ナイフ
January 2, 2019 8:40 AM   Subscribe

 
Previously: sharpest jello kitchen knife in the world
posted by 1970s Antihero at 8:49 AM on January 2, 2019 [2 favorites]


They should really rename this series "Will It Shiv?"
posted by Strange Interlude at 8:59 AM on January 2, 2019 [34 favorites]


These show up in my Youtube recommendations all the time, probably because I love videos of people making things and cooking things. My favorite part is how they present each as if it's just the latest in a totally normal category -- "sharpest jello knife in the world", as if jello knives are totally common.
posted by tocts at 9:12 AM on January 2, 2019 [4 favorites]


Wonderful. I heartily commend this needless activity.
posted by Capt. Renault at 9:12 AM on January 2, 2019 [2 favorites]


I have a fairly sharp marshmallow knife, and a knife made from dried cow feces, which truth be told, is rather dull. However, I'm still confident that they are the sharpest such knives in the world, and will continue to be so for the--Oh, no, it's Kiwami Japan, my knife status is in ruins!

Seriously though, this guy is incredible. The smoke one is perhaps the most ridiculously amazing. His restoration of rusty old knives are highly satisfying.
posted by skewed at 9:22 AM on January 2, 2019 [2 favorites]


There's never a comparison. We don't know if it's really the sharpest!

The series should clearly be renamed "I've made that knife."
posted by explosion at 9:23 AM on January 2, 2019 [4 favorites]


Knife Made of Smoke is some high grade late '90s fantasy M.U.D. nonsense. If I close my eyes I can see the violent blinking ANSI colorization.
posted by idiopath at 9:25 AM on January 2, 2019 [6 favorites]


I love this both for the inherent goofiness and as a practical demonstration of the importance of knife sharpening.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:26 AM on January 2, 2019 [4 favorites]


If you can’t make something knife, don’t make anything at all.
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:40 AM on January 2, 2019 [6 favorites]


Primitive Stone Kitchen Knife is an interesting variation on the theme.
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 9:41 AM on January 2, 2019 [1 favorite]


My favorite thing about these videos is the increasingly absurdist relationships the person has with his water pitcher and all the cucumbers.
posted by backseatpilot at 9:42 AM on January 2, 2019 [10 favorites]


The cow pitchers!
posted by ellieBOA at 10:05 AM on January 2, 2019 [7 favorites]


Something about this reminds me of Peter Freuchen
posted by anadem at 10:05 AM on January 2, 2019


Now I know what the ex was thinking when she said I was not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
posted by AugustWest at 10:18 AM on January 2, 2019 [4 favorites]


I love the yak shaving in the cardboard one where he's just so mad at the poorly designed soap dispenser he needs to fix it immediately.

a knife made from dried cow feces

Isn't there something in a Neal Stephenson book where we talks about an Inuit elder who is left on an ice floe to die and decides he doesn't want to just yet so he makes a knife out of his own frozen poop and then proceeds, Pickle Rick style, to make his way back to the village?
posted by gwint at 10:25 AM on January 2, 2019 [3 favorites]


Also, I'd love to take a Materials Science course based just on taking stuff and getting them into knife form.
posted by gwint at 10:26 AM on January 2, 2019 [2 favorites]


This is the best youtube channel ever.
posted by runcibleshaw at 10:32 AM on January 2, 2019


I kinda wanna have the "random material turned into knives" guy in a steel cage match with the "random things in a hydraulic press" guy.
posted by hanov3r at 10:37 AM on January 2, 2019 [3 favorites]


I watched the milk knife video without sound for a while and was starting to suspect it was all a put-on, as milk kept getting mixed with various fluids and cooked down to a white goo but nothing ever approached knife form. Six minutes in it became clear that he was experimenting with multiple possible milk knife concoctions. It also became clear there were 15 minutes to go in the video, and I had to get back to work. :(
posted by ejs at 10:40 AM on January 2, 2019 [3 favorites]


I kinda wanna have the "random material turned into knives" guy in a steel cage match with the "random things in a hydraulic press" guy.

What’s this? Jumping into the ring, it’s—it can’t be! Ladies and gentlemen, it’s Red Hot Nickel Ball Guy!! Sweet mother of mercy, what a match!!
posted by ejs at 10:42 AM on January 2, 2019 [14 favorites]


"Add 1 1/2 cows of water"
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:47 AM on January 2, 2019 [5 favorites]


OK, that smoke one is out of fucking control. A home made vacuum former? A Four Treasures demo?? Utterly amazing.
posted by gwint at 10:48 AM on January 2, 2019 [3 favorites]


His video channel must be amazingly lucrative for him to afford all those expensive ultra-super-duper-fine-grade whetstones. (#12,000? #30,000?? bloody hell)
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:59 AM on January 2, 2019 [1 favorite]


Fascinating. They must love this ”let me show you how to make a knife out of soot/cardboard/anything else” guy at airport security.
posted by Termite at 11:15 AM on January 2, 2019 [2 favorites]


These show up in my Youtube recommendations all the time

Me too! Which is why I've avoided clicking on them until now, although I might be tempted to watch them in an incognito window. I also tend to watch a lot of maker-ish folks and culinarians, so maybe cardboard knives just fit the venn-diagram between these groups.

Now explain all the damn airplane and MMA videos in my suggested feed. I honestly couldn't care less about either of these categories but have a hunch that following video links from this website may contribute to that.
posted by St. Oops at 11:35 AM on January 2, 2019


Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like the smoke knife is structurally more of a soot-colored homemade animal glue knife.
posted by mubba at 11:53 AM on January 2, 2019 [11 favorites]


“I ate it.”
posted by greermahoney at 11:55 AM on January 2, 2019


Disappointing in that the first video seemed, at the end, an Amazon branding exercise. Maybe they afforded him the whetstones, Greg_Ace?

Does this engineering wrongheadery appeal to techbros in a similar way that ML or algorhythmic editing does?
posted by BigBrooklyn at 12:23 PM on January 2, 2019


They must love this ”let me show you how to make a knife out of soot/cardboard/anything else” guy at airport security.

That explains the cardboard and milk detectors I had to use during my last flight.
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:33 PM on January 2, 2019 [2 favorites]


Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like the smoke knife is structurally more of a soot-colored homemade animal glue knife.

Yes... but the soot/smoke is essentially carbon... Which is the basis for say, "carbon fiber"...

IIRC, many glues come from (or used to) the rendering of animal proteins/bones... So, as a binding agent, this was pretty cool.

And - for some of these (cardboard), I wonder if the actual sharpness is helped by the multiple layers/folding with pressure applied.
posted by jkaczor at 12:34 PM on January 2, 2019 [1 favorite]


Heh, I have seen a few other videos from the same author - I find them relaxing and funny in a very calming way.

But... for some of these, my "engineers disease" always creeps in.... So many chemicals and wasted materials, someone gift this talented artist a really good 3d-printer ASAP... (Another instance of me missing the point completely about hand-made/crafted art/materials...)
posted by jkaczor at 12:43 PM on January 2, 2019


Isn't there something in a Neal Stephenson book where we talks about an Inuit elder who is left on an ice floe to die and decides he doesn't want to just yet so he makes a knife out of his own frozen poop and then proceeds, Pickle Rick style, to make his way back to the village?

It's from a Wade Davis lecture/book/etc. boing boing link.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 12:51 PM on January 2, 2019 [2 favorites]


I remember reading about the shitknife back in the late 70's in a Forbidden Knowledge comic by Last Gasp.
posted by davelog at 1:38 PM on January 2, 2019


Language trivia time! The loanword used as the post title (ナイフ/naifu) refers specifically to knives you wouldn’t use in a kitchen (like… well, a shiv), or maybe a butter knife. Strangely, food prep knives specifically use the word 包丁/hōchō in Japanese. (The word seems to make no sense in Japanese, to the point where at least one Japanese dictionary includes an explanation for native speakers of how the word came to be)
posted by DoctorFedora at 1:51 PM on January 2, 2019 [8 favorites]


They must love this ”let me show you how to make a knife out of soot/cardboard/anything else” guy at airport security.

We all have to hope the terrorists aren’t patient enough to make knives out of smoke.
posted by chavenet at 2:18 PM on January 2, 2019 [1 favorite]


The level of dedication and attention to detail is astounding.
posted by slogger at 2:23 PM on January 2, 2019


The cleanliness of the workspaces in these videos is astounding, especially considering how experimental the ... uhh, "forging" process is for all these knives.

It shouldn't be surprising, given what I know and have experienced in Japan, but still...
posted by Enkidude at 7:15 PM on January 2, 2019


There's never a comparison. We don't know if it's really the sharpest!

I feel that if he took all the trouble to make the knives, I can trust his appraisal of their sharpness without needing to see his proof. Also, he shows us how it's done so we could check ourselves if we really want to verify his ranking.
posted by xigxag at 9:01 PM on January 2, 2019


I feel that if he took all the trouble to make the knives, I can trust his appraisal of their sharpness without needing to see his proof. Also, he shows us how it's done so we could check ourselves if we really want to verify his ranking.

I don't think the question is about his ranking of cardboard vs. smoke vs. jello etc., but rather, is this really the world's sharpest jello knife? How do we know someone else hasn't built a sharper jello knife?
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 9:15 PM on January 2, 2019


Off the top of my head, that strikes me as an issue of very rapidly diminishing returns with little incentive to compete. Though I'm no expert on pop culture or monetizing a YouTube channel; so who knows, I could be way off-base.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:30 PM on January 2, 2019


But... for some of these, my "engineers disease" always creeps in...

The level of dedication and attention to detail is astounding.

"Look how many ways I can spend countless hours of effort reinventing an inferior wheel!"

I love knives, the sharpening thereof, and general tinkering, but this is some serious obsessive-compulsiveness resulting in a series of glue shivs.
posted by aspersioncast at 9:55 PM on January 2, 2019


Metafilter: A series of glue shivs
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:58 PM on January 2, 2019 [3 favorites]


Hmm, I recall Warren Ellis talking about the arctic shitknife in 200x, but I can't track down the reference.
posted by Pronoiac at 4:12 AM on January 3, 2019


Youtube suggested these videos to me a few months ago... and I was like, "Oh, I guess they do really know me."
Surprisingly interesting...
posted by ph00dz at 6:07 AM on January 3, 2019


I don't think the question is about his ranking of cardboard vs. smoke vs. jello etc., but rather, is this really the world's sharpest jello knife? How do we know someone else hasn't built a sharper jello knife?

"I am the tallest man in the world" is really more of a challenge than a statement of fact. It's up to the people who don't agree to point to someone taller.
posted by straight at 11:06 AM on January 3, 2019 [1 favorite]


If it was up to Youtube, I'd spend all day watching these, plus videos of street vendors making food, plus people making things on lathes (preferably after first intricately constructing some glued together composite material that becomes more interesting as it is cut away). Once in a while I'd be forced to watch something be crushed. Also baby animals. (note: no crushing baby animals)

...

They've been watching me this whole time, huh.
posted by tocts at 12:40 PM on January 3, 2019 [1 favorite]


the poopknife was real
posted by idiopath at 2:30 PM on January 4, 2019


Hah, I am at my volunteer job right now and the manager is watching these videos.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:57 AM on January 13, 2019


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