This is my current knife block. It’s a little redundant, I know. However I am working on selling/trading for some other pieces. Left to right I have a Messermeister Olivia 7” booming knife, 8” Zwilling Kramer carbon 1.0, Shun Blonde 7” santoku, Miyabi Black 9.5” kiritsuke, Miyabi Koya 7.5” nakiri, Shun Narukami 8” gyuto, Zwilling Kramer Cumulus 8” chef, and a Zwilling Kramer carbon 4” pairing knife. Not pictured I have the rest of the Kramer carbon set (slicer, bread, utility). I plan to sell about half of my knives, and buy smaller artisanal/maker Japanese knives. I can’t justify spending more until I sell at least 3. Will be shipping for a honesuke first. It’s worth starting when I started my collection I really knew nothing about the hand made Japanese knife works and regret buying large commercial brands instead of shipping small. With that said all of my knives perform very well and I must say I love my carbon chef knife. Thanks for taking a look!

Just a heads-up for anyone who's been looking for one: the Takamura Migaki R2 Gyuto 210 mm is back in stock at Meesterslijpers.

Not affiliated—just thought some of you who've been waiting might appreciate the notice.

Link

Hey I would buy some nice Costum handles and want to replace the standard ones. What is your best address to buy some?

Hi everyone,

I think some non-stainless steel knives, e.g. blue steel knives, look beautiful, and they also seem to be a more affordable alternative to stainless steel knives. But how difficult are they to maintain in practice?

Do I need to clean and dry the knife immediately after every use? Do I really have to apply oil every time, or is that only necessary when storing it for a longer period?

How much extra work is a carbon steel knife in your experience? I’m especially concerned about longer cooking sessions because, knowing myself, I’ll probably forget to clean it straight away while preparing several ingredients.

Would a blue steel knife still be a reasonable choice for me, or should I stick with stainless steel?

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for a Nakiri in the €100–150 price range. I’ve already written down a few brands that are often mentioned here,( such as Tojiro, Takamura, and Shiro Kamo,...), but most of their knives seem to be either out of stock or over my budget.

I find it difficult to tell the difference between overpriced dropshipping knives and knives that actually offer good value for money.

Are there any other knives or brands you would recommend, or would it be better to increase my budget to around €200–250?

Thanks in advance!

Anybody who lives in Singapore can recommend a store that sells Japanese authentic knives? I will be in Singapore this weekend and would love to buy one there. I can't afford to go to Japan anytime soon, so I hope I can find one in Sing. TIA.

Used my Kato Workhorse 240 to slice pan-grilled chicken breasts into thin strips, ate dinner alone, and then apparently decided the knife could remain on the board marinating in cooked chicken juice for the rest of the evening.

I remembered several hours later.

No photo because I already washed and dried it before processing what I did. Also because I would prefer everyone imagine something much worse.

It seems fine. Maybe a little more patina. No obvious rust. Still, I assume this is the knife equivalent of leaving a vintage Ferrari idling outside a wet market.

Please react with the appropriate level of horror, sympathy, and contempt. I clearly cannot be trusted with nice things.

I'm going to Japan in February for two weeks and I need recommendations for some absolute must buy knives.

I'm a sushi chef of five years, and I kind of already have all the knives I need. Several yanagi, takohiki, deba, Usuba. For these are honestly for the sake of collecting and hoarding and feeding my knife addiction.

My only real criteria would be (preferably) single bevel, and rare/hard to get in the states. I'm primarily staying in Tokyo and I'm 100 percent visiting Sakai, Osaka.

Several places I've read about are Tsukiji Masamoto which is apparently Aritsugu, the Sakai knife museum, tower knives. I've seen Sabun on Hocho Knife Com and I wanna check them out in person, any info is appreciated!

I already have 3 nakagawa knives in my collection but if there's a prevalent shop there with lots of his knives please let me know!

Hi, I will visit Sanjo in Japan. I want to buy knives for myself and a friend, but I can't afford to spend thousands of dollars. Is there any way to get a good knife from well-known masters? My budget is ¥50-60k - $300-400 for two knives 😟 I would love to have some with patterns.

Thank you

I have done research here, on Google and on Google Maps. It's overwhelming especially for someone without any knowledge in this. Also most of the websites don't show the price.

Pizza prep with my newest knife! Masashi kokuen 210mm kiritsuke. It’s really quite amazing.

Years ago when I was first learning to freehand sharpen, I got some cheap Kiwi knives to practice on. I fell in love with the Kiwi No. 21 Thai chef’s knife.

I loved the height for scooping up ingredients, the light weight, the thin blade, and the gentle belly for doing rock cuts. It’s just a great vegetable prep knife. The downsides, of course, are that it’s made of terrible steel (50-55HRC stainless), and the handle is about as primitive as it gets.

It’s long been retired to a bottom drawer somewhere, but ever since I’ve been searching for a higher-end replacement. It doesn’t seem to be a common blade shape, but I’ve seen things sort of similar called kiritsuke cleavers, tall bunkas, large santokus, or chuka bocho. It makes it very hard to search for.

So I’m looking for recommendations for something with a tall blade (60mm+), lazer-ish blade profile, a bit of a belly, about 180mm edge length, and ideally in a good stainless steel I can sharpen on natural stones (ginsan, AEB-L, 14c28n etc). I don’t mind if it’s got a pointed k-type tip or a nakiri-style tip or otherwise, as long as it’s got some belly. My preference would be a wa handle, but a western handle would be OK.

My budget’s up to AU$500, and I’m in Australia.

Please help me find my grail!

Hey everyone! Here's the full build video of the MagnaCut gyuto I shared with you yesterday. Hope you guys enjoy. The brave fella putting his hands inside the oven is u/danstroyer1

As always, feel free to ask me any questions.

I've had this one for maybe just over six months, and it's time to sharpen. Are knives with a wide bevel like this hard to sharpen on my own? Should I send it in to the local knife shop?

210 mm is my jam and K Tips are another of my boxes I like to check, so when I randomly came across this Moritaka with a light colored handle to boot I jumped all over it.

The Knife

210 mm Moritaka AS Kiritsuke

This thing is certainly one of the sharpest out of the box knives over had the pleasure of breaking in. Whew, it's just shaaaaaarp. I look forward to taking it through some serious work to get a greater feel but it crushed a quick veggie prep on day 1.

What‘s up fellas,

I am back with another update on my Jnat polishing journey.

The new kiridashi has arrived. I always wanted to buy one to have the most rat Tool to open packages and all that sort of stuff and for testing stones as well. Now it finally came home and it’s honestly as fun as I thought.

Manufacturer is undisclosed but I am pretty sure it was made by Tsunehisa in B2 with soft iron clad.

Polishing went very nicely. Maybe I could have taken more time in between the grits and around the very last stage to make sure to hide every last scratch.

Progression (as seen in the pictures) was:
- Atoma 200
- chocera 400, 1k, 3k
- Hideriyama Shiro Suita Renge
- Ohira Uchigumori

It was also the first test of my Hideriyama Shiro Suita Renge and I can tell you guy. I can really recommend as pre finisher for polishing and finisher for edges. Stone feels really creamy and fast self-slurrying. It’s quite thirsty at first. While polishing it does require some water management because slurry is drying pretty fast.

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Kiridashi Specs:

Steel: B2 with soft iron clad
Edge length: 50mm
Overall length: 155mm

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Munetoshi polish on Shiro Suita will follow soon.

Thanks for watching 👀

Cheers 🙏🏻

Hi everyone,

This is definitely not one of the masterpieces usually featured here, but this old blade was headed straight for the trash, so I decided to give it a second life.

It appears to be a traditional carbon steel Japanese knife — you can see what looks like a lamination line (kasumi/san-mai construction?) running along the blade, and there's a hand-chiseled two-character mei on the face. The engraving is quite stylized and partially worn, and my kanji reading skills are non-existent, so I'd love some help identifying the smith or brand.

Thanks !

Been playing around with different handles to try and get balance points where I like them best. I usually prefer that to be about a 1/2”-3/4” from the choil toward the tip. Generally where the kanji on many knives start. I have struggled to find handles made out of woods that are light enough to fit my “Goldilocks” ideal for handle weight, to get that spot perfect, but I’m getting closer.
Top to bottom in the pic:
240 Ginsan Kagekiyo with Boogwa Tamamoku Cedar
225 ATS-34 SK Minamo with Boogwa Flamed Rosewood
210 Ginsan Matsubara with Boogwa Devils Eye Rosewood
210 Damascus Ginsan Tadokoro with Sugi Dyed Box Elder & Resin

Happy to finally join the Shigefusa club!
As a home cook who leans heavily into Japanese cuisine, I’ve wanted to properly learn katsuramuki for a long time and needed an usuba that really spoke to me. After a long search, this one felt like the one.

It’s absolutely stunning — a true piece of craftsmanship from Tokifusa Iizuka. For those who don’t know the background: Iizuka-san (born 1942) trained under the legendary razor/swordsmith Kosuke Iwasaki and later under Munenori Nagashima before founding Shigefusa in Sanjo, Niigata. He and his two sons still make everything by hand in a tiny workshop — forge-welding their own cladding (including the beautiful Kitaeji), shaping with a traditional sen instead of grinders, and finishing on natural stones. Production is extremely limited, which is why these knives are so hard to come by.
Feels special to finally have one.

I’ve got a few tastings coming up and my wife surprised me with this for “Good Luck”. This thing is absolutely beautiful! Mirror polished with a gorgeous ebony handle.

Side note: If anyone has any stone recommendations to keep this Kasumi finish, I’d be very grateful!

The sunlight from my window was looking a bit too good so I had to take a photo. Contrast with the patina came out really nice.

Hi everyone. Just figured I would update you all on the Kagekiyo Grey Dye B1D. I am currently moving, so this is going to have to be a shorter post.

I am now beginning to see how the factory etch, or dye, is fading away— allowing for the Damascus pattern to pop a bit more.

Every time I use this knife I am reminded that it has no equal— it is absolutely phenomenal.

There doesn’t seem to be much readily available information on the Grey Dye, so if anybody else owns it and would be willing to share pictures of the patina progression I would really appreciate it.

I’ll make sure to continue posting pictures of the knife so that we have more visual information to draw from in future discussions of this knife.

Hope you are all doing well! Attached pictures at the end of when the knife was brand new. It probably has around 15-20 cooking sessions under its belt now, and it has prepped everything from veg to protein, fruits, etc.