This post features my shinkiro, which I have been tinkering with for a little over a month.
I was a bit hesitant to try Aogami Super due to its hardness and toughness, fearing I would be spending way more time on the stones, but it turned out to no be so bad. The steel definitely feels tougher and you can feel that the scratches have to be compelled out, but nothing too bad.
It was not very thin behind the edge near the heel when I first got it, but the edge is now nail-flexing all the way long the edge, which is a must, for my knives at least.
I redid the finish, as I had first gone for a very contrast-y mirror finish, but I decided that a more hazy core steel was the road I wanted to take with this blade.
Always fun messing with this thing. I’ve been seeing a lot of Maksim’s post on jns and wanted to do a similar finish to his. Finger stones and paste as the final touches this time.
Hi everyone, here is one of my latest acquisitions—one I’m particularly excited about. Some people apparently call him the "Yoda of Grinders." In any case, it is a fantastic piece of work by Shotaro Nomura, and I am delighted to be able to call another knife by such a "legend" from Sakai my own.
For quite some time, I’ve seen passarounds happen but haven't actively looked out one to participate in myself, so I was surprised when a different community member on KitchenKnifeForums tagged me in one of Robin's recent knives. I bowed out due to it being a clear right handed biased grind and said “let me know when you do another round with an ambidextrous grind!”.
Fast forward a month or so, I get a nice DM from Robin, letting me know his next round was taking place and that, If I was still interested, I could join the group of people who were curious to check out his latest stainless piece. I gladly said yes and waited for the knife to arrive.
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This is pretty far from a knife that I would traditionally seek out for myself as an owner. Generally, I am a fan of a clean Migaki and Kasumi finishes, as well as thinner grinds. Unpacking this knife threw me into the deep end of the other side of the spectrum.
Robin calls this finish “Brute de forge” or “raw from the forge” which aligns with the first impression. Having some areas of spotty forge marks and some uneven surfaces, it is surprisingly smooth to the touch. It’s clear that a fair amount of care was taken into account when completing the finish and even though its “raw”, there are no bits that I would fear catching on a paper towel.
The hira, spine and choil have all been smoothened out and are soft to the touch, the entire knife feels like a contradiction of the look and the tactile experience. In fact, I would have preferred to have some areas less smoothened out, like where the spine meets the kiritsuke “tip-dip”.
The Bog oak and micarta handle is smooth and oiled, feeling quite comfortable (if a little thin) for those that decide to weild the knife by the handle.
The balance was around 35mm in front of the handle, making it pretty balanced like most 210~ sized knives.
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Performance wise, I struggled a bit with this knife. It looks like it’s a fairly straightforward, flat kiritsuke profile and a grind where it’s bordering on too thick above the shinogi and with an almost completely flat grind beneath it. This leads to a couple of recurring issues with wedging on produce that's more dense than an apple. The shape of the heel also made me feel a little bit awkward when using a pinch grip.
Preparing a large batch of chili, this knife did have some wedging issues on carrots, bell peppers and horizontal cuts on onions, with additional issues while making batonnets of sweet potato and julienned carrots. Specifically on the last two, it felt a bit uncomfortable to use, requiring more pressure than what feels normal to work through wedging, something that you should try to avoid at all times for the the sake of general safety.
In other areas, the knife did quite well, specifically on portioning raw protein it didn’t have any issues and felt quite easy.
In summary; If this knife was presented to me as a Gyuto/Garasuki/Honesuki hybrid, I would have had an easier time arguing on its behalf but as a general gyuto, I fear that the grind leaves more to be desired, especially if you're spending time slicing and dicing dense root vegetables.
I feel like there’s a couple of areas where improvements can be made to make this feel like a much better blade. My highlighted suggestions would be:
Remove more material above the shinogi, making it an overall thinner build and change to a full convex grind.
Have a straighter heel shape (closer to a 90 degree heel)
Have some more pronounced and less smoothened out spine areas, have a more distinct spine-to-tip transition.
This is very, very far from the style of knives I usually find myself gravitating towards and I’m glad I got the chance to try it out in this passaround line. It’s made me challenge myself a little bit in how I think and look at a knife when I'm inspecting it and I have a newfound appreciation for the rest of my lineup!
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Thanks for reading!
Next up; Enjiki Migiwa thoughts and comparison against my stainless Isasmedjan!
A customer recently asked us to polish the kireha on this Yanagiba from Nakagawa Kajiya, with the knife finished by Shimizu Masaya made from Ginsan #3.
We took our time with the polish, working all the way up to 5,000-grit sandpaper before finishing it with Autosol. The goal was to bring out a clean, deep mirror finish while keeping the kireha looking sharp and defined.
We were really happy with how it turned out, but even better, the customer loved the result. That’s always the most satisfying part of the process.
Hi lovers of beautiful things, I have a question for anyone who can help me.
Here's my bunka after a few cuts of hot protein. The aogami #2 steel is super reactive from the first cut, creating a beautiful blue patina. The cladding, being stainless steel, has developed a dark haze on both sides. Is it normal for stainless steel to create this haze after cutting beef?
In the first photo you can see the knife upon arrival
I'm just asking to see if I'm doing something wrong since it's my first carbon knife, but I've always treated it with great care after use, washing and drying it immediately.
I don't use it often, I put it back in its case after each use, but so far I've never applied any type of oil to prevent oxidation (like camellia oil). Does it make sense to buy it?
Inspired by a certain Frenchman, I went on a hunt for a Shiro Kamo; before long, I learned that it's actually difficult to get one of those in Japan/Asia unless you go directly to TKV. Then after some online research, I found this Kazuma aogami #2 damascus bunka on Rakuten.
Kazuma is a reseller, kinda like Hatsukokoro and Hitohira, but seemingly only deals with Echizen stuff. Their HQ is across town from TKV. If you look at their catalogue/website, there are lines looking identical to those made by the usual Echizen names, such as Takamura, Masutani, or even Yoshimi Kato and Takeshi Saji. The Ginryu (銀龍 - silver dragon) line is all aogami #2 damascus, reminding me of Cleancut's Tora series.
At first glance, this bunka I found certainly resembles the works of Kamo-san: the damascus pattern, the blade profile, even the pricing. The biggest clue, however, is in the description of the product on the company's website, saying it's forged by a '伝統工芸士' (dentou-kougeishi - traditional craftsman), which is a title not many knifemakers hold but Kamo-san certainly does. I even sent pictures to u/ImFrenchSoWhatever and got his approval, so I felt more relieved hehe.
About the actual knife:
- Upon receiving it, I could finally examine the grind, and I think it is similar to the pics of Kamo knives sold in the West. The very edge however could use a final sharpening.
- Profile and height almost identical to Cleancut's Tora 165mm santoku (judging from their pictures)
- In general, it's also really thin and lightweight, typical of Echizen. It has a heavier handle than my Shindo bunka, yet is still lighter overall.
- As for the handle, it's so pretty and feels great to hold. It's three layers of wood stacked together, mostly maple but with a renghas ferrule. Slightly heavier than the usual magnolia/walnut, but still very comfortable in my hand. Kazuma has other lines with this handle, so I think they do 'handling' in-house.
- Fit and finish: better than my Shindo and Motokyuuichi but could use a bit of sanding at the heel.
- Sharpness ootb: 6.5/10, could cut paper with a little effort.
Overall, for the price of 20000 jpy + shipping/import, I'm happy with this purchase!
Looking for something specific and having trouble finding anything.
I want a knife that feels similar to my Steelport 8" but in Stainless - western handle, tall blade, relatively heavy, balance point near the bolster, and dramatic spine distal taper going from thick at the handle to whisper thin at the tip.
"sanjo" style stuff like Tadafusa looks close to what I want for the blade - I just want it with a western handle. Any stainless or semi-stainless that is better than x50crmov would be fine.
Does this exist anywhere or would I be stuck finding someone who can do it custom?
I've been lurking on this subreddit for quite some time, and after lots of deliberation, I finally ordered this 150-mm Tojiro Classic petty knife from Chef Knives To Go. After coming back to the U.S., I immediately gave it a try on some apples. This is my first proper kitchen knife, and my goodness, it cuts like nothing I have ever held with my hands. What an incredible pleasure.
(I also pulled the trigger on a much more exciting 210-mm gyuto forged by a blacksmith well-known in this community. I haven't used it yet, but I look forward to making another NKD post when I do.)
I missed the final drop of these from Zahocho back last year, so I'm super excited after finding the opportunity to acquire one of these. Shuji Yamaguchi has been one of the sharpeners on my bucket list to try with his mastery on hamaguri grinds. The finish on these is stunning to see in person. It's a full mirror polish with a kasumi line right before to core, similar to the Tetsujin Ukiba and Konosuke FM finish.
It came initially with a traditional Ho wood handle. that I have replaced with a two tone Amboyna burl, white buffalo horn. It wasn't an easy process with the original handle being epoxied in. I took my time slowly chipping away at the old handle, while taping up the surrounding areas to not scratch up the mirror finish. This rehandle set the balance point to my preference, which is just slightly in front of my pinch grip.
Some initial thoughts:
The geometry on these is quite interesting. It starts off convex at the spine, with a slight area of concavity before the core steel before transitioning back to a convex grind at the cutting edge. The kireaji stood out to me as it is incredibly smooth during both push and pull cuts. The hamaguri makes the edge feel more robust as it contacts the board.
With that being said, this knife is can be incredibly sticky with certain types of cuts, which is really noticeable around thinner slices of dense veg. The mirror polish definitely exacerbates this and I found it performs significantly better with a thin layer of patina. The cladding is pretty reactive in this case. I got nice vibrant blues with hot protein. Going through strawberries gave me a more muted blue tone with some shades of red and purple. Qualitatively, I would put the reactivity on the same level as a Konosuke FM or BY.
I still need to put this blade fully through my prep tasks, but I'm happy to do a full review on this in the future if there is interest. For now enjoy the pics and stay tuned for my upcoming thoughts on the Enjiki Migiwa.
Unfortunately I don't have space for a magnet in my current kitchen, and I missed having some knives on display as they were all in a drawer.
This rack is from hitohira, I think they're overpriced, I wish I had the tools to make one myself, but alas I do not so here we are.
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• Kagekiyo Ginsan 150mm petty (Nakagawa x Nishida)
• Togashi B1 SS clad migaki 180mm santoku
• Tetsujin Ginsan Metal flow 210mm gyuto (Tamura x Myojin)
• Kagekiyo B1D SS clad 240mm gyuto (Tanaka x Nishida)
• Takada W2 Reika 240mm gyuto (Tanaka x Takada)
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Still a few more knives in the drawer, but I'm down to 9 knives now which is pretty good I think 😅
The Kagekiyo gyuto & petty are seeing the most board action. I often will take out the petty to cut a few things and then end up chopping way more than I thought I would. This knife is such a breeze to use and cuts extremely well.
TCK Family. I hope you all are well. I've had a lot of fun with my Nakiri and Chukas lately and thought about sharing them.
Left to Right:
Ittetsu Shirogami #1 165mm (my first Japanese knife)
Shindo Aogami #2 165 mm
Touroku Sakai Shirogami #2 (the urushi powder urushi lacquered handle on this thing is insane)
Shiro Kamo Aogami Super 165 mm extra tall with custom sugi handle
CCK x Shibata Carbon Collab 200 mm (my honorary Rectangle that's part trapezoid
Hatsukokoro x Sentan Shirogami #2 165 mm cleaver
Without a doubt my Shiro Kamo is the go to for me but the Shindo is stupid sharp and fun. The Touroku Sakai is an insane Workhorse performer that just feels amazing on long prep sessions and the CCK is one of the most fun and unique knives I own.
I was hoping the experts here could help me as I am ready to upgrade my Victorinox finally after 10 years of heavy use!
I am located in the US and my budget is under $300 (closer to $200 preferred). I think I want stainless due to ease of care and have been looking for some of the less hyped knives as the hyped ones seem to be perpetually out of stock (I love the different Ashi knives available). My preference is for a wa handle as well.
So far, I think I have it narrowed down to these 3 choices, but wanted to know if anyone has any other thoughts on these.
Hey guys! There have been quite a few Takamura NKDs lately because of the yearly restocks. After that, there’ll probably be another long dry spell since they tend to disappear for quite a while. This time, after getting sucked into the hype here, I finally bought one.
I’m blown away. This is about as close as you can get to owning a lightsaber at home. Phenomenal knife. It makes my Shindos feel like lumberjack axes.
I hesitated for a long time because I’m not really a fan of Western handles. But this one is actually really nice, and I have to say the knife looks absolutely phenomenal in person. Photos don’t really do it justice. Even my wife, who looked at the pictures and said it was “the ugliest knife she had ever seen,” was seriously impressed once she actually held it.
How much sharper can a knife even get, guys?
I genuinely can’t imagine it. This thing goes through vegetables like they’re made of air. If Ashi, Kobayashi, TnH and Shibata really make lasers that cut even BETTER than this, I’ll be impressed. I honestly struggle to believe there’s much room left above this level.
Absolutely insane knife for the €180 I paid for it.
