Mercer Culinary MX3 Premium San Mai VG-10 Steel Core Blade Petty Knife, 150mm 6 Inch,Black

This is my first petty knife.In the past I’ve used my chef and my paring knife to do just about everything, and while it worked, I did on quite a few occasions wish I had something a little larger than my paring knife but smaller than my chef knife to help me out.Enter the petty knife, it’s a jack of all trades, and master of none, perfect for minimalists or people who wan’t multipurpose knives!A petty knife can do work in the air and would be equally at home doing work on the cutting board. A little tip I can provide others when using petty knives on cutting boards is if you find that you don’t have enough knuckle clearance, just use the knife with the handle hanging off of the cutting board!Fit and finish on the knife was great, it’s got the same crowned spine as on the renaissance line, and also has a nice rounded choil.Out of the box edge was pretty good, I would go as far as to say perhaps better than my Mercer renaissance line of knives and closer perhaps to what you’d expect out of Japanese knives. I still took mines to my whetstones and put my own edge on it to assure the knife does not chip as easy as factory edges — and more specifically steels that harder such as VG-10, have a tendency to do that.VG-10 was easy to work with, taking a scary sharp edge, and maintains it for a good while when compared to my other chef knives, of which are either X50CRMOV15 or 1075 steel respectively.I like that handle and find the shape to not cause me any undue pain, or fatigue,and find that the blade height is just enough for me to not hit the cutting board ( I wear XL sized gloves )The profile of the knife reminds me a lot of my Tojiro gyuto, of which I love. Very versatile and capable. The tip is thin yet robust enough to not “easily” break if you take care not to do anything crazy. The tip also produces paper thin slices with proper technique.There are cheaper petty knives, however Mercers offering is unmatched when accounting for the steel used, profile, fit and finish, and price.I’ve found the profile of this knife lending itself very well to push cutting on the cutting board, that coupled with it’s acute blade grind and steel that allows for very good edge retention and sharpness really makes my cooking and prep very efficient and minimalistic in the sense that I typically only have to was nowadays my gyuto and petty, or even better when your doing smaller work, just my petty!What length should I get?I would say get the 150mm, as the other sizes in my opinion would be too close to a paring knife to really be more useful than one. A petty is a utility knife with petty just being the word the Japanese use for their utility knives, and with one in your arsenal, you may find yourself not needing your larger , and maybe even smaller kitchen knives when this petty will do just about everything you need day to day.In closing, I think a petty knife is a useful addition to any home cooks or professional’s arsenal, allowing for a lot of versatility, and also taking the place somewhat of more specialized knives. A paring knife knife is still useful, however you may find that a petty can do a fair amount of work a paring knife can do!EDIT: January 26, 2021: I’ve used it to debone a few steaks for stir fry and supreme a couple of citrus for guacamole. Worked fantastic and it didn’t chip one bit! Just a few swipes over my ceramic rod and it’s back in action.

I wish the rating scale was 1-10 because I would put this at 7. The fit and finish are excellent for a mid range knife company, but the factory edge was mediocre. The core steel is out of center to the point I had to thin the tip to be able to sharpen it, but other than that this thing is a hammer. It went 1 week under heavy professional kitchen use and was still shave sharp in some spots. If you're on the fence, just do it.

I somehow scored this knife for $54 on Amazon (I swear it had to have been a price mistake, but they shipped it to me). For that price, and even it's usual price, it's a fantastic knife. Beautifully made, very sharp and has held an edge well, thin enough for delicate sliding and amazingly well balanced. All of my knives are mercer though most are cheaper Genesis models, this MX3 series is a clear step up from the Genesis and a lovely knife to work with.

Worth every penny I spent keeps an excellent edge and sharpens really quickly on the stones

Delivered in April 2022, the knife worked fine until my wife was cutting through meat that was still partially frozen in the middle. Crack went the knife as a chunk of metal separated from the blade. Has anyone ever seen VG-10 steel react this way to some resistance from cutting food, albeit somewhat frozen in the center? I have never seen a higher quality knife behave like a cheap copy would. How could this be a genuine product with such a brittle blade? At worst I would expect the edge to roll or flatten a bit, and then could be sharpened back to normal. Do not buy from this retailer, as you could get a fake like this.

Don't shy away from this knife because of all of the free product reviews. It is a great knife. This blade is razor sharp out of the box andHolds an edge very well, plus it requires minimal effort to sharpen. I am not a chef but wanted a knife a real chef would use. It's made my nightly cooking experience a pleasure. Slicing, dicing, mincing, and deboning is a breeze!I was fortunate enough to get this blade on sale for under $100 on Amazon!

Good

I loved the VG10 steel. It keeps its edge for a long time and also resharpens well.