New West Knife Works(8")
Super Bread Fusion 2.0
Kitchen Knife Review

Feedback from other users

What was more interesting is that other users didn't seem to be bothered with the issues I was. I am referring to some of the ingredients ending up between the wave crests and therefore having to drag the blade on the board to make complete cut. Nor were the as picky about the force needed to make the cut. Again, that made sense too, since majority of the people are not used to using kitchen knives with 5° per side edges on them, and should I have given them one of those super thin edged knives to work with the results would've been disastrous, for the knife and potentially for its user as well. In other words, as it is, for average kitchen knife user Super Bread is more familiar tool and they do feel more comfortable with it vs. super thin edged knives. To summarize, wave edge was a bigger problem to me than to them. To be fair, they were not attempting to do translucent slices either :)

Finally, the last feedback point, or to be precise, my observation of the Super Bread use, was its edge durability. I mentioned above, I am cautious as to which knives from my kitchen collection non knife folks can use, I don't want neither damaged edges nor fingers. Therefore, 64HRC and above blades are out of question, except when someone is slicing boneless piece of meat on the suitable board. For veggies and general food prep I have a few knives with higher edge survivability which include Phil Wilson chef's knife, Tojiro Flash Santoku, Trace Rinaldi TTKK, and few other things. Normally, Tojiro ends up with a chip or two after similar use. Wilson Chef's knife has a very thin edge, and it's almost at the max for CPM154 steel it is made of - 61HRC. Still, I can detect occasional roll, but no chipping. TTKK has much thicker edge, and withstands a lot of abuse. Super Bread fits somewhere in between of all that. Its edge is relatively thin, because it is chisel ground. The users were not particularly gentle with it, and the only break Super Bread actually has was that it was always used on some sort of board(different types of wood, or hard rubber), as opposed to granite tops and glass boards which happen all too often in an average kitchen.

Long story short, not a single chip after several weeks of use by so many people, and the only rolls were on the edge wave crests, as they're the ones being almost in constant contact with the board. As far as edge durability goes Super Bread performed very well. As with other serrated knives, crests bear the brunt of the load and wave troughs stay relatively intact. In the end, if you are not demanding thin and super sharp edges, then that type of serrated edge provides usable edge for a while. Still, there are no miracles and eventually everything dulls, how fast it dulls depends on the ingredients you cut and your own cutting techniques and habits. I did have to sharpen Super Bread few times during the test trails, but a) it is fairly easy to sharpen to a serviceable edge; b) no chipping means no need to remove large amounts of metal from the edge to repair the chipped parts, i.e. longer edge life and again, faster sharpening.

Conclusions

Now, I do realize, there are not that many people out there with 40+ custom, individually picked knives in their kitchen blocks. And on top of that, I am not a pro cook either, which means I don't have to cut as much, as often and as wide of a variety of ingredients. I don't worry about harsh pro kitchen environment and so on. So, if you are like me, with substantial kitchen knife arsenal, probably NWKK Super Bread isn't for you, but then again, you may like design and make it 51st knife in your kitchen knives collection, who knows. Where Super Bread knife succeeds, I think it is with average kitchen knife user audience. Like I said more than once in this review, even though I wasn't super excited about Super Bread Fusionwood handles, all of the ladies who handled or saw it, liked it. I figure it's always good when the product stands out in a way that doesn't make someone cringe :) Another success was the edge durability. Average kitchen knife user is far more abusive on the edge than me. Not out of malice, but because knives aren't as important, lack of experience, or knowledge, and any combination of all of the above.

Point is, after almost 3 months of use by several users, I never found a single chip on the edge, which was a remarkable result. I do sharpen kitchen knives for all of the users once in an while and I know all too well how they use them, definitely none of them are pampering their knives like I do. Blade profile is rather unconventional, but it is versatile enough to make a decent general purpose knife on top of being a good bread knife. Again, based on other users feedback, they were happy using in various roles and according to them it was sharp and it could handle tough cutting chores with ease. I suppose, serrated pattern does have something with those assessments, but still, feedback from different people was pretty much uniform. The handle also received commendations, for being comfortable, that obviously is a plus, regardless of its looks, but handle comfort and balance are very subjective factors.

So, given all that, I think it's a pretty good choice as one do it all knife for a person who isn't as demanding on his or her knives as I am. That'd be a vast majority of kitchen knife users out there, probably lots of chefs amongst them as well. While Super Bread does have a geometry and thin blade which is a lot closer to Japanese Knives than to western ones, there's still that wave edge which is cutting quite aggressively. As far as hardness goes, it's also quite high compared with traditional western knives, and while hardness alone is not a measurement of every aspect of the performance, still the simple fact is, harder steel translates into thinner edges, and if the alloy can support is, you won't get chipping either. As I mentioned in sharpening and usage sections, Super Bread did survive all those users without a single chip, which is an achievement in my book :)

As for the pro cooks, I dunno, not being one, kindda hard to judge, but frankly, I see so many cooks on TV using complete junk starting with Rachel Ray and her atrocious Furi knives, that I can't imagine any of them going wrong by replacing their stuff with CPM S35V quality knife :) Well, I guess nobody will pay them for that. In short, I am not sure how much useful Super Bread with its wave edge will be in a pro kitchen for a pro chef, but it will definitely cut longer and better than many of the standard choices.

So, there you go, I gave you what I think are pros and cons, and the rest is up to you, if you like the design, and the price seems right, then go for it. At almost 300$ price, it certainly is not a budget knife, but I've paid a lot more for far more specialized knives and will do that again, as long as I like the knife. As always, the final decision is yours :)