my new knives came!

i ended up ordering two tojiro dp knives from korin's. a 210mm gyuto and a 140mm petty. i had heard that the fit and finish of these could be a bit questionable but i find them quite well done. the edge on both straight out of the box was fantastic. easily shaved hairs off my arm. the petty is a really neat one that i am sure i will use a lot. it looks kind of like a very small 6" chefs knife but is very light having a very thin blade. i am very impressed with these knives.

the kamagata usubu that i also received did not come with much of an edge on it. i spent a bit of time working the back and the hugh bevel on my belgium blue. quite sharp but still not as sharp as the two tujiros... yet. i am looking forward to working with it.

big thanks to ouch and suzuki for the feedback in the large how to hone a knife thread.

cheers!
ryan

Congratulations!! A good knife has upped my kitchen pleasure a whole lot. But, where are the pictures?

MTgrayling said:

Congratulations!! A good knife has upped my kitchen pleasure a whole lot. But, where are the pictures?

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That was my first thought as well.

Prince said:

That was my first thought as well.

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this is the internet after all.

usqview said:

i ended up ordering two tojiro dp knives from korin's. a 210mm gyuto and a 140mm petty. i had heard that the fit and finish of these could be a bit questionable but i find them quite well done. the edge on both straight out of the box was fantastic. easily shaved hairs off my arm. the petty is a really neat one that i am sure i will use a lot. it looks kind of like a very small 6" chefs knife but is very light having a very thin blade. i am very impressed with these knives.

the kamagata usubu that i also received did not come with much of an edge on it. i spent a bit of time working the back and the hugh bevel on my belgium blue. quite sharp but still not as sharp as the two tujiros... yet. i am looking forward to working with it.

big thanks to ouch and suzuki for the feedback in the large how to hone a knife thread.

cheers!
ryan

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Ah, the "Ouch knife sampler pack"

Mine's still in the mail ...

MTgrayling said:

...where are the pictures?

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busted! i knew it too. i will post a few pics tonight.

Doc4 said:

Ah, the "Ouch knife sampler pack"

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lol- exactly. did you get the same ones?

Doc4 said:

Mine's still in the mail ...

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ian, you are in for a nice treat. i will be curious to hear if your knives show up super sharp too.


cheers,
ryan

Tojiro should give me a discount for the amount of business I've thrown their way.

In shaving parlance, you can consider them to be the Proraso or Taylors of the knife world. They deliver the goods for half the price (and perhaps a lot less) than the big boys charge. If you have a Tojiro, you have a knife that's better than that of 95% of the professional chefs in the country, with steel better than anything offered by Henckels, Sabatier, Wusthof, Messermeister, and the like. In fact, the only folks with a knife better than yours will be confirmed knife nuts, and even then the Tojiro will hold its own against almost anything made and never embarrass you.

I would prefer that their gyuto had a bit more "belly" as its profile is decidedly biased towards the flatter, "French" end of the spectrum, although you can still comfortably "rock" the knife. It has a 50/50 grind, so it's perfect for lefties, too. The petty (sure that isn't a 150mm?) may take some getting used to, as it's a bit long compared to more familiar paring/utility knives.

The kamagata usuba is an oddball- it's a single edged vegetable knife and will require some modification of technique. As a traditionally styled knife, it comes with the traditional attitude- the end user is expected to put the finishing touches on it. In fact, it's considered rude to do otherwise. The first thing you have do is flatten the back side. This is a major PITA, but the good news is that it only has to be done once. A single edged knife will not word properly unless and until the back side is flat. Higher grade knives usually start out better, but a simple kasumi grade may need some time. A diamond plate, such as a DMT D8C, is perfect for this. You don't want the perimeter of the back (left) side of the knife to get much bigger than a millimeter or two, but the important thing is that the small area that contacts the sharpening stone be as flat as possible. Once you get there, keep polishing the back up to your finest stone. From then on, you sharpen by only sharpening the front (right) side, then flip it over and remove the burr.

The good news is that even though it may be a humble example, it has very good steel, and will continue to improve and get sharper with continued use and repeated sharpenings.

I took advantage of the Korin sale as well and got another Tojiro - a 240 mm gyuto. Very nice fit and finish for the price, and cuts like a dream. The bevel is kind of strange, though - it almost looks like they put a shallow relief bevel on it. You can also see where the two steel types meet which is always neat.

It was decently sharp out of the box (actually very sharp by 99% of the population's standards), but it got the Scotto waterstone treatment and it is now officially in the "SWMBO is afraid" category of sharpness.

ouch said:

I would prefer that their gyuto had a bit more "belly" as its profile is decidedly biased towards the flatter, "French" end of the spectrum, although you can still comfortably "rock" the knife. It has a 50/50 grind, so it's perfect for lefties, too. The petty (sure that isn't a 150mm?) may take some getting used to, as it's a bit long compared to more familiar paring/utility knives.

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you are right- 150mm on the petty. i was wondering about the bevel on the gyuto being 50/50... since the petty looks like it is 30/70 or so.

what stones would you recommend for these two? really the only ones i have are a really low combo whetstone (220/600?), dmt 1200 plate, blegium blue and a coticule. might have to pick up a new hone some time.

ouch said:

The kamagata usuba is an oddball- it's a single edged vegetable knife and will require some modification of technique. As a traditionally styled knife, it comes with the traditional attitude- the end user is expected to put the finishing touches on it. In fact, it's considered rude to do otherwise. The first thing you have do is flatten the back side. This is a major PITA, but the good news is that it only has to be done once. A single edged knife will not word properly unless and until the back side is flat. Higher grade knives usually start out better, but a simple kasumi grade may need some time. A diamond plate, such as a DMT D8C, is perfect for this. You don't want the perimeter of the back (left) side of the knife to get much bigger than a millimeter or two, but the important thing is that the small area that contacts the sharpening stone be as flat as possible. Once you get there, keep polishing the back up to your finest stone. From then on, you sharpen by only sharpening the front (right) side, then flip it over and remove the burr.

The good news is that even though it may be a humble example, it has very good steel, and will continue to improve and get sharper with continued use and repeated sharpenings.

Click to expand...

i was going to ask about flattening the back. i only used the blue for 10 minutes or so and flattened only .2-.3mm worth around the parimeter. i might have to restart with my dmt 1200 on this blade which isnt a problem at all.

ouch, i highly value your input. thanks again for the great honing vid series.

cheers,
ryan

Scotto said:

It was decently sharp out of the box (actually very sharp by 99% of the population's standards), but it got the Scotto waterstone treatment and it is now officially in the "SWMBO is afraid" category of sharpness.

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Mind you, this is coming from a guy who I know for a fact has at least one high end blade (and probably a lot more), plus some wicked sharp carbon.

You can definately get a Tojiro sharp. I would say SWMBO won't touch mine either, but I've had enough custom title changes.

usqview said:

what stones would you recommend for these two? really the only ones i have are a really low combo whetstone (220/600?), dmt 1200 plate, blegium blue and a coticule. might have to pick up a new hone some time.

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You shouldn't need the 220/600 for quite a while, except perhaps to start off the back of the usuba. The others should keep you sharp indefinately or until you develop stone aquisition disorder, whichever comes first.

usqview said:

i was going to ask about flattening the back. i only used the blue for 10 minutes or so and flattened only .2-.3mm worth around the parimeter. i might have to restart with my dmt 1200 on this blade which isnt a problem at all.

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If you find it's not as sharp as you'd like, you can restart with the 1200. The great thing about the dmt plates are that they're dead flat, which makes them ideal for flattening the back side. The older the knife gets, the better it will become.

Doc4 said:

Ah, the "Ouch knife sampler pack"

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I upgraded to the Deluxe edition. 10.5" Tojiharu and a nakiri.

Next is the Cleaver.

usqview said:

lol- exactly. did you get the same ones?


ian, you are in for a nice treat. i will be curious to hear if your knives show up super sharp too.


cheers,
ryan

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Yep, the same ones. (Except I sent them an e-mail so they'd give me the nicest ones they had, so )

I'll be sure to post when they come in. And then SWMBO can use all my Henckels to her heart's content. (Actually, I think she has her heart set on one of those $14.95 chop-em-up gadgets that people like Norelco and Starfrit make, so hopefully I can convince her to "hands off" my oddball Japanese steel. )