Here's the update based on the knife's first outing.
Saturday afternoon "the posse" and I went to Perkins just to have lunch and chat. I took the chunky knife with me for the test.
I decided to order a "typical American meal." Several slices of turkey white meat, baked potato, stuffing, peppered corn, and of course dark thick gravy--afagado.
I would call the outing a 99% success. Yes, considering the size of the blade it was a tad overkill. And of course I showed the thing no mercy. It got soaked in butter, gravy and salt and it was slid mercilessly across the plate. It might seem odd, but a pristine bevel across a china plate is an edge killer.
And that was part of the problem.
While the edge was (on my scale) between scary and spooky*, the edge was missing that final crispness to cleanly slice through the potato skin. Yes, it sliced through meat and the potato itself, but just slid right across the skin--several times.
I think the problem was with me and my usual standard. I have a bad habit of putting a perfect mirror edge on everything--and let's face it, that's not always needed or wanted. A slightly 'toothy' edge might have grabbed slippery, gravy soaked skin better.
It might have also dulled faster across the plate.
I'm up it the air here. It's 'just' 440C steel. It's not super hard, in fact with a basic Edge Pro 400 series waterstone I could actually shape the bevel. Seat of my pants puts that at Rc 57, certainly no more. In other words "better than a railroad track, but a line-drive away from a Graham Razel."
Perhaps it needed a bit more refinement. I mirror finished it again this afternoon.
If it slides more, I'll scale back the polishing to a somewhat matte' finish and try again. Tomorrow I'll dig around for some colby cheese and a stick of sausage.
I must say I'm disappointed.
*Biker scale--dull, utility, sharp, very sharp, scary, spooky, toasty.