R2 Steel Knives - Maintenance Tips?

I'm a modest home cook that likes to play with knives. Now that I have that out of the way...

Having used a MAC gyuto/petty combo for the past 8+ years, I've grown accustomed to light, thin and nimble blades. As a result, I purchased a set of Takamura R2 knives as replacements/upgrades (210mm gyuto/150mm petty). I'll spare you the various considerations that led me to this purchase, but suffice it to say, I absolutely love these knives!

Having no prior experience with powdered steel, however, I'm wondering if there's anything in particular that I should be aware of? More specifically, I'd like to know what cutting techniques I should avoid using with this knife/steel, and how best to care for the edge. For example, what is the principal cause of micro-chipping on a blade like this, and what practical steps can I take to avoid such damage? I already know the basics of knife care and maintenance (e.g., no bones, frozen foods, violent hacking, etc). I use an end-grain cutting board with this knife, and I avoid rock-chopping at all costs. When I want to get a bit sloppy with the rock-chop method, I pull out an old Wusthof Classic 8" that I use as an all-purpose 'beater knife'. I typically use this for chopping herbs and garlic, although I'm beginning to practice proper slicing technique with the Takamura (painfully slow).

Although I do some sharpening (1000/5000 grit Naniwa), my skills are novice at best, having only sharpened about 3 or 4 stainless steel knives to date. Should I even attempt to touch up the Takamura knives on the stone, or am I more likely to do damage to them? Part of the reason why I went with R2 steel is to avoid frequent sharpening, but I still feel that I ought to be able to sharpen my own knives -- no matter how pretty they might be. That means practice, practice, practice to build my confidence and overcome my fear, but I just don't know how to practice without working on these knives and potentially ruining them; the knives that I typically sharpen have different steel, different blade profiles, and different bevel angles altogether. Any suggestions? Keep in mind that I have several reputable sharpeners in my city who could probably do this with their eyes closed.

Thanks for any and all info!

I have a couple of the R2 knives, as well as the HSPS Pro and Hana. They have pretty good edge retention and I thought mine were fine ootb.

just take it slow and make sure to deburr after each stone and don't round the edge (one of my biggest issues)

I should also add I use mine similar to you (no frozen/bone or rock chop) but on a hinoki board and haven't had micro chipping issues. Sometimes I am lazy and just rinse/wipe and let sit on cutting board on the counter for a day or so before I actually wash and put away in saya

I have old and new Ryusen Blazen(especially the new ones must be made by Takamura, identical knives, same length, width, handles, etc.) , I use fibrox cutting boards, and some other synthetics, and no micro chipping with the rocking motion.

They are also, not so hard to sharpen. On the market are some whetstones available, for powdered steels, like the Ryusen Blazen stones, the Higashiyama, I havent tried them, but I suppose they make the sharpening quicker

I just strop strop strop with loaded diamond for maintenance since I personally dislike sharpening SG-2 steel or other powdered steels. I only use them on my end grained board. The ones I use regularly are the SG-2 Miyabi 600MC Morimoto gyuto and a few SRS-15 Akifusa/Haruyuki's and they've held up just fine. The powdered steel knives are the only knives that I would sharpen/set bevels on with a sharpening machine rather than hand-sharpening. I haven't encountered any chips, but I've been gentle.

I used to own a ZDP-189 Miyabi, and that thing chipped like a mofo. And soooooo difficult to sharpen. It wore down my Edge Pro Shapton stones sooooo fast!

I still have a few Blazens (240 gyuto, 270 suji, 135 petty) that are sitting on the shelf new in their boxes. I doubt I'll ever use them. One thing I can say about powdered steel gyutos --- every single one I've ever used came brand new with a screaming sharp edge.

Here's me sharpening my R2 pm Tanaka wa gyuto. It's heavily annotated but feel free to ask me any questions.

[video=youtube;bMW5vJ4krPE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMW5vJ4krPE[/video]

supersayan3 said:

I have old and new Ryusen Blazen(especially the new ones must be made by Takamura, identical knives, same length, width, handles, etc.) , I use fibrox cutting boards, and some other synthetics, and no micro chipping with the rocking motion.

They are also, not so hard to sharpen. On the market are some whetstones available, for powdered steels, like the Ryusen Blazen stones, the Higashiyama, I havent tried them, but I suppose they make the sharpening quicker

Click to expand...

Fwiw I've heard from two different sources that Ryusen/Blazen is a copy of Takamura Pro. I'll try and find the two emails.

tjangula said:

Fwiw I've heard from two different sources that Ryusen/Blazen is a copy of Takamura Pro. I'll try and find the two emails.

Click to expand...

Blazen used to labeled both Ryusen and by Takamura. They are identical in every way unless the heat treaments were somehow different. There are still some Takamura branded Blazens around (the blade has both Takamura and Blazen engraved on it). It is now the Takamura Pro line. They are the same knife in shape and steel and function. I don't know if there were different makers (Ryusen vs Takamura) since the Japanese knives from one craftman's shop are often rebranded.

Fantastic video Theory! It looked like you use a Shapton stone then a Rika? Do you prefer the Rika to the 5k Shapton? I use shapton glass 2k/6k then kangaroo (or maybe horse) strop. Getting an R2 knife soon so I'm not sure if I need to adjust this progression?

I read somewhere, or was it a video, I don't remember, the Takamuras saying that they were the ones who did the Blazens originally, under Ryusen brand.

augerpro said:

Fantastic video Theory! It looked like you use a Shapton stone then a Rika? Do you prefer the Rika to the 5k Shapton? I use shapton glass 2k/6k then kangaroo (or maybe horse) strop. Getting an R2 knife soon so I'm not sure if I need to adjust this progression?

Click to expand...

Bester 1200 then rika 5k. I have no experience with shaptons. I think your progression will be fine though.

supersayan3 said:

I read somewhere, or was it a video, I don't remember, the Takamuras saying that they were the ones who did the Blazens originally, under Ryusen brand.

Click to expand...

I believe Ryusen Blazen is a result of the Echizen knifemaker co-op (Takefu Knife Village) which Takamura Hamono is a part of. I found it unusual that Takamura branded its own Blazen knives separate from the Ryusen brand of the entire cooperative. Blazen is still one of Takamura's products. MTC chooses to label the Takamura Blazen as the Takamura HSPS Pro line. It is Blazen on Takamura's website. Takamura has extensive experience working with SG-2 steel since SG-2 is produced in Takefu. But so do most of the masters in Takefu Knife Village. We're talking about knifemakers like Asai, Saji, Ikeda, Itou, Masakage.

I've seen the Blazen logo on the Ryusen page at JCK and also stumbled upon it on the Takamura website (can't read Japanese with a **** though). Anyways here is an excerpt from an email from MTC Kitchen where I got 5/7 of my Takamura knives.

On Nov 19, 2014, at 14:15, "*** ******" wrote:

******,

Thank you for purchasing Takamura knives from MTC Kitchen. We definitely do have a great relationship with Takamura cutlery and we are the only distributors in the US who work directly with them. As far as we know, all other distributors have to go through a distributor in Japan.

I’ve had another customer ask me about SG2 so we asked Takamura Cutlery directly about this and they assured us that R2 and SG2 actually refer to the same type of steel. We do not like using R2 or SG2 in the name of their knives because this is a term that was coined by Takamura Cutlery when they initially ordered the steel from the steel manufacturer and I don’t think it is a precise technical term. The steel manufacturer started referring to it as R2 after Takamura Cutlery coined the term, so people often use that terminology for the steel. The red handle knives, the HSPS Pro, Hana (in Japan called “Uchigumo No Hana”) and HSPS Damascus black handle (in Japan called “Uchigumo”) all have the same core steel (HSPS/R2/SG2).

The Damascus Hana and Damascus black handle have the exact same blade. Just different handles. There is really no reason why our black handle Damascus is more expensive except for the fact that the cost to us was higher. We also asked about this to Takamura Cutlery and they just base their price to us based on their cost. For some reason it cost more for them to produce this model and size. They say that there is no inferior or superior when it comes to these models- just personal preference. Some people prefer the Japanese style octagonal handle and some people prefer the Western style handle. I would personally say though, that the octagonal handle series seem to be lighter and even more well balanced.

The HSPS Pro is called “Blazen” in Japan. We wanted to get rid of the name for several reasons- one being that there is a knife manufacturer in Fukui who is producing knives of a similar name (on purpose, trying to copycat Takamura) and it is significantly lower in quality. We did not want people to get these two mixed up. We also thought using the term HSPS Pro would help differentiate this series from the red handle series.

Suminagashi is a term that is used more for the ink staining Damascus pattern as you mentioned, but Takamura’s Damascus is a true layered Damascus. Not just a pattern. They use a Damascus steel of 16 layers (2 different kinds of steel so a total of 32 layers) and fold the HSPS in between, and then forge it. So the end result is 65 layers (if you include the core).

I hope that I was able to answer all your questions.

Regards,

*** ******

Here is an excerpt of an email from Koki on the topic:

-----Original Message-----
From: **** ******* [mailto:****@kencrest.us]
Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2014 2:29 AM
To: *******, ******
Subject: Re: ...............

Dear ******,

Thank you very much for your interest and confirmation.

Both Ryusen and Takamura are the leading company from Takefu City. We heard they are competing with each other from long time ago and their quality level are also very competitive too.

We hope you will find your favorite one and when you will have any questions, please let us know and help.

Thank you very much again for your interest and confirmation.

Best Regards,

**** *******

I'm sure that both the Takamura and Ryusen iterations are good knives, I couldn't see either MTC or JCK selling them if they were junk

Wow!!!
Thank you tjangula for the iformation!

Concerning the 2 different Blazens, i found this(google translated here) from cleancut.se that sells both Ryusen and Takamura:

Takamura Blazen or Ryusen Blazen?
Have you noticed that there are two manufacturers who sell Blazen knives? The reason is that these manufacturers have long worked side by side and helped to develop the brand Blazen. Today, companies are completely separate, but they share the rights to use the trademark Blazen. The differences between these knives is very small. The accompanying Sayan look different, the engraving is different and knives have minor differences in the weight and balance. Both produce clean levrererar However, the quality of the highest level.

I have no issue sharpening the Takamura R2. I did not notice it behaves any different in significant way compared to others.
Easy to get the burr and deburring is fine as well. And I love the knife.

Not so sure whether the Naniwas will do with that steel. It responds very well to the Naniwa Choseras, or Naniwa pro as they happen to be called now. Make sure to have your last few -- deburring --strokes at a substantially higher level. Some will cry for rounding, but a few very light edge trailing strokes -- stropping -- will solve that. And listen while stropping on the stone. You will hear when the bevels meet.

ThEoRy said:

Here's me sharpening my R2 pm Tanaka wa gyuto. It's heavily annotated but feel free to ask me any questions.

[video=youtube;bMW5vJ4krPE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMW5vJ4krPE[/video]

Click to expand...

Hello I am new to the sharpening thing and never ever sharpening a knife. I bought a combine waterstone (1k/3k ohishi). And i saw your video(it is helpful) and i have also buy Kurosaki WA-handle R2(Kurosaki Shizuku) and i wonder if you can give me some tips in sharpening stone(like what is the thing i need to think about ,etc) and I saw a lot of people talk about rounding the edge i wonder if you can tell what it is.

Do you think i need to sharpen the R2 often(since people said that the Kurosaki R2 is not good at edge retention like other r2 but ye it maybe a personal opinion). I also have a strop can you like tell me how to strop(i know little about the basic but i dont know if it is right like you need to push the edge away from the strop).

The shop(cleancut) tell me that the knife is maybe 12 degree per side. So do you have any tips(since you said that 2 pennies and 3 pennies thing).
Thank you so much

I guess Theory will better answer your question, but I would make sure to remove some steel from the factory edge and thin a bit. You may end up with a 10/15 degree edge or with the left face much higher. Doesn't change a lot for performance but adds more stability. Have the right bevel convexed. I would start there at the lowest angle.