Winco Blade Chinese Cleaver w/ wooden handle – blade 8”x3 ½” overall length 12 ½”

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.

[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.

For the money, it's an excellent heavy cleaver. I was intrigued by the idea of using a cleaver for chopping vegetables. Unfortunately, this cleaver is heavier and thicker than I thought it would be. That's the problem with buying online, you can't really know how something feels from pictures. I've only used it once, but it was enough to convince me I won't be using it for veggies or pretty much any prep work. Chef knives or Santoku knives are far better for that. It's sharp, but it's almost impossible to do fine work with it because it's too unwieldy. Did I mention how heavy it is? It's a meat cleaver. Seriously, unless you're hacking chicken carcasses apart, buy something else.

My first Winco cleaver was not used much before I moved 1,500 miles from my storage unit. It was sharp. This one needs sharpening. Darn! All of my sharpening equipment is also 1,500 miles away. I saw a video with a Chinese guy cutting through carrots, onions, etc. without much effort, so it just needs tuned. For the price it is an amazing value. Since this is for my personal use I haven't used it for long lengths of time, so the weight, balance and comfort aren't an issue for me. I wear large size gloves so one size fits none is the rule that best applies.As an electrician who had extremely large hands. He used a couple different sizes of heat shrink to add girth to his "Kleins." (The "Kleins" are Klein Tools D2000-9NE Side Cutter Linemans Pliers the pliers also called side cutters.If you need a bigger handle, this Idea could help.