Review on Mercer Culinary Damascus 6 Piece Handles by Linda Porter

This is a really good knife set. Over the last year I have tried several knives to find the "perfect" knife for me. I like doing prep work in the kitchen when I have a big job, which usually falls around the holidays. Not that often for me. Knives used to be either sharp but uncomfortable in the hand, unbalanced, or dull quickly. Each knife comes in a beautiful felt storage box. The chef's knife is the main item I'm most worried about here, as it's the one I'll be using the most. The grip feels comfortable and grips while still feeling balanced in my hand. I don't know much about the types of steel that work best, but from what I've read the quality here is pretty good and perfect. The main feature of this set is the magnetic board. Two reasons why it doesn't work. First, the magnet is weak. The weight of the knife makes it slide. Even the smaller and lighter dual knife doesn't have enough magnetic force to stick well enough. So when all the knives are lined up, they slide and hit each other, eventually creating a domino effect. Another reason is that at the hilt it increases from blade to hilt by the thickness of the hilt and not by a protrusion. This smooth section rolls past the wooden batten under its own weight until it no longer sticks to the board. So overall it wasn't designed with that knife in hand, and instead they just got a generic, mass-produced magnetic board to include in the kit and hoped for the best. Hence I deducted a star. The set contains 5 knives: chef's, vegetable, bone, bread and utility knives. Honestly, I don't need a bread knife. First, I don't eat a lot of bread, and it's not often that I buy a whole loaf that doesn't do well enough with other knives. I don't need a boning knife as most meat dishes are prepared ahead of time. So I'll probably use a utility knife as a secondary utility knife and a paring knife for small prep jobs, and sometimes I use it for groceries. This does not detract from the quality or that someone else will find a permanent use for all knives, so my need for them has not been removed from the overview. So all in all a good set of knives, minus the magnetic board. . It says hand wash only, so don't put it in the dishwasher, otherwise the blade will dull faster. They are sharp and fit my hand well when I'm cutting, giving me a nice smooth cut that also allows me to make "swinging" movements. For me, designing knives from Damascus steel is one way or the other, except from an aesthetic point of view I see no advantage in it. If you are looking for a good set I would recommend them. They offer kits with different combinations if you don't need them all.