Gone Fishin’… well, ok, not really fishin’…

So, one of the challenges of having a store – online or otherwise – is taking time off. One of the benefits of the online store is that it can run itself for a few days when I need to get a little R&R… Such is the case as it is time for my summer vacation. I'll be closed from July 1st through July 15th…

While I am gone, I hang the “Gone Fishin’…” sign up on Corrado Cutlery and Clubman Online. If you would like to place an order you may do so and it will ship upon my return. Please be aware that any expedited shipping such as 2 Day or Next Day will not go out until I am back. So you may want to keep it to Ground and Priority Mail.

Thanks and see you soon…

This stuff ain’t cheap !

There is one unavoidable fact about high quality cutlery products… they ain’t cheap! Some merchants will try to side step the issue or gloss it over. I don’t do that. I don’t want to insult your intelligence. There are reasons why good cutlery is expensive and, one of the more challenging aspects about selling it, is explaining not only why it’s expensive but also why it is in your best interest to still buy it. Manicure sets are a great example…

High quality, German manicure sets from Dovo/Solingen can easily run you $200-$400. Each piece in the set has a cost (one or two nippers, one or two scissors, tweezers, files, etc…) and together they add up. Add to that the cost of a high grade leather case (and the exchange rate of dollars for Euros) and you’ve got a bit of an investment going. That’s the thing, though, you are making an investment… an investment in products that are going to work better and last longer – much longer…

It can be confusing when you look at a high end piece of cutlery and a knock off from a distance. They look similar. Once you get them in your hand and start using them, though, is where the similarity ends. Less expensive tools can seem more economical at first but when you factor in the reality that they don’t last and you have to replace them two or three times over the life span of a quality tool (and they don’t work as well to begin with) the cheaper ones don’t seem so economical after all…

(to be continued…)

What Makes A Good Kitchen Knife? part 3 – The Anatomy of Kitchen Knives…

Here is a brief overview of the parts on a kitchen knife… first there are two basic methods of making kitchen knives: forged blades and stamped blades. Forged blades are blanks of steel that are heated and then hammered into their rough shape. Forged knives have a bolster (thicker part of blade) between the blade and the handle which gives the knife better weight and balance and offers protection to keep the hand from sliding up onto the blade. Stamped knives are made from a sheet of steel and the blade shape is stamped out of it (as with a big cookie cutter). They do not have bolsters and are generally lighter (and less expensive) than forged knives.

The main parts of the knife are:

• Butt – end of the handle, usually flared to assist in safe and controlled handling of knife…


• Handle – material that gives grip to knife. Handles can be slabs held to tang with rivets (and bonding or can be molded…


• Heel – rear part of the blade. On thicker, heavier knives (such as Cook’s Knives) helps to cut through thicker foods…


• Spine – top of blade, opposite the edge…


• Point – very tip of blade, for piercing…


• Tip – front part of blade behind the point, does most of the cutting…


• Edge – sharp portion of the blade extending from the heel to the point…


• Bolster – thick portion of blade on a forged knife where the blade meets the handle. Provides weight, balance and stability…


• Tang – rear end of the blade extending into handle. The longer the tang the better the balance and stability of the knife. The best knives have a “full” tang…

At Corrado Cutlery, I sell the best forged knives (Wusthof-Trident) and the best stamped knives (Victorinox)...

(to be continued…)

Are you ready for your close-up?

The most common and popular type of magnifier are 2X handheld/reading lenses. The single best seller is the Bausch & Lomb Rectangular Reader. With a 4” x 2” lens, this design makes it easy to read columns in books and newspapers and at 2X they greatly aid in reading by making the text larger without losing too much field of view. The “Rec Reader” also has a stabilizing edge grip allowing you to use both hands to keep it steady.

The B & L Round Series are also 2X and, unlike the rectangular design which is better for reading, the round design lets you see more of what you are looking at such as a map or a picture. They also include a 5X bi-focal insert that lets you get close up to make out small details where field of view is not as important. Both the round and rectangular designs have ergonomic, soft grip handles which are easy to grip.

Finally, the Bausch & Lomb 5X Aspheric Magnifier gives you extra magnification for when 2X just does not make things large enough. Also, while standard lenses can get a little distorted at the edges, the aspheric lens brings crisp clarity for the entire field of view including around the edges…

(to be continued…)

You smell… good!

A funny thing happened to me after I decided to close Corrado Cutlery’s “brick & mortar” stores in 2004. About a year before that, as I was analyzing what was selling on the previous version of CorradoCutlery.com, I noticed that I was selling a LOT of Pinaud-Clubman products online. This spawned the idea that someday I might want to have a website just for Clubman which, in turn, led to a little late-night domain name browsing.

As I asked myself “what would be a good domain name for Clubman online?” it wasn’t too long before the Homer Simpson-esque “Doh!” came to me and I surfed over and bought www.ClubmanOnline.com... I stuck the name in my pocket and proceeded to forget about it as I went about the business of trying to keep a great old specialty store open during the worst recession in memory (up until that time anyway).

Fast forward to 2005… after closing Corrado’s and taking a little break after 20+ years of retail… trying to decide what would make a good online business that I could do on the side to keep my toe in the retail waters… once again – “Doh!”… and, in the fall of 2005, Clubman Online opened its virtual doors to the world.  This happened at a time when more and more of the larger drug store chains were carrying less and less Clubman yet the demand was still high. As Corrado Cutlery started life as a barber supply it seems appropriate that Corrado’s next incarnation started as a result of trying to do its part in keeping a great old product available to a wide audience…

(to be continued…)

Don’t let your left hand know that your right hand stole the scissors…

Let’s talk more about true left-hand scissors…  As I mentioned last week, because hands are asymmetrical, they have a lateral movement when closing the fingers. So, in relation to operating scissors, the thumb pushes outward and the fingers pull inward.

Most scissors are designed for right hand use and the blades are set so that the motion of your hand pulls the blades together and aids the cutting process when closing them. Conversely, the same scissors used in the left hand, the blades get pushed apart and can hinder the cutting action – especially in lower quality scissors where the blades are not set tight enough. On right hand scissors that are shorter and set properly, they usually still cut well even if used in the left hand. Another issue of using right hand scissors in the left hand, is that the shearing edge is not fully visible and it makes it difficult to see the line you are cutting. True left hand scissors reverse all of this and the left hand pulls the blades together while the shearing edge stays visible.

Unfortunately, since roughly 85% of people are right handed, there is not nearly as wide a selection of good quality, true left hand scissors available. However, fortunately, Dovo/Solingen makes a very nice selection of top quality, true left hand scissors and, even more fortunately, Corrado Cutlery sells them!

(to be continued…)

Unless you’re Fu Manchu, I bet you’d like to trim those nails…

Being a guitar player, I know the value of well trimmed finger nails. It’s many a song that’s been disrupted by the loud and harsh twang of a nail catching on a string! That’s why you’ll  find a stainless steel Dovo/Solingen pocket nail clipper in my case as part of my standard equipment – right up there with extra strings...

The best pocket clippers are stainless (stays sharp longer) and have wide, reasonably long handles (better to grip and better cutting leverage). The thicker the nails the better leverage you need to cleanly clip. While larger clippers are often referred to and sold as toe nail clippers, if you have overly thick nails (hello, big toe), you will do better to use either a heavy duty toe nail scissors or large nail nipper for this task…

R.I.P. – The Normandy Nail Clip… for those not familiar, the Normandy Nail Clip is (was) a thin body nail clip with a unique design that kept it very flat when closed so that it was not bulky in pants pockets. An extremely popular design that was made in only one factory in France, it has officially been discontinued. To the best of my knowledge and information they are no longer available to buy new anywhere (unless someone has old stock) and there are no plans I am aware of to bring it back. If this changes, Corrado Cutlery will be first in line to sell them. (I would love to be wrong about this... If anyone has any different information please let me know)…

(to be continued…)

What Makes A Good Kitchen Knife ? part 3 – Fit & Finish or, if you’rehip, phit and phinnish…

It’s Knife Monday! Let’s talk fit and finish…

The  “fit and finish” of a knife refers to how well all of the pieces/parts of the knife fit together and are finished off. Are the handles attached solidly to the tang with no gaps? Are all the edges and joints smooth so they don’t cut into your hand? Is everything polished so that there aren’t any burrs along the edges? Can you see the grind lines of the blade? Are they clean and even? If the blade has a high polish or satin buff is the finish clean and even? (Note: we’ll go into what all these names mean next week when we talk about knife parts).

These attributes – along with high quality materials – are all part of the “good knife equation” which, for me, is this: if a knife is made out of quality materials (i.e. steel that takes and holds a good edge while being easy to maintain along with handle materials that are durable); and the fit and finish of the knife are good; and the weight and balance of the knife are solid… then you have a quality knife. After that, it comes down to personal preference of how a knife feels in your hand and the comfort level you have using it.

There are lots of good knives out there (and a lot more lousy ones). For myself - and Corrado Cutlery - I have narrowed it down to 2 brands which cover all the bases – Wusthof-Trident and Victorinox Swiss Army…

(to be continued…)

Power… sometimes too much is not a good thing…

There are 4 main criteria used in magnifiers: Power, field of view, focal length and depth of field…

Power (X) refers to how much bigger with the naked eye a magnifier makes what you are looking at seem. 2X for example doubles the size of an object. 3X triples it and so on. With magnification, bigger is not always better. While you see things larger the higher the power, you see less from side to side. This is referred to as the field of view. This is not as important if you are trying to read the date on a coin but if you are trying to read a column in a newspaper or book, it makes a big difference. Also, there is a point where type gets too large to read text smoothly. The rule of thumb is that you want pick the lowest power magnifier strength that allows you to read text. This will assure you the widest field of view.

Focal length is how far away from an object you have to bring the lens to get the clearest focus with the most magnification. The higher the power the closer you need to bring the lens (the shorter the focal length). Depth of field is the amount of play you have in bringing a lens toward or away from the object and keep it in focus. The power and the field of view are the most important aspects for most people when choosing a magnifying lens…

SAVE UP TO 33% ON ALL BAUSCH & LOMB MAGNIFIERS… ON SALE NOW AT CORRADO CUTLERY… sale ends 3/31/2011

(to be continued…)

Your face, your shave…

There’s an old joke about economists that says you can lay every one of them in the world end to end and they’d never reach an opinion! Well shaving is kind of like that. You can take 10 guys and hand them the same shaving gear and get 10 different opinions – and they’re all correct – for themselves. While the equipment they’re using may be the same there is one integral part of the equation that is different and that is their faces!

Every face is different and the blade that works well on one face may tear up the next one. The shave cream that soothes one face may irritate the next one… and so on. There are no absolutes in shaving (except that there are no absolutes in shaving, er, wait a minute?)… Then, just to make matters more complicated, our skin tone changes over time as we age so that when you think you have found the perfect shave, your face changes and what you were using doesn’t work so great anymore. This is one reason that the big shaving companies are so big -- man is constantly looking for a better shave.

While there are no absolutes, there are some statistical “strong possibilities” that I have noticed over the years and the #1 pattern that I have witnessed is that, once a guy starts using blades made by Merkur/Solingen, he rarely if ever changes back!...

(to be continued…)

Oh, you’re such a cut-up... (ok, sorry about that)…

Sorry but the cutlery jokes were going to have to start some time… you’re such a cut-up… I’m a little edgy… it’s a real slice… I could go on and on (and probably will over time)… So, it’s Scissors Wednesday. Let’s talk a little about why scissors cut…

Most people think scissors are just two sharp straight blades that close on each other and cut things. Not quite. Actually, if they were straight they wouldn’t cut at all, they would just pinch, because the blades wouldn’t be touching each other. Scissors blades are slightly bowed (bent) and slightly twisted (like me). This means that scissors blades are touching each other but only at one point where the blades are meeting. As you open or close the scissors that point moves – either towards the handle or the tip depending if you’re opening or closing.

Also, the blades are set in such a way so that the natural movement of your hand squeezes the blades together instead of pushing them apart (the thumb pushes out while the fingers pull in). This is why true left-hands scissors have the blades flipped opposite the way a right-hand scissors does. Otherwise lefties would push the blades apart. I bet there are a lot of lefties out there that never knew that’s why they’ve had such a hard time with most scissors…

(to be continued…)

Think outside the box (joint)…

There are two ways of joining the handles on nippers: box joints and lap joints. The less expensive method is the lap joint where the handles are pinned together near the jaw and pivot side by side. Over time and with multiple sharpenings, the lap joint can become loose and the edges of the jaw may not meet properly.

Box joints are where one handle has an opening near the jaw and the other handle is actually inserted through the opening. The handles are then pinned together. This method makes for a more sturdy design with precise action. With box joints the jaws will always meet in true fashion even after much use and many sharpenings.

Nippers are made of either chrome or nickel plated steel or high grade stainless steel. Unlike kitchen knives, nippers are not generally exposed to moisture for long periods of time so, while stainless steel holds the edge longer, it is not as necessary as in knives. Plated nippers can also be of good quality and last many years while offering a more affordable alternative. Dovo/Solingen makes great nippers in both box and lap joints either plated or stainless…

(to be continued…)

What Makes A Good Kitchen Knife ? Part 2 – To stain or not to stain…

Very basically, here are some principles of cutlery steel:

• Hardness: a knife blade has to be hard enough to hold an edge but, if it is too hard, it becomes brittle and can break or chip easily. The correct hardness of the steel is achieved through “tempering”. Simply put, tempering is a process of heating the steel to a precise, high temperature and then cooling it quickly by quenching the blade in liquid. The hardness of cutlery steel is measured on the Rockwell scale which ranges between 0-100. A good kitchen knife usually comes in around the high 50’s on the Rockwell scale…

• “Stainless” steel vs. Carbon steel: carbon is the element in cutlery steel that allows it to be tempered. Carbon is also the element that makes a blade turn gray and causes rust. For most of history  - since steel was first invented - cook’s lived with gray, splotchy blades because that was the price of admission for a quality knife. After the first World War, a process that involved adding chromium to steel to make it “stain-free” was first applied to knives. These early attempts created blades that didn’t tarnish but were difficult to sharpen. The result was that early stainless steel developed a bad reputation (which some still, mistakenly, believe today ). However, science caught up in the 1950’s with the development of “high-carbon” stainless steel which holds the edge, can be resharpened and, with proper care, does not tarnish…

(to be continued…)

To see or not to see, that is the question…

Is it just me or did the print on everything suddenly get smaller in the last few years? I have definitely hit the age where making sure I have my reading glasses with me when I leave the house is as important as having my wallet! Thing is, it’s not just the clarity of the type it’s also the size of it and there are times I need to make it bigger. That’s where a quality magnifying glass becomes indispensable.

Both Carmen and Vic Corrado were photographers in the army and they brought their appreciation for good optics back to Corrado Cutlery with them. Over the years, Corrado’s has sold a variety of optical goods ranging from loupes and reading magnifiers to spotting and astronomical telescopes. Today, I’m pleased to continue in this tradition with a full line of Bausch & Lomb reading and specialty magnifiers.

As our ongoing conversation evolves, I will talk about optical basics and terms – “what’s 2X mean?!” and so on. Just like with good cutlery, optics is a subject that you can go into great detail about and the details can get very technical. However, just like you don’t have to be a metallurgist to understand and choose good cutlery, you don’t have to be an optician to pick an appropriate reading lens…

(to be continued…)

Man’s search for the best shave is as old as shaving…

Shaving… Pull up a chair, gather round. Meet me here every Thursday and we’ll get into the, seemingly, never ending subject of shaving. Razor-Nuts (remember, this is a loving reference!) are almost as passionate as Knife-Nuts (I can hear many now saying they are MORE passionate… let the debate begin!)…

Wikipedia says (so it must be true) that the first copper razors began to appear around 3000 BC and they credit Egyptian priests and Alexander the Great as being among the first to promote the idea of an aesthetic approach to hygiene – in the case of Alexander it was also to lessen the ability of beard grabbing in battle! Regardless of the origins, it’s clear that man’s obsession with a good shave has been with us for a long time.

Before razors were invented, men wanting to remove facial hair did so by plucking with the edges of two shells (apparently this also predates the invention of the tweezers!). Modern wet shaving began with the advent of the straight razor - or shaving knife - which was developed in 18^th century Sheffield, England. In 1901 King Camp Gillette invented the first safety razor with disposable blades (a stroke of marketing genius as men had to come back for more blades – thus he also invented the retail “loss leader” but that’s another story). In the 1960’s the twin blade cartridge razor made its debut putting two blades together to go across the skin one after the other giving a closer, more comfortable shave…

(to be continued…)