panda how do the stainless Tanaka (G3 or VG10?) compare to your Shig and blue Tanaka?
panda how do the stainless Tanaka (G3 or VG10?) compare to your Shig and blue Tanaka?
~Brandon
pros of
g3 tanaka: low nose pointy tip flat profile, food release, edge retention
shig: silky smooth cutting, feels like perfect balance of size/weight, easy to sharpen (takes a burr in 1 (one!) stroke on 400 grit)
blue tanaka: extremely thin behind the edge, light but not whippy/flex seems to work 'fast'
i like all 3 for their own reasons, but the g3 is my absolute favorite (pro kitchen use), i use the blue tanaka at home.
my shig still needs more work (thinning) but i'll use it for when i want more precise & thinner cuts.
So how is the cutting performance for the G3? I ask because I sold a friend of mine my blue Tanaka and he loves the way it cuts and has just enough weight (versus the Sakai Yusuke he had prior) for chopping, but is thinking taking care of carbon steel isn't his thing. Trying to find something that cuts like the blue Tanaka, wa handle, stainless, and roughly the same price is not easy. As for me I bought a Shig as it seemed to be everything I liked about my Ginga and Tanaka blue in one knife, havne't used it enough to determine if it is yet though. Personally I loved my time with the Tanaka blue, but I really disliked the profile. If they made a profile like a Shig/Masamota KS I'd buy it in heartbeat and never buy another knife.
~Brandon
i wish there was a taller version of KS with blue steel, i'd try that in a heart beat. if you have the patience to wait maybe give the stainless yusuke 'thick' ks profiled version a try?
cutting performance of the g3 is remarkable, the weight of the blade and its geometry along with fine grained very keen edge glides through food almost feels like cheating really. despite being a heavier knife i exert less energy with it than that of any other knife i have (ie the knife does all the work for you, you just steer, that's how efficient of a cutter i feel it is, but mind you this has been thinned behind the edge considerably). the initial off the stone sharpness goes away within first use, but it stays very sharp for a long time, and comes right back to piercing soft tomato skin with simple stropping. i've only touched it up twice in the last two months and i use this thing more than all of my other ones COMBINED.
the thing with tanaka, is that you get a top notch steel and heat treat + grind for a way bellow market price of that quality because the fit & finish is horrible. there probably just is not much hand work involved in these blades. but once you tweak it to your preferences, i feel it belongs in the higher end class. in other words, there's no way you're going to get this level in the same price bracket.
re: profile
i also had a 240 g3 which i passed along to one of my cooks (who i kid you not used it to break down a WHOLE pork belly while semi frozen still, lol) i really hated its profile, too much belly, and actually a few mm taller than my 270 (absolutely love the 270s profile btw). i'm thinking though that since these are all hand made, each profile varies a bit maybe a lot even among the same lengths.
Taller blue steel version of the KS? I believe this what kochi has been described as. Ofcourse it's not that simple..but it's worth looking into
the kochi seems very interesting indeed! might just have to try that.
http://www.japaneseknifeimports.com/...-wa-gyuto.html polished version says blue #2