Konosuke suji ura?

Kitchen Knife Forums

Help Support Kitchen Knife Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Squilliam

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 28, 2012
Messages
236
Reaction score
1
As you can see from the pics my 300mm white #2 suji has an unevenly ground ura-like hollow that runs along most of the left side of the blade. The section near the handle where the hollow tapers away is a shallow convex like you would expect. When I found the hollow it gave my quite a surprise, as I was expecting something like a 70/30 right hand bias convex grind. It clearly isn't made for sharpening, so food separation would be my only guess for its existence. I have a ~4 degree edge on the back, so the hollow doesn't extent to a traditional 0 degree bevel as it may appear.

I haven't seen any other discussion on this, so is mine unique? Are they normally ground more evenly or not at all?

Click the pics twice to make them big.




 
I have seen other knives that have slight concave in the midsection, not sure if on purpose or if that is the way they are come out after they were ground on the wheels.
I do not think the grinds are ground with any bias except for a few knives that are more convex on the front and almost flat on the back side.
I am curious what more experienced people have to say on that subject.
 
The left face stiction is higher than the right face stiction. It is lower than if it was a flat face though.
 
I am right handed but i cut slices from the left side of the food to test the sticton. It wouldn't normally be an issue, but on a suji there can be quite a lot of friction when cutting large pieces of meat, so if the hollow decreased surface contact friction would decrease, making it easier to slice.
 
+1. Sticktion to the left, if only for testing, isn't a problem, then why bother? If you can get it sharp, and are happy with the performance, maybe you are thinking to hard...
 
Do you not think its odd for a suji to have this geometry? I don't mind it, but it does make re-finishing a bit of a hassle.
 
more then one person got sloppy, the grinder,the polisher, the sharpener, the fitter and the man who inspected it before it went out.
 
i've read on other threads that kono's QC has been spotty as of late. due to increased demand.
 
Actually I purchased this in 2011, so its not exactly a recent problem.
 
Def not supposed to be that way. I'd be inclined to pull out the DMT and flatten that back.

I can't see that it would affect performance in a negative way.

If anything he can sell it on ebay and call it a custom feature. :)
 
i've read on other threads that kono's QC has been spotty as of late. due to increased demand.

This isn't a Konosuke issue, unless he bought it directly from Konosuke. This is 100% the fault of the retailer. They should never have put this in the mail to a customer.
 
Do you not think its odd for a suji to have this geometry? I don't mind it, but it does make re-finishing a bit of a hassle.

Maybe you didn't know this, but Jon Broida, owner of Japanese Knife Imports who posted in this thread, used to sell Konosuke knives. I think his response pretty much answers any questions you may have about whether the knife is supposed to be that way: "this should not be that way."
 
I doubt many retailers would detect this issue, I had it for about a year before I found it, when I laid the knife flat on the stone. It's really not easy to detect at all. I would say it's Kono's fault because they made it and shipped it out to be sold like this. They were happy for this knife to represent their workmanship, and shouldn't rely on the retailer for QC.
 
I doubt many retailers would detect this issue, I had it for about a year before I found it, when I laid the knife flat on the stone. It's really not easy to detect at all. I would say it's Kono's fault because they made it and shipped it out to be sold like this. They were happy for this knife to represent their workmanship, and shouldn't rely on the retailer for QC.

Your knife, your call. I agree wholeheartedly with Konosuke's lack of QC being the source of the problem in the first place. As an interested observer/consumer I would hold both accountable for QC; I think most vendors around here would accept some responsibility for allowing that to be shipped with their name on the transaction.

Cheers
 
In my country the vendor is responsible, but are you sure the function is being entraved by the to be proven non conformity??
 
Admittedly, it's very difficult to detect with the naked eye, but you don't need the naked eye to detect it. A basic straight edge and a simple QC test is all that's needed to detect it, so it's not exactly an expensive or labor intensive test. I'm wondering how many folks with Konosuke knives are checking theirs for this issue? My curiosity will get the better of me I'm sure.
Entirely speculation on my part, but if this isn't just an outlier, but a reflection of diminishing QC and/or other issues at Konosuke, it does seem to reflect a deviation from the high standards that Jon demands of the products that he carries. Perhaps this offers a glimpse into why he no longer does???
 
i have a 300mm White 2 kono Suji, and mine doesn't have this.
 
No I haven't. Of course I would prefer the knife to be perfect, but it doesn't bother me that much and I have spent hours thinning the knife to make it how I want it. Also back and forth international shipping is a killer.
 
Makes sense. With a little flattening of the left face's upper part and thinning behind the edge it should get solved, I think.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top