Winco 8" Heavy Duty Chinese Cleaver with Wooden Handle, 3-1/2″

[NOTE: This identical cleaver is sold with several different descriptions and prices, by several sellers. I chose this one because despite a higher initial price, when you figure in my Amazon Prime shipping versus the shipping charges for the lower priced offerings, this one came out the cheapest. Other than that, they all seem to be the same identical Winco cleaver.] Now the review - As a Taiwanese member of our extended family said, there is one of these in every Asian kitchen. It doesn't take a culinary genius to realize the parallels between the functionality of this tool and that of a western professional chef's knife. It is also clear that the large rectangular blade will go the chef's knife one better in the "scooping up" role. It is important to point out that this tool has some significant differences from the tougher but less satisfactory kitchen knives that many of us are used to working with. Many kitchen knives are made from alloys which are less than ideal for knife-making, but which are selected to survive the abuse that the average home user will inflict. This is not one of those knives. It is made from high carbon steel. It is somewhat brittle. It will rust in the blink of an eye. It will also take (and keep) an absolutely wicked edge. It is also worth mentioning that this is a "vegetable cleaver", not a meat cleaver. Do not use this on anything other than a wooden cutting board. Ever. Before you use it on a glass "board", save yourself some trouble and just throw it in the trash. Do not use this to try and whack your way through frozen foods, bones, ice, firewood, or iron pipe. That wonderfully sharp but brittle edge will chip and be ruined if you ignore this advice. Do wipe the blade as you use it. Rinse clean, then wipe dry, as soon as you are done. Ordinary steel rusts faster than I will be able to get you to believe, especially when damp. Rust occurring at a microscopic level can quickly degrade your edge, so this is not just an aesthetic concern. I should mention that the blade did not come in the blister pack pictured above, but it was well protected. It was razor sharp, and yes, I was able to shave my arm with it. Examination with a light microscope at 100x revealed a blade edge that was sharp if a little irregular. Given the price, I felt it was acceptably good. Having mentioned price, let me take a moment to compare this to the overly expensive German brand "me too" putative Chinese Cleavers. They are pretty. They are nicely made and well finished. They are pleasing to hold. And they are not Chinese Cleavers. The ones I have examined are made from the same sort of indestructible stainless steel used in so many western style knives. They believe that we are idiots, unable to care properly for our knives, and satisfied with something that looks trendy without actually functioning like the object being emulated. After all, the important thing is how it looks sitting in your kitchen, right ? Sadly, there are enough customers for this sort of thing that I don't see these products being improved. Too bad, because there are some stainless steel alloys that would do a credible job of improving on the traditional product, but only a few knife makers are using them, because (horrors) they will stain, chip, and rust if not properly cared for. I'm not a cheapskate, I cook with All-Clad Copper Core, Le Creuset, and Mauviel. But I also use Lodge, and Victorinox - both great bargains. I enjoy finding an inexpensive tool that will meet or exceed the performance of the high priced brand. I'm not going to tell you this is the ultimate Chinese Vegetable Cleaver. It is simply made, not fancy, and typical of what you are likely to find in many homes. I believe it is a great buy for someone wishing to give them a try, and that properly cared for, there is no reason that it could not serve you well in years to come. Two "leftover" details I'd like to mention, the blade is slightly rockered, not square, and care should be taken to keep moisture from getting between the wooden handle and the tang. Personally, I never immerse any knife, but simply wash the blade under cold running water, then dry it by hand before putting it away. Handles clean up nicely with a damp cloth. Given the price, you can hardly go wrong - you can always keep it on your desk as a paperweight. But, if what you receive is anything like what I received, I believe you will be pleased.

So i have alwats loved watching martin yan of tge show Yan can cook and always wanted knife skills like his. That man can chopp at a hundred miles an hour and nit even look at what he's cutting. Well i found out the clever he uses is a chinese chef's knife and this one had great reviews and was dirt cheap so i pupled the trigger. Glad i did to! Yeah it came a tad dull but a few minutes on a soft arkansas stone with some soapy water fixed that. The spine was too square as was the part directly below the handle, but some sandpaper fixed that! I'm chopping carrots super fast, getting dozens of wafer this slices without any special effort and you can kind of see through them. With little effort I'm mincing onions so small that they mostly melt into whatever I'm cooking. They're smaller than the minced onions McDonald's uses. Plus I'm chopping them fast! Just using this thing has made my knife skills improve all the way around. This is not a butcher's cleaver! It is not meant to go through bones! The chinese name for tgis knife is "cai dao" which means vegetable cutter, or vegetable knife. This knife is the exact same function as a traditional chef's knife or santoku knife. It does however do more than those. This is the all purpose knife of a chinese restaurant and professional chinese chefs. From cutting, to garnishing, to tenderizing this knife does SOOOO MUCH! It does take a keen edge. If you don't know how to sharpen a knife with a stones then you need to learn. A butcher steel isn't for sharpening or honing, it's for edge aligning. Gonna buy a second one and give this one away as this was a knife i got just to try. I abused it as i was learning it so it's scratched up pretty good. This really is a premium piece of kit. I also have a mercer chinese chef knife with a santoprene handle. The blade stock is thinner so it's a touch flexible and this one is not. This is a good, stout knife, manufactured for years of use. Do not put it in the dishwasher! Good knives should never go in a dishwasher. Nor should they ever be submerged in water. Once done they shoukd be hand washed and cleaned. They'll last decades that way. The mercer has a more premium steel but a cheaper feeling handle. I love both but this one is a bit heavier and i enjoy it. I put them in the same category of quality and love them both equally but for different reasons.

I didn't expect too much for what I paid. What I received has surprised me. I have a serviceable piece of steel here. It came fairly sharp by my standards but some honing and stropping placed it just shy of razor sharp with little effort. It is quite light and thin which is making it very easy to use. I dice a lot of the time and this type of blade allows me to scoop up large amounts of food and keep on cutting. The fit and finish were lacking a bit. I expected a stamped steel blade with a welded on handle. I got that. I expected rough edges. I got those. I expected an uneven grind and that the blade "sweep" would not be a nice uniform arc. That, too, was received. What I did not expect was to have a relatively large chip/defect in the blade. It is serviceable because it is wide and not deep, otherwise, this would be a return. This was an obvious defect. I possess the skills to fix it and it will be fixed in my profiling the blade further to my needs anyway so it doesn't bother me as much as it might someone expecting to just use this knife with some minor honing. My rating is based on cost/benefit analysis. Unless I find that this blade dulls after every 5 cuts, I can consider this a 4 star purchase with one star deducted for the chip that should not be. I do not believe that many will be able to be that generous if the quality fails in that respect. I spent maybe 25 minutes on this blade and it can shave paper and already weighed almost nothing in my hand compared to some other knives I use. This would be an excellent product to try out and see if you like a chinese chef's knife without breaking the bank. This is about the thickness you need to glide through cuts like all the videos you may have seen. Update 15Jan2016: I took a dremel, file, diamond sharpener, stone and hone to the knife a long time ago now. It's one of the sharper knives in my set, not the sharpest yet but I haven't given it years of care like my sharpest. I still say if you can get a good one up front you won't be disappointed as long as you can sharpen the knife yourself. Otherwise, keep shopping. I might come back in a bit and report on edge retention, I really haven't payed attention to that much and I sharpen my knives a lot as a past time.

Nice cleaver, sharp and very good value . This is everyday use knife in our commecial kitchen.

I was tired of spending so much time cutting whole chickens or foods with bones, but this cleaver made everything so much easier! It’s surprisingly light and very practical — now I even use it for cutting vegetables and meats. I can do everything so much faster now! Definitely a great addition to my kitchen!

This is best $10 I have ever spent on a knife. (Update, you can do better...) Better bang for the buck than many nice, upmarket knives I have picked up, or any of the many Japanese knives I have bought this year - and I have spent at least $1500 on knives. I am a professional cook, and I have several sets of knives at home and for taking to work. While this is in a completely different league than a Japanese steel knife (or even a fancy German knife), this one is not at all about the steel. I think it's perfect for a line knife. It really is perfect, the profile is great, and it's simple enough to be a good tool. It's so cheap you can really use it. Unlike aogami super, you can leave it out - wet, whatever. Though everyone will think you paid much more. The wooden handle is not ideal for the Sani but I run it. You won't get mad at anyone who picks this up, and it is beautiful enough that they will. At my work we have nakiris from Mercer, Wustof, Miyabi, a bunch of santokus from fancy brands, house knives, and personal knives with nice steel like VG-10, MBS-26 or knives from MAC and other Japanese manufacturers. While the grain of this steel seems nice, it is not hard or wear resistant, it is very tough and German style. It's will take a 1200-2000 grit edge and stay sharp through a prep session. If you are caught up in Shun marketing, or want a Japanese laser, don't buy this. The steel in this knife is Chinese garbage and it definitely won't hold a fine edge even through a bag of Brussels sprouts. That said, its price is less than the labor I would charge someone to sharpen most knives. Especially compared to harder steel this has low edge retention, but it is perfect for anyone who knows how to use a ceramic sharpening rod. This cheap steel will punch way above its weight class if you're willing to hone a knife as part of your mise en place. If you sharpen your knives all the time and are looking for a nakiri, you'll love this. You won't ever worry about chipping, you can re-profile the edge in a few minutes, and it will get razor sharp very quickly. If you don't sharpen don't bother, it will get very dull very quick and you'll have no fun. I would say it's profile is almost identical to the cheap mercer nakiris. Best $10 Nakiri out there. The best knife out there, dollar for dollar, would probably be a Mercer.

This is a great cleaver. Is it as good as a $100 cleaver from CKTG? No. Will it get sharper than an expensive cleaver or hold it's edge as well? No. does it come pretty close though for the price? Definitely. Do you mind throwing it on the sharpeners or stones recklessly given the price? not at all. It's a great workhorse. I've found myself using it in favor of the rest of my hundreds of dollars of knives. It's fast, it can slap, dice, rock, pound, scoop up all sorts of foods. Does just about everything but bones. I don't have much of a need to chop bones though. you could honestly get by with just this, and a bread knife, and if I for some reason really really wanted to hack through bones you could get a heavy cleaver. But really who does that except people in environments where they are trying to prep really really fast? I always pop joints out and cut through the soft spots... I'm not a bone hacker type. It has a great shape to it and it holds it's edge well enough for general use. If you're a serious chef you might want to consider getting the stainless or not stainless ones from CKTG around $80 but for nightly dinner use this is a steal.

This is what mine looks like after whole lot modification. I finally got it thinned enough where it can cut and has bit finesse. As it came from pkg, it had sharp edge, but so chunky above the edge, took lot effort to use it. Cracked carrots rather than cut them and wedge trying to make horizontal cuts when dicing an onion. A knife that wedges in food will feel duller sooner, even if the actual edge is sharp. As you can see, I am also not big fan of the bow type edge curve on cheaper vegetable cleavers. The way I changed it more like traditional western Sabatier type knife edge. This fits my style of cutting better. I am only giving it 3 star cause few people are prepared for this kind effort. Heck people are complaining they actually have to sharpen it and round over the spine and choil, they sure arent ready to do extensive thinning of the blade. And yea, it could use yet more thinning. But at least I consider it usable now. And by way for those thinking this is carbon steel, NO, its stainless, I would hazard a guess at some variation of 420. Real carbon steel is defined to have less than 10% chromium in it and will rust at drop of a hat if you leave it wet for any serious amount time. Also will stain/patina from acid foods. Has to be washed and dried with towel when you are done cutting with it. Now traditional carbon steel holds an edge better than stainless, well most stainless. But takes more maintenance. I also am not impressed with the short tang and handle only attached via friction, no epoxy, no rivet/pin. Probably best thing you could do when you get it is to knock the handle off and put epoxy in the hole and then put it back together and let it cure. But new out of package, the handle seems pretty firm with no wobble. Winco knows better too. Look at their KWP-100 knife. https://www.amazon.com/Winco-USA-KWP-100-Stal-Cutlery/dp/B00ZVUOUSW Full flat grind and distal tapering. Thats how you make a functional chef knife. If you want a project or if you have a professional belt grinder so modification is trivial, then its good enough steel to be serviceable. I dont have a pro grinder, but I do know how to use an angle grinder to good effect. At time writing this review, I have smoothed it even further on my mini belt sander. Nice thing is, for $13, you can take some risks, if you completely ruin it (unlikely), well you are out $13, big whoop. Small update, I am adding pics of choil and spine. Shows how much I have thinned it. Not easy getting a choil shot that shows up in picture. Least not with my phone and its mediocre camera. I did thin the Winco one more time. Noticeably less weight than it had. I am probably close to what a normal #4 vegetable cleaver would be like, though they tend to be a bit shorter. Oh and I sharpened the end edge. Some have traditionally done this to nakiri and Chinese cleavers, more to let them function as a spatula I think than actual cutting. But I had to experiment and yes standing cleaver on its end and rocking it, you can finely cut small stuff. I doubt I will do that much but it was interesting. Never heard of anybody doing that before. It definitely now cuts much like a chef knife would be expected to cut. Not sure if thinning it further would really gain much. Its the right weight at this point for me so probably wouldnt want to remove much more metal. Anyway yes the Winco can definitely be made to cut like a $50 knife. But you earn it, it takes lot effort. Well unless you own a high dollar high speed pro belt grinder that can remove metal very fast. Can of course be done with a coarse whet stone or sandpaper wrapped around a flat iron bar, but take LONG time. Took long enough with angle grinder using first grinding wheel, then coarse flapper disk. I did finish the edge using whetstone. Oh and if you use power tools, especially something like an angle grinder, you want to frequently dip blade in bucket water to protect the temper of your blade. It generates heat lot faster than you would think.