Takeshi Saji gyutos experiences

I know a VG-10 Saji was sold on BST in the past. Does anyone have any experience or feedback on his kitchen knives? The handle seems heftier than the Tanaka Ironwood, and I was a little concerned about balance issues. I've been thinking about a Saji R2 for quite some time, and I've had good experience with the R2/SG2 knives from the Takefu knife viillage artisans in the past.

i have a vg10 saji santoku and like it pretty much. very thin blade, good heat treatment, ff outstanding. id say get it.

My apologies for posting this in the wrong forum category!!! Ugh!

I've had one for about a month now and my 240 R2 saji gyuto balances about 3/4 inch in front of the bolster and weighs ~ 288 g (stag handled one).

The handle is extremely comfortable. It has a bit of heft towards the back and tapers very nicely to the bolster. Spine and choil are not rounded, but it seems like some effort has been put to take the edge off of them.

As for the blade, I like it quite a lot. Steel is relatively easy to sharpen (comparable to my takagi honyaki blue#1; easier than twin cermax zdp-189) and it takes a nice refined edge off the stones. Since I'm only a home user and I've only owned the blade for about a month, I can't say much about the edge retention yet, but I imagine that it's pretty stellar. The damascus (at least on the stag handled ones) is textured and may cause some drag issues when cutting.

Here's a choil shot for you:

Thanks so much for the input James. I'm even more interested now. Does the blade have a nice distal taper?

There really isn't any distal taper. Spine width is pretty consistent and starts thinning down like 1/2 inch from the tip. Maybe you, Koki and Saji can work something out.