Shigefusa Kitaeji Garasuki 180mm

Hey fellow KKF people,

I have found my favorite knife so far! I feel like I do not deserve this knife, it is just so beautiful and masterfully crafted. The knife does it's job incredibly well, especially as a single bevel.. I gave it a hone on some hard j-nats after my poultry shift at work and the razor-like edge came back with ease. I don't want to ruin the gorgeous mirror polished edge, but i want to take the edge to a lower grit. maybe later..

The flatter face of the knife does not look very concave.. Coming out of the choil, the flatter face is fairly angled maybe around 60-65 degrees, compared to something like a deba, which seems to be almost 80-90 degrees with the handle. This triangular profile became more apparent when I did some honing strokes on the flat side. I expected to be able to keep an almost 5 degree angle for honing stroke on the flat side, but i ended up hitting behind the edge. I quickly polished the hard stone grit marks away and raised my honing stroke up a little bit. It was great at 10-15 degrees on the flat side and 20 degrees or so on the beveled side. The edge really popped.
I really love this knife. I hope it stays with me as long as I live. Thank you very much to Aframestokyo and especially those 3 at Shigefusa.
Some stats:

Blade Length (from the tip to the heel): 185mm
Handle Length: 132mm
Total Length: 333mm
Knife weight: 6.1oz.
Choil width: 5mm.








If anyone has a kitaeji boning knife from Shigefusa, please let me know! I want to see it!

Cheers :knife:

cenc

Unless I am misunderstanding you, you are saying that you are lifting up on the backside? If so I have to tell you that isn't the way to sharpen a single bevel knife. You are supposed to lay the back flat and apply light pressure only on the pushing stroke. This is called uraoshi sharpening. For the front you are supposed to lay the wide bevel flat on the stone and apply pressure behind the shinogi line. Then you apply pressure directly behind the edge. Then you blend the bevels. This is called hamaguriba sharpening. For edge stability you can then add a microbevel if you wish by going about a 45 degree angle and using only the weight of the blade for approximately 3 passes on a high grit stone. Don't forget uraoshi to debur. I'll post a video when I'm on pc.

I don't think you understand how this knife was crafted. sorry, no offense. there is no hollow ground to lay the knife flat on the stone. I own a deba.

Also, as you can see in the pictures, there is no mirror-like finish near the spine on the flat side, like other hollow ground single bevel blades.

cenc said:

I don't think you understand how this knife was crafted. sorry, no offense. there is no hollow ground to lay the knife flat on the stone. I own a deba.

Also, as you can see in the pictures, there is no mirror-like finish near the spine on the flat side, like other hollow ground single bevel blades.

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Your choil shot shows an ura. Sorry but I think Theory knows what he is talking about. Especially when your photos agree.

And depending how the knife was polished there may not be mirror polish around the edge on the ura side.

The sharpening you are describing is for a double bevel knife. This is clearly a single bevel.

It sounds like there is no hollow on the backside (Ura). This is my understanding of how garasuki and honesuki are made, as distinct from traditional single bevels with a hollow Ura.

Time to research ...

Congrats on your pickup from aframes! I would love to have taken that if you didn't buy it!

Vancouverguy said:

Congrats on your pickup from aframes! I would love to have taken that if you didn't buy it!

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Thanks! I'm lucky to have been browsing the site at the right time. Couldn't be happier, such a unique knife.

cenc said:

Thanks! I'm lucky to have been browsing the site at the right time. Couldn't be happier, such a unique knife.

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This is not a unique knife at all... In fact it's so common we usually just dump them off on someone else. I'll do your favor and you can send it to me. :groucho:

Congratulation cenc, it is a great looking blade. Not sure whether I would feel regretful not pulling a trigger when the blade was available or not, but I already have a kasumi version of this knife, a bit smaller as well at about 170mm length, and AUD is not very helpful for buying knives.

You are right that this is a single bevel knife with flat back side, no ura. On the back side a few passes at, 10-15˚ for deburring should be enough. I would keep back side back bevel tiny myself.

On the front side, either do a micro bevel as you do now, or just typical shig pure hamaguriba would also be a good idea. It would depend on how you use the knife, really.

Thank you for being cool and unassumptive about a new forumer's sharpening/knife knowledge, schanop.

Good looking out with that honing recommendation. Wonderful to hear that someone else is enjoying shigefusa poultry knives! Cheers mate.

If you like your shiggy you'll have found a bunch of new friends here, very popular knives on this forum. Highly sought after!

Actually you can sharp double bevel or single bevel up to the user. Korin had the video talk about this boning knife. Here the video.
[video=youtube;5D201VjroT0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D201VjroT0[/video]

schanop said:

Congratulation cenc, it is a great looking blade. Not sure whether I would feel regretful not pulling a trigger when the blade was available or not, but I already have a kasumi version of this knife, a bit smaller as well at about 170mm length, and AUD is not very helpful for buying knives.

You are right that this is a single bevel knife with flat back side, no ura. On the back side a few passes at, 10-15˚ for deburring should be enough. I would keep back side back bevel tiny myself.

On the front side, either do a micro bevel as you do now, or just typical shig pure hamaguriba would also be a good idea. It would depend on how you use the knife, really.

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The round choil in that shot must be deceiving, i could have sworn I could see a concave ura... ah well time to get my eyes tested.

Any particular reason why they don't have an ura?

malexthekid said:

The round choil in that shot must be deceiving, i could have sworn I could see a concave ura... ah well time to get my eyes tested.

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As we get older, :detective:

malexthekid said:

Any particular reason why they don't have an ura?

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Not particularly sure, Alex. From what I have seen so far for Garasuki knives, usually it is a mono steel, rather thick, has a large single bevel on the front side, has a tiny back bevel on a flat back side. Shigefusa garasuki and honesuki that I have seem to follow this form. A true single bevel with hollow ground garasuki such as Kato that I used to have, and Watanabe? exist as well, but in minority.

If I am not mistaken from memory, a Shigefusa kitaeji hankotsu that was made a few years back also had a flat backside.

schanop said:

As we get older, :detective:



Not particularly sure, Alex. From what I have seen so far for Garasuki knives, usually it is a mono steel, rather thick, has a large single bevel on the front side, has a tiny back bevel on a flat back side. Shigefusa garasuki and honesuki that I have seem to follow this form. A true single bevel with hollow ground garasuki such as Kato that I used to have, and Watanabe? exist as well, but in minority.

If I am not mistaken from memory, a Shigefusa kitaeji hankotsu that was made a few years back also had a flat backside.

Click to expand...

Love the look of that hankotsu.. It reminds me of a really long kiridashi.

Really concentrated kitaeji patterns on that one..