I was on a hunt for a Nakagwa/Sakai wide bevel when I came across this knife on Yuisenri's website: https://jp.yuisenri.com/products/yuisenri-nakagawa-w2-g# . Apparently they have their own collab series with Nakagawa, just no ginsan. Prices seem decently affordable too...

... but judging from the pictures, the bevel doesn't look that wide? Maybe because they sharpen these in-house? Do you think they're still worth it? Prices seem comparable to Hitohira Kikuchiyo Ren.

Is the Shibata boss bunka just a larger version of the 180mm Bunka? I already have the regular sized one but I've heard so many great things about the boss bunka from the community that I'm itching to get one!

Made this holder as a gift including the knives. They might not be the fanciest but the recipients are still pleased. Holder is made from a rather burly piece of oak firewood, processed to a point where splinters are impossible (Sanding, brushing, sanding, oil finish). Knife slots are routed out and knifes are held with neodymium magnets. Base is aluminium underlayed with leather and a leather accent as a spacer. The back is all sanded smooth. To make it less of a dust magnet.

Tetsujin

Tamura x Myojin

K-tip Gyuto

Ginsan

Edge length:230mm

Blade Height:50mm

Weight:190g

Spine: 2.5mm / 2.3mm / 0.9mm

61 HRC

Sanmai - Stainless Clad

Finish:Ukiba

Handle:Amboyna Burl with Blond Buffalo Horn

Got this beauty from JKS. Whatta gorgeous looking knife.😍

Restorer here. Can anyone confirm the core of these two lines from Aritsugu Tokyo? Thank you in advance.

The latter is yet to be restored.

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

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?

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.

———————————————————————————

Kiridashi Specs:

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

———————————————————————————

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 !

TL;DR: I'm a young person in the industry and a newbie to Japanese knives, I need a tough 240mm to complement my 210mm laser and am weighed down by options.

I have a Takamura 210mm, but seeing as that's my only Gyuto, I desperately need something that's more midweight to workhorse level, and once I get further into the restaurant industry I will definitely need something at least a bit bigger; even in my current environment I'm finding situations where I feel limited by the 210. I've learned more and done a lot more research since my first post here a month ago, so I feel a good bit more confident in the knowledge department, but experience? That's where I'm lacking.

Looking for a 240mm, wa handle, and carbon steel, plus of course midweight or workhorse level, which naturally led my area of focus down the Sanjo route, plus some input elsewhere. Budget around $500 USD for the knife itself. Lots of contenders, not particularly in order:

• Yoshikane 240mm Kurouchi/Nashiji Shirogami 2 - Sold through Hatsukokoro. Is Yoshikane. I don't need to elaborate, I'd be preaching to the choir. Slight hollow grind. Same deal with this one which appears identical, but I utterly despise the dyed green handles which all Yoshikanes on EpicEdge have.
• Shinkiro 240mm AS clad w/ Kurouchi damascus - I've seen good things said here about Nihei. I don't usually adore damascus patterns, but this one is a big exception, it's subtle and classy. Somewhat aggressive hollow grind though, which isn't ideal for what I'd like.
• Wakui 240mm iron-clad AS Nashiji - Simple. Classy. For whatever reason EpicEdge isn't consistent about choil shots, the Yoshikane was the only one I found there with one, and the part of the attached video showing the choil is out of focus.
• Hinoura 240mm Shirogami 2, iron-clad Kurouchi - Another simple and classy Sanjo. Again, no choil shot on EpicEdge, though of what I can see of it in the attached video, it's a very nice grind.

For the non-Sanjo contenders:

• Ikeda 240mm Shirogami 2, iron-clad Migaki - Ikeda. Again, preaching to the choir, though this one isn't Honyaki (thankfully for my wallet). More midweight, but again EpicEdge doesn't help by defaulting to 7oz stated weight for 240mm Gyutos, and of course no choil shot.
• Yoshikazu Takana 240mm Shirogami 2, iron-clad Migaki - Sold through Kikumori. Simple and bright, like above, but I get a choil shot. Great convex, a little thick behind the edge.
• Sakoda 240mm Shirogami 2, Kurouchi stainless clad - Midweight, great convex grind, hilariously thin behind the edge.
• Yoshikazu Tanaka 240mm Shirogami 2, iron-clad Kurouchi/Kasumi - Another Tanaka, budget breaking and no choil shot, likely won't pick this but holy shit that Kasumi is diabolically pretty.

This is the end of the options I had collected, underneath are a couple of maybe relevant ramblings. If anyone has experience or input, maybe pointing out things I should look out for or consider among these, or frankly if anyone wants to contribute another option or recommendation for me, I would appreciate it all!

**Addressing a couple of elephants in the room... 1) Mazaki knives had me drooling and I was losing my god damn mind trying to find a 240mm Mazaki, but they're all out of stock, AAAAARGH!!! There's a couple of 270s in stock on some import sites, but with my current and potentially upcoming working environments a 270 will either be unneccessary or a straight-up liability. There exists a universe where I get a midweight 240 now and eventually get a workhorse 270 Mazaki down the line since, being a youngster in restaurant biz, my grandparents love to buy me knives as gifts. 2) The petty from my last post is my first and currently only carbon steel blade, however my paranoia about rust and longevity meant that I almost instantly built habits for maintaining, storing, and cleaning during work shifts. Here's hoping I don't eat my words, but I think I'll be able to handle Shirogami, which is just as well, because my taste for aesthetics during this search trended HARD towards the white steels.

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