Dao Vua Classic V2 Santoku Review - Leaf Spring Steel - 165mm

[@livindametal1]

I have 2 First Gen Leaf spring DaoVua knives. A Santoku and Gyuto. Both came dull and already had rust spots from the start. After a good sharpening and some clean up of rust it’s absolutely an amazing set of knives. Definitely a hobby knife. Not for everyone and should be considered before any purchases. Great video Panko!

[@dimmacommunication]

Personal opinion is that carbon steel should be used only under certain premises. Like White steel ( or 26c3 wich is similar ) etc... or super tough ones like 8670 , 5160 and 80crv2.

[@chefpanko]

Did your first-gen come with the plastic wrap and rubber bands? They pre-oil the knife before they wrap it now. Not sure if they did that in the first version when they sold it for the first time, I think my first version had the same clear film wrap on the first Gen but they already existed for a while before I tried them.

[@livindametal1]

@@chefpanko they did have the rubber bands and plastic. Also oiled. But they had small amounts of rust near the handle and a small amount near the top of the blade. It was honestly minor and I had already researched the knives prior. I anticipated this might be the case. But the knives intrigued me and I honestly didn’t care. They are beautiful and very sharp now. Thanks for the reply Panko!

[@mfreeman313]

Thanks for the in-depth review. As you say, these knives have a few more compromises to consider before you decide, and it's nice to have that kind of thing pointed out. Personally I'm not very fussy about the balance point; I might notice a knife is a bit blade or handle heavy, but it doesn't bother me in use. The consensus seems to be that the new versions are a big step in the right direction. I have three of the original that I'm happy with, so I guess I'd be pleased with a new one. ETA So I did in fact buy a 240mm gyuto for wintertime meat slicing and it really was quite an improvement over the originals. Blade straight and installed in proper line with the handle, cleaner grind, still rustic but with nothing I could see that you could honestly say is a flaw. One thing that hasn't changed-it still has tons of character and personality. I don't know if everyone knows this but you're starting to see a touch of that rustic look in high-end outdoor knives now. A bit of scale left on the blade, some hammer marks. I think people find it meaningful; I know I do. And it's no accident it happened after Japanese knives became popular.

[@tagontag]

A fair and honest review. Thank you, chef!

[@chefpanko]

Thank you :)

[@milleradam98]

Great to have you back chef!! I hope you're going back to 1 video per week?

[@chefpanko]

That is the plan, hopefully I manage to do one video a week :)

[@roberthernandez6888]

I really like your reviews and I am glad to have you back! I have a question. Have you used a chroma type 301 knife? And if you have, do you recommend them?

[@chefpanko]

I'm glad to be back :), unfortunately I did not try the Chroma type knives. So can't say anything about them.

[@roberthernandez6888]

@@chefpanko thank you so much for the answer chef!

[@mathieuguiol6344]

Great video again ! Could you make a video where you show how to make a good honing session ?

[@chefpanko]

Great suggestion! I can't promise anything yet but I already had something similar written down. It may come in the future.

[@slingshotshooter7536]

@ChefPanko please do a video explaining exactly that how to use a Chinese cleaver exactly as its designed it will be very helpful i am sure you will get a lot of views on it also because there is no good video explaining that also i don't use the heel section of the claver almost at all.. when do you use the heel section of Chinese cleaver?

[@chefpanko]

That is a great video Idea, I have written it down but can't promise anything since I still have a backlog of videos that I need to finish.

[@slingshotshooter7536]

@@chefpanko i don't use the heel section of the chinese claver almost at all.. when do you use the heel section of Chinese cleaver?

[@chefpanko]

@@slingshotshooter7536 I use them mostly on meat or denser food. So if you need more force to go through things. If you want a thin slice of meat then the front is better but for ticker slices, I use the back of the cleaver.

[@chefpanko]

PS: sorry for the late reply for some reason the comment got into the spam section of the YT comment dashboard (had to manually approve it).

[@kenez2363]

Review nacional blade work knife bunka from the Philippines

[@naumov07]

Chef, thank you for all the reviews. May i ask you to kake a video regarding honning rods, sharpening rods, explaining the differences between steel hon8ng rod, diamond sharpening rod and ceramig rod, their abrasive level, 1000, 3000... If i want to buy only one of them, which one shall i go for? I am interested in the rods from aliexpress Hezhen and Xinzou. If you have video like this, please reply with link in this coment. Thank you.

[@chefpanko]

I did not do a video about it but in my experience I notice the following. Steel honing rod works decent but will have trouble or no effect on Higher Rockwell knives of 61 and above. Diamond coated honing rods works great but is quite aggressive in terms of material removal it removes more material than a ceramic honing rod. Most diamond honing rod is also very coarse to a medium grit size while they mostly don't specify the exact grit so usually you see coarse/medium in the description. Ceramic honing rods works great for low and high Rockwell knives and are less aggressive in material removal preserving the lifespan of your knife. When you remove a lot of material you eventually need to thin out your knife and not only sharpen it. While honing rods are a great solution, a whetstone sharpening session is eventually needed to get the edge retention and sharpness back. As with ceramic rods, most of them are equally effective if they specify the same grit rating. The focus for me when it comes to ceramic is the handle/fingerguard that comes with it due to my style of honing. I did not try the Hezhen or Xinzou honing rods. If I'm correct they have both a ceramic and steel version. But with the steel version as explained above will have less effect on high Rockwell knives unless they are diamond coated. Hope that this explains it a bit feel free to ask more questions :)

[@naumov07]

@@chefpanko Thank you very much for the huge explenation.

[@dimmacommunication]

Why don't they say the exact type of steel ?

[@enquiem3051]

It’s recycled from old cars’ leaf springs so they don’t know what is the exact steel type of it.

[@dimmacommunication]

@@enquiem3051 But their price isn't low... so we need to buy recicled stuff for premium price ?😂😂 🙈🙈

[@enquiem3051]

@@dimmacommunication How much for one ?

[@dimmacommunication]

@@enquiem3051 Depends on your nation , here in europe they are 70-80 ,damn for a recicled steel ? I would just spend 100-120 for a real japanese one.

[@MrSATism]

@@dimmacommunication in the US theyre 60-70$