wooDsom Powerful Magnetic Knife Strip, Holder Made in USA (Walnut, 16 inches)

Was happy with various options, one picked is perfect and fit new custom knife set. Wood choices look great with knives.

I purchased the 20" version after reading all the glowing reviews, and I couldn't be more pleased. The butcher block version looks beautiful and I would imagine it would match with a variety of kitchen styles, given the variety of woods used. Permanent installation couldn't have been easier, but I did hope that I could get away with mounting it without drilling holes into my studs. I tried using 3M Command Strips, the kind you use to mount pictures and that are supposed to hold 6 lbs each, but although they stuck great to my wall (so great, in fact, that it pulled off a chunk of paint, even though I removed them correctly), they wouldn't stick to the knife strip, likely because the wood had been oiled. It stayed up fine when no knives were attached, which I tested for 2 weeks. I then added a pair of kitchen shears for a week, which held fine. Finally, I attached my Wusthoff santoku, and after a few days, I was awoken in the middle of the night to the sound of crashing glass and metal. I was bummed but unsurprised to find that the strip had fallen off the wall, knocked into my glass oil dispenser and there was a mess everywhere. That was on me - I had a feeling it was coming, but I had to test the limits.So, I bit the bullet and mounted it to the studs, which I found using a combination of the old-fashioned knocking method and something I learned in nursing school that I later discovered is excellent for finding studs in the wall with great accuracy (Percussion: place your non-dominant middle and index fingers directly onto the patient’s skin, with your distal interphalangeal joints held firmly against the patient’s chest. Using your dominant middle finger, tap the middle finger of your non-dominant hand (firmly placed on the patient’s chest) at the level of the distal interphalangeal joint. This is best performed by a quick flick of the wrist to achieve a solid strike on the finger). The strip is now mounted very securely to the wall, the big gash left by the Command strip is covered, and all of my knives and scissors are out, except for the one super long Mercer bread knife (purchased here on Amazon) that is too long to fit in the under-cabinet/over backsplash space allotted to my strip.For size reference, I have 2 santokus, a paring knife, and a pair of kitchen shears on the 20" block, and they take up about half of it, so you could easily have several larger knives attached to it without running out of space. Great purchase, if a little expensive.

First off: just look at the pictures I took of this. I can’t do better than those pictures to explain how beautiful this piece of functional art is. This thing is GORGEOUS.I’m a woodworker, so I’m hard to please with stuff like this. I read the glowing reviews from others about how high quality this was, but I still expected to be disappointed. After all, it’s Amazon, right? Boy was I wrong.The wood they started with is slab-sawn purpleheart, with the annual rings almost parallel to the face. This means that the face will be beautiful and durable, with no steeple grain or other grain runout that could cause the wood to chip out when cutting. It was obviously jointed and planed because it has crisp 90° corners all around. Then it was routed on the back to install the magnets, and some actual quality wood was used to fill in the space behind the magnets (looks like walnut). Then it was sanded down to at least 400 grit, they even put a slight radius on the edges for a smooth feel and look. It’s like someone was making it for themselves and took their time getting it to be perfect.I put some butcher block cream on it (beeswax and mineral oil mix) and it just shines. It feels like silk. Not a catch or mark on the entire piece, even on the back or on the end grain.The magnets are REALLY strong. You wouldn’t want them any stronger. They’d hold up a machete with ease. I did an experiment to see what the magnet strength is and it took almost 4 lbs just to slide a flat blade up or down the face of the knife holder. It takes 2 lbs of force to dislodge a 0.5 lb cleaver pulling it away from the holder from the top of the handle, where you have the most leverage. So it’ll come off when you want it to, but not before. No knife is slipping off of this. And they even went to the trouble of placing an extra magnet outside the screw holes in either side so you could use 100% of its length.This thing is amazing. I’m gonna own this thing forever.10/10, please buy this; you won’t be disappointed. Also it’s made in the U.S.A., so you’re supporting good American jobs.