Japanese Knives Ginrei knives coming soon...

Just got our first shipment of Ginrei knives... its a new line we're having custom made for us... solid 52100 with a kurouchi finish. If all goes well, we will be able to get them on the site tomorrow, but here's a teaser in the meantime

https://www.japaneseknifeimports.com/collections/ginrei







Pricing will be from $240-560 depending on size and shape

Interesting = first knives from japan I have seen with 52100!

Thanks for sharing Jon, I check the website are all of them sold out already? The knife looks stunning and beautiful.

Not sold out yet… I just haven't put them in stock on the website yet

Jon, you need to tell us more about these. I am surprised that these are monosteel knives - should we consider them to be honyaki? They definitely look very interesting.

nope... not honyaki... mono-steel for sure. Dont really want to say too much yet... just want to get them up and let them speak for themselves a bit.

Ginrei knives are now in stock... https://www.japaneseknifeimports.com/collections/ginrei

240mm Wa-Gyuto


210mm Wa-Gyuto


210mm Wa-Petty


150mm Wa-Petty

They look great!!

Dang Jon - that 210 wa-petty has my name on it ;-) Now I have to get my wife to agree and that might be tough since I also want a Kato!

Yikes - only one in stock, when will you be getting more?

That knife would be a good partner with my 270 Gesshin Kagekiyo suji

Jack

So, a lot of people have asked about this and I figured it would be time to put it out there.... These are the first knives we are carrying that aren't made in Japan. A very good friend of ours who trained under one of the same guys I train under every year. We worked through the design, grind, etc with him on the development of these. He uses Japanese tools in the making process (Japanese power hammer, water wheels, etc). Because they are made by a Japanese trained smith in the style of knives he learned there, we thought they would be fun for our customers. We've been testing and using prototypes from him for quite a while now and we're pretty happy with how everything turned out. Hope you guys enjoy. We've been waiting for this guy to start knife making for a long time, and a lot of my close friends have heard me say that if I were going to carry American made knives, they would be from this guy.

Thanks for the info Jon, that explains a lot. These are definitely the most japanese-looking, non-japanese knives I have seen My curiosity how these perform just grew a little more.

The methodology sounds similar to that of Murray Carter now that he's back in North America, basically a Japanese knife made closer to home?

not so dissimilar...we've been friendly with the maker since 2011 and have been helping work through the details of this series for about a year (though part of this dates back much further than that). They are the most japanese-style knives i've seen outside of japan, aside from maybe carter.

Jon, these look really nice. Something a little different from other offerings. The 55mm/50mm heel height on the 240/210 versions is going to be really welcome from some people.
I'd be interested to hear a little bit more about the grind. And to know the HRC of the steel.

steel is about 60-62hrc according to the maker... i thought the grind was pretty well pictured in the product photos, but they are a medium thickness spine with a slightly convex grind starting about 3/4 up the blade face. The angle is pretty acute, so they get pretty thin behind the edge (and about 1/2 up the blade). Small bevel at the edge.

What differentiates these from the Bernal Shi-Han knives?

Badgertooth said:

What differentiates these from the Bernal Shi-Han knives?

Click to expand...

I'm not exactly sure what bernal chose to do with Shihan, so its hard for me to say. They may very well be the same. We've been taking with Shehan about him making knives for us since 2011, and actually chose the name for the knives based on him (the "gin" character we chose is the same "gin" from ginga, so it harkens back to his training there). We also did testing of him prototypes, and convinced him to make larger sized gyutos than he had originally planned. So, for us, this has been a long time project finally come to fruition. I didnt expect to see knives made by him in other places so soon, as he kind of kept things under wraps until he was finally ready to start making things, but he's a really talented guy.

Jon when you say thin right behind the edge, can you compare them to something else? For example I've owned (and really liked) Tanaka R2, G Kagekiyo, and Kochi. When I use my "finger gauge" all three have the impression of fading to nothing, like a piece of paper was all that separated my fingers right at the edge. Whenever I have *not* felt that, say Hiromoto AS, Kohetsu, I've always been unimpressed with the performance.

Basically I'm still on a quest to find something that slides through food like laser but with weight.

So, it fades to almost nothing... to give you a reference point, the ginrei 210mm wa-gyuto is about 1mm thick 7-8mm up from the edge, the stainless clad kochi in 210mm wa-gyuto is 1mm thick 8-9mm behind the edge, the blue #2 migaki kochi is about the same as the ginrei, and the v2 kurouchi is about 9-10mm behind the edge. In between my fingers, the edge doesnt disappear quite as much as the kurouchi v2 kochi, but its not far off feeling either.

Jon, that sounds pretty thin - I mean like 'reasonably 'thin' Anything thinner than carbon KU Kochi would probably need 'inverse thinning'

PMJI, but here are two pics of the heel/choil of a 180 gyuto I purchased from the maker. Yes, it is "vanishingly thin".

So give us your thoughts on the cutting PT. BTW how assymetric is the grind?

JBroida said:

So, it fades to almost nothing... to give you a reference point, the ginrei 210mm wa-gyuto is about 1mm thick 7-8mm up from the edge, the stainless clad kochi in 210mm wa-gyuto is 1mm thick 8-9mm behind the edge, the blue #2 migaki kochi is about the same as the ginrei, and the v2 kurouchi is about 9-10mm behind the edge. In between my fingers, the edge doesnt disappear quite as much as the kurouchi v2 kochi, but its not far off feeling either.

Click to expand...

Sounds promising, just put my order in a few minutes ago!