First impression Tojiro DP 210 gyuto

For those considering a Tojiro DP as a first Japanese knife.

I got the Japanese knife bug this year, but had to put off buying one for a while since I also started replacing some ancient crappy cookware and sorta overspent (got used copper as well as Tramontina tri-ply) and had to wait for the free money supply to replenish.

After reading lots of threads and searching eBay and a variety of knife sellers, I found Tojiro DP gyutos on Amazon for very cheap -- the 210mm version was $57.50, free shipping. Too good to pass up, so I bought it. 240 is $69 I think.

Got the knife today, and took it out of the box to play with. Looks fine, nothing I would call a defect (but then again, unless it jabbed or snagged a finger, I'd probably not notice, I use knives to cut with, not for decoration).

Nice edge, but not all that much better than my Korean "cow knife" made from an old car spring or something similar, although the knife looks much better and feels longer than I expected. Nice size. Slices tomatoes OK, but struggled a bit with fine shavings off an orange.

I took it downstairs to my sharpening station and used the 20x loupe to examine the edge. Nicely ground and even, but not especially polished, so I ran it through my normal polish routine -- King 6K stone, Kitayama, and strop on half micron chromium oxide. The edge polished up very nicely with very little effort and now it's really sharp.

Sliced up a few tomatoes and a bit of orange, will do some cabbage for dinner and carrots, I think. I like the way it handles, very nicely balanced, and unlike most of the reviews I've read, I LIKE the boxy handle. I like the handles on my Chicago Cutlery too for the same reason, I have fairly large hands and small handles are a pain, I can't seem to get a decent grip on them. The boxy handle on the Tojiro feels perfect for either a hammer or pinch grip, or just laying my index finger along the right side of the blade like I usually do. Push cuts very nicely, and has plenty of length for me. I'd considered a 240 and am glad I didn't get one.

I think I will like this knife much better than the one's I've been using. The Korean knife is tough as nails, so I'll be using it for rough work and use the Tojiro for slicing and chopping chores.

I'm sure there are better knives out there, but for the price I do believe it's hard to go wrong for a home use first Japanese knife with this one.

Peter

The Tojiro DP knives are really a lot nicer than most people give them credit for.

My first dip into this was a Tojiro 270mm powered steel knife. Be careful, you just might catch the bug and spend a LOT more money. Nice grab on this for the price.

Lol, this Tojiro is so much better than the Chicago Cutlery it's hard to describe. Not that I can't get the 440C in the CC sharp, but it won't STAY sharp more than a couple days. Most of the rest of the stuff I've had is worse.

The one standout is my mother's Ka-Bar small chef's knife she got for a wedding present in 1951. Never used it because she could never sharpen it, for good reason, it's quite hard. I cleaned up the edge on my waterstone set and now I use it to cut up chickens. Not as nice a geometry or blade grind as a japanese knife, but stays sharp.

I don't think I'll be buying any more knives for a while, not that I wouldn't like more, just too hard to justify them.

Besides, I'm not really done buying copper cookware yet either, need some skillets and a couple shallow roasting pans.

Peter

Quick update:

Cut up cabbages tonight for sauerkraut. 210 is a bit short for that, but no problems. This is the only knife I've had that has a tip sharp and thin enough to do things like cut the core out of cabbage quarters with ease. Very nice. Shredded the cabbage with our kraut cutter (over 100 years old, only sharpened this week believe it or not).

I had some sticking problems to start with, but now the only thing that gives me any trouble is potato slices, and usually that isn't too bad. Everything else behaves pretty well.

Knife is still very very sharp, in spite of my bad technique and lousy cutting boards -- I have an end grain board under construction in the garage, hope to get out there and work on it tonight. Had to repair the kraut cutter, and that slowed me down -- no, I did not shred six head of cabbage with my gyuto! Probably wouldn't have taken long, but since I sharpened the kraut cutter and rebuilt the slide box there is no point, the cutter reduces two heads of cabbage to shreds in a couple minutes. Does a great job on cucumbers for bread and butter pickles, too.

I think I'll be using this Tojiro for a while -- perfect balance, very sharp, no wedging issues although I may thin it a bit, thick carrots seem to be a bit harder to cut than thin ones. Great knife for the price.

Peter

Nice review! That is a nicely priced entry to the market.

How about some pics of the knife and the kraut cutter?

Cheers

Thank you for the review. Indeed - often Tojiro DP knives are looked at from 'above'. Your review reminded me the I once got a 180 gyuto in a knife exchange (it was a free-bee I did not expect). I have used it a little and it was performing very well. I gave it to my friend later as they did not have any decent kitchen knives. and they were very happy with it.

Hopefully the pictures will uploadl Nope, looks like they didn't. Any pointers on loading images here?





A picture of the handle, which many people do not like, the blade, and a choil shot. Last one is not very good, wrong lens on the camera and I didn't have time to set up my macro stuff.

Not a pretty blade, particularly, but then again it's a tool. The san mai is very soft, you can probably see the horizontal scratches I put in in making a saya for it. Easy to sand out if you want, but I don't care.

Enough curve to the edge to rock chop if you wish. I push cut everything, so the fact that the blade is perfectly balanced for a pinch grip doesn't matter much. Too short with a pinch grip too, so if that's how you work I'd advise a longer one. The tip is thin and sharp, and therefore quite a pleasure to use compared to almost any other chef's knife I've handled.



Quick picture of the kraut cutter and the Tojiro to show the whole blade. Kraut cutter is at least 100 years old as my aunt remembered it as a small child and would be 102 this year if she were still alive. Carbon steel blades and galvanized or tin coated steel sheet metal with maple frame and box. I sharpened two of the blades this weekend, I don't think they've been touched otherwise. You can see the shiny spots where I removed the burr from the bevel, which is about 40 degrees. Blades are 1/8" thick, gotta been fairly simple carbon steel as that's about all there was in 1905 (the patent date on the box). Sadly all the screws that hold it together are rusting away, I'll need to pull them and see if I can get something to hold. Otherwise, I'll just duplicate it in stainless steel and save the old one as a conversation piece.

It does do major slicing in a trice, though. One can generate a gallon of sliced cucumbers in a few minutes, all exactly the same thickness.

Do watch out for fingers though.....

Peter

well. I guess they don't work, since the link itself leads to nowhere...no http/https in front of it, the top-level domain is missing (.org/.com/...)

Just upload them to one of the gazillion of free picturehosts. Lot of people on the board seem to use photobucket... Either copy the link from your browsers address bar or right-click on the image and choose "copy image location" from the menu. That gives you a working url you can then post here... Simple as that... doesn't also tells everybody what your personal homepage is...

How is the balance on it?

Balances on a finger right in front of the bolster, prefect for a pinch grip. Might be why it has such a large handle.

This is a 210mm, don't know about the balance on the longer ones, but I would suspect a similar balance point.

Pictures later, gotta set up a photobucket account.

Peter

OK, another try with pictures

Kraut Kutter:



Choil shot



Handle



Blade

btw, does the vg10 core go all the way to the spine in these clad knives or does it end half way through?

Sandwiched between the stainless, only the cutting edge is vg10

It does not show well in the picture, but you can see the difference between the VG-10 core and the soft stainless san-mai near the edge, maybe 1/8" or less up from the actual edge. If you polish the spine you will probably be able to see the difference there too. The core is from top to bottom, but fairly thin.

The stainless scratches very easily, you can also see the horizontal marks I made while testing the saya I was making for fit. Hard to believe cottonwood can scratch stainless, it transforms mightily when it dries.

Peter

I´m on a market to buy one of these, it will be my first knife above 25€.

How do you compare this knife with a Wushtof Classic 20cm chefs knife? they are about the same price here in Europe, and i´m divided between the two.

Thanks

I have used a Wusthof plenty of times, the garde manger (salad/pastry) guy where I work has a new one, they are decent I guess, but once you go to a J Knife, the profile just doesn't make any sense to me anymore, and I starting to really not like it bc of that, oh yea and how heavy the darn thing is

You will also need at least a 1000/6000 grit combination stone to sharpen it, it will not work at all with a steel, the blade is harder than a typical steel. A ceramic hone will work, but the edge it leaves negates most of the advantages of the VG-10.

In comparison to a standard "German" knife: much lighter, tip is both sharper and finer, blade is thinner and less flexible (believe it or not) and it cuts much more easily in vegetables. Might have more "stiction" with potato slices sticking really badly sometimes. MUCH sharper as a rule if maintained properly with stones and strops, but absolutely intolerant of bones and stupid things like opening cans. Wrong profile for rock chopping as the blade is rather flat on the bottom, and twisting while in contact with the board is very likely to knock chips out. You should make sure you don't do those things with this knife.

It will stay sharp much much longer than a Wustof unless it's one of the super hard ones (which will also have a more Japanese profile, I expect). Again, a steel won't help you any with this knife, if you feel the need to touch up strop on black print newspaper or a 6000 grit stone, etc.

VG-10 has been reported to be "chippy", but I suspect most of this issue is the rather ragged factory edge. Japanese knives are usually NOT fully sharpened when shipped, it is assumed that either the seller or the purchaser will sharpen to their own personal specifications. Mine had a usable edge out of the box, but it wasn't anything special and looked like a fine belt grinder finish. A quick sharpening on the stones made a big improvement, and I expect even better results next time I sharpen. Won't be for a long time as this is a home use knife and doesn't get used every day, let alone for hours at a time.

These are great deals, I think.

Peter

I have the 180 Gyoto and the 210 western Deba. The steel does not chip. My knives came sharp, and have held an edge. The Deba has been only used for rough work, like splitting lots of lobster tails, and has not needed sharpening.
Tojiro does a good job with VG10.

CoqaVin said:

Sandwiched between the stainless, only the cutting edge is vg10

Click to expand...

I've dipped Tojiro DP knives, and the core steel on the ones I've done so on has shown through on the spine. Unless things have changed, or the ones I had were anomalies, they don't just have small VG-10 inserts.

That's what I'm saying, wasn't sure if you could see the sandwich on the spine

CoqaVin said:

That's what I'm saying, wasn't sure if you could see the sandwich on the spine

Click to expand...

Sure, man. At least with the ones I have experience with, they are full depth.

The core of VG-10 is full depth, but only visible for a very short space at the edge and at the spine, it's thin enough the stainless cladding covers it for nearly all the width of the blade.

Peter

Hi.
I've got Tojiro DP 150mm Utility. and more recently a DP 170 Santoku.
Along with several others incl a later model (this yrs) Wustof Classic 8in. Chef's knife.

The Utility gets used daily. Last time I sharpened. on Diamond plates. was around 5 months ago, Touch up with
smooth diamond steel at every use.
Maybe sharpen next month for a present.
Still slides into and through tomatoes with not having to push start the cut first. Very happy But could do with a slightly longer blade.
Missus stole it.

The Santoku.

That after a touch up on the diamond plate machine is supersharp.
used not so often. coupla times a week (All home usage here.)

The Wusthof my third in 40plus yrs.
This is one of the latest narrow, harder steel blades
is surprising. as to how sharp it gets, and holds
It's my heavy work knife for everything. Much better steel and grind than the original one was.

And the extra weight. Personally, I like it.

But that Santoku is a beast. Does everything.

For cheap knives. You won't better them
And unless you a kitchen hand they're more than anybody would want.

8in is the biggest size I use though, apart from pumpkin and cabbage.
I have an old Geisser Butchers 10in Slicer for that out of the meatworks. 30 yrs ago.

And after using Japanese knives. Even the basic models. It'd be very hard to go back to European blades,
Apart for the heavy work.

Who makes a nice. not too exxy 7in Utility?? That'd be perfect

macka17 said:

Who makes a nice. not too exxy 7in Utility?? That'd be perfect

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Welcome! Guess you'd technically be looking for a 180mm petty?