast steel, which previously had been just iron, carbon and a very small amount of impurities.

Anybody noticed a difference in the performance of early (pre-1860) irons and later ones?

 

[Trafalgar]

We just throw the Dexters in the dishwasher. I hit them when they come out on a relatively cheap little jig with a diamond grinder and ceramic rods. I hit them five or six times on the diamond then twenty times through the ceramic. They're always sharp. And clean. No worries. My wife has a supermarket brand Santoku with a rubber handle that we work on the same little honer, it has a grinder section at 15* (or so it says) to keep that blade where it's supposed to be. That edge doesn't last but it's a go-getter for the fifteen minutes of slicing and chopping it takes to get dinner on the table. She loves it and it has a hell of a positive grip. She won't get near the Wusthoffs.

The copper gets babied, but that's about it. Half the time I just brown and saute' in an old lightweight stainless steel pan. That thing starts to get hot before you even put the fire under it.

 

[D_W]

I sharpen all of mine, except the carbon japanese knives, on an IM 313 setup. Well, except the parers, I work them on chinese diamond hone (but not a low quality one) that was too worn out for the shop, and then steel them. Maybe once per month on the stones for the knives that can be steeled and the same or a little less for the stainless japanese knife (it is just soft enough to be sharpened by oilstones, but hard enough that it takes a great finish off of them because they can't cut very deeply).

The carbon steel japanese knives get sharpened on a suita. I wouldn't want to remove damage with it, but it does a beautiful job for maintenance and the edge is wonderful and entertaining (if a bit dangerous for someone not aware of how easy it will move through things). If I didn't have it, I wouldn't buy it for the job, but I have it.I guess that goes for all of it, it's not terribly practical to have carbon steel knives if there are people in the house who don't like what carbon steel looks like after onions or people who refuse to wipe a wet knife.

I am not by any means a force in the kitchen, and I don't have sophisticated taste, but I like knives that work well to prevent the intrusion of a million gadgets, and I appreciate proper temperature control and properly cooked meat....which sometimes seems like a rarity (the latter).

 

[D_W]

I sharpen all of mine, except the carbon japanese knives, on an IM 313 setup. Well, except the parers, I work them on chinese diamond hone (but not a low quality one) that was too worn out for the shop, and then steel them. Maybe once per month on the stones for the knives that can be steeled and the same or a little less for the stainless japanese knife (it is just soft enough to be sharpened by oilstones, but hard enough that it takes a great finish off of them because they can't cut very deeply).

The carbon steel japanese knives get sharpened on a suita. I wouldn't want to remove damage with it, but it does a beautiful job for maintenance and the edge is wonderful and entertaining (if a bit dangerous for someone not aware of how easy it will move through things). If I didn't have it, I wouldn't buy it for the job, but I have it.I guess that goes for all of it, it's not terribly practical to have carbon steel knives if there are people in the house who don't like what carbon steel looks like after onions or people who refuse to wipe a wet knife.

I am not by any means a force in the kitchen, and I don't have sophisticated taste, but I like knives that work well to prevent the intrusion of a million gadgets, and I appreciate proper temperature control and properly cooked meat....which sometimes seems like a rarity (the latter).

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

My wife, who thoroughly enjoys cooking and is very good at it, who reads recipes and can literally tell how closely similar ones differ in taste from other, but has absolutely little interest in the tools she uses for cooking. This extends to knives. For example, she will work on a granite surface only (because it it is easier to clean) ... so good bye sharp edges within one stroke! And then the knives are tossed into the dishwasher with disregard for the edges (well, what is left of the edges) or whether the handles will cope with the heat (they do not - I have had fun re-handling knives, which then become my knives because they must be hand washed).

I have offered to buy her "good" knives, but she is happier with medium (low?) quality stainless steel, because their upkeep is minimal. I guess, like some woodworkers, the interest lies in the output and not the journey.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Trafalgar]

Just might as well sharpen often rather than try to preserve an edge. The Dexters get sharpened every single time they're used, after they come out of the dishwasher. I cut pastry dough and puff pastry all the time with these knives on either a stainless table or a pastry marble. So do millions of cooks around the world, since one rarely rolls out or ever handles pastry on wood. Trying to preserve the edge of a working kitchen knife is truly the quintessential fool's errand (meant generically not aimed at posters). One just needs to have a quick way of honing up. In boning a chicken or other bird the knife is used to scrape bones, cut around the bone at articulations (knife meets bone/cartilage, tendons), when cutting up a chicken the knife with cut/break through bones, like when cutting the back out of the bird, though some use poultry shears which I find too slow and you have to pick up another tool.

Your wife is a smart lady. Worrying about edges, too much, is surely a nickel holding up a dime.