Buying knives

Does everyone/anyone here use the "pinch grip/chef's grip" when using medium or large knives? (gripping the heel of the blade with thumb and forefinger). I always do and it's started to annoy me that very few knives are designed with this in mind.

So, I finally treated myself to a nice knife from Japan. Now, people will think I'm bonkers but the first thing I did was take my electric sander to the handle and I put in a bevel for the thumb. I'm really pleased with the result, it looks and feels great! It's an asymmetric handle, anyway so it seems to suit it. It just wasn't that comfortable for me before modifying it, now I love the handle. Definitely no regrets. I'm not 100 sure about the finish on the blade. We'll see how it ages. The style is a kiritsuke.

This is the Chinese knife. It's surprisingly good for fine delicate chopping.

I'm going to pick up one of the coarse ones. I bought a set of stones but there's nothing between 220 and 1000. 220 seems very coarse for sharpening rather than repairing and 1000 takes forever on a dull knife. I think the 400/800 will fill this gap nicely.

So I've gotten the bug and have become obsessed with my sharpening stones and knife sharpness.

So, we've had this very old carving set that belonged to my wife's grandfather. It was always just thrown in the drawer and not used much so I decided to give it some (rough) love. I noticed that from years of poor sharpening it had a concave dip in the edge towards the hilt. I'm a moment of madness, I took my electric sander to the blade, took out the dip, then created a new edge with my stones. I'm really happy with how it turned out - considering I've never done anything like this before. I didn't polish up the blade - I like its history. I also, finally, put up a knife rack.

I've ordered a 3 inexpensive peeling knives. 2 Robert Herder and one Kai.

Thank you. I hadn't thought about that.

Edit: but, unfortunately, the magnetic strip I have is pretty rubbish (bought in Lidl years ago, I think) and the magnets aren't strong enough to hold the knives on without the handle resting on the top (apart from my Japanese knives which sticks firm for some reason). I might get a couple of strong magnets and countersink them onto the front.

I have a levelling stone, yes. I flatten the stones each time I use them.

I didn't like the varnished finish on the new little Kai knife handle so I sanded it off and oiled it 😊