Josh's kit

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JKerr

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The is more of less my full collection. Missing are a 27cm carbonext and a Sabatier oyster knife, along some Global, Tojiro and Shun pieces from my early days.

Starting from top left is: 30cm Takeshi Saji gin-3 yanagiba, 21cm Tadatsuna white 2 usuba, 21cm white 2 mizuno usuba with ebony handle, cheap bone chopper, CCK 1301, Hattori KF Cleaver, Sugimoto #6
From the bottom left is: 16.5cm Kanetsune Deba, 27cm Hattori KF suji, vintage Sab 12in slicer, Misono parer, 20cm Sabatier slicer, 12cm Sabatier Boning knife, 14cm Sugimoto Hankotsu
Gyuto/chefs in the middle: First two are 10in vintage sabs, 27cm Takeshi Saji gyuto VG10, 27cm Sugimoto CM wa-gyuto and finally 10in Sab chefs knife.

The work kit is pretty much limited to the Misono parer, hattori suji, the sugimoto/hattori cleavers and the sugimoto hankotsu.

Hope you all like and sorry for the crap pic...taken with my phone.

Cheers,
Josh

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The sugimoto #6 would probably be my fav at the moment, with the Hattori cleaver not far behind. It's fairly new so I'm still getting use to it. Other than the cleavers I'm particularly fond of the Takeshi Saji gyuto, flat profile, comfy handle, very nimble, stupidly thin (by my standards), still got some weight to it (250g I think) and while I don't normally care much about damascus, I can't help be a little captivated by it. Originally it had a lot more contrast but had a very rough texture between the lairs so it didn't cut as smoothly as it could. I polished it down with micro mesh pads and it works much better now.

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Dang! nice set. You got to give us a reveiw of that Minamoto gyuto, with lots of pics.
 
Very nice cleaver collection! I see you finally got the Hattori as the stainless cleaver you were looking for. Sure it is amazing. I am hoping to buy the Sugimoto soon :spiteful:

Hope your newest purchase gets to you soon and meets your expectations completely.

Thanks for sharing
 
I hope you will come back and post reviews of your new gyuto and yanagiba too Josh. I don't think I've ever read anything about the maker, but they look and sound sweet. Hope they make it down under by Christmas!
 
I like the looks of that lay out. Bravo.

How do you like that 27cm Takeshi Saji gyuto VG10? Is that the one with the bone handle? I need me at least one vintage sab. Thanks for reminding me.

k.
 
Thanks for posting your stuff!

Liking that Sab boning knife...

Vintage?
 
Cheers, glad to hear you all like the set up.

How do you like that 27cm Takeshi Saji gyuto VG10? Is that the one with the bone handle? I need me at least one vintage sab. Thanks for reminding me.
I love it, as mentioned before, the pics on JCK don't do it justice. I spoke to Koki before ordering it and he mentioned that he had one in stock that was a little thinner/lighter so this one weighs in at 2.2mm on the spine and about 250g instead of 2.4mm and I think 350g like the rest of them. I reckon saji's VG10 behaves like Hattoris FH models too.

Liking that Sab boning knife...

Vintage?
Nah, just a regular K sab. Just the slicer and the first two chefs knives are vintage. I am fond of my sabs but just a word of warning to anyone ordering a vintage. I recently purchased a "vintage carbon chefs knife" direct from the K sab website. I don't know how "vintage" it is, but the finish and profile/geometry has a lot more in common with my modern sabs; very thick at the tip, almost no taper, finish and grind was surprisingly even. I can deal with all those things but the biggest hang up was it's not carbon. No sign of a patina after 2 weeks constant use in a commercial kitchen and intentionally being left in acid foodstuffs, and takes a crap edge and barely holds it at that. I emailed K sab several times and got no reply, so pretty unhappy with that experience. Just a word of warning.
 
Unfortunately I'm still waiting on them. Was hoping they'd arrive today so I'd have a chance to use them at work before we close over New Years, but oh well. Hopefully I'll have them by Monday or Tuesday and I'll get some pics up.
 
Ok, new knives arrived on Thursday so I've only used them a few times for home meals. I'll post more informed thoughts once I've used them at work for a while; the gyuto anyway, it's unlikely I'll use the yanagi at work, it was more of a toy for myself.

Initial impressions on the gyuto: Very sharp out of the box, can easily shave. The actual edge looks to have been finished on a fairly high grit, doesn't feel 'toothy' at all, higher up there are a few deeper scratches, presumably from grinding. Profile is very flat, it's actually very close to my takeshi saji gyuto but with a bit less height. Spine is slightly rounded and choil is very well finished, most comfortable of all my knives to hold so far. Feels very nimble in the hand, this could be due to the weight though. I've been using my hattori fh cleaver of late which weight 508g and my 2 gyutos are 27cm and are both around the 250g mark. The azuma weighs 167g and although listed as 24cm it's actually about 26cm from ferrule to tip. My only complaint so far (and it's minor to me) is the handle which is somewhat twisted, but it doesn't look to be stuck on with epoxy or anything so depending how much I grow to like the knife I make knock it off and replace it with something nicer. I'll try to get some pics up soon.

Yanagi: Again, very sharp out of the box, saya fits nicely. I don't really know a great deal about yanagi, my only previous experience is with my takeshi saji gin-3 and some crappy KAI thing. Ura looks evenly finished, nice hazy kasumi finish on the front, spine is nicely rounded and polished. Handle is well fitted on this one, again, it looks to have just been hammered/burnt on. Weight is around 240g. So far i've only used it to slice some salmon and skin some snapper which it went through effortlessly.

I can't really comment on the steels as of yet. The factory edge on the gyuto is good enough for now and I'm curous how it'll hold up so I'll put my own edge on it once it's started to dull. Aframes listed it at 64hrc and it's definitely completely stainless so I'll be interested to see if it's a brute to sharpen or not. The yanagi will likely stay as is for a while, until I get some experience sharpening my cheap-o yanagis. Never used a blue steel knife before either so looking forward to the experience.

I'll try to post some pics and measurements soon.

Cheers,
Josh
 
Got some pics I was gonna post, but it seems I can't post attachments anymore. Any suggestions? Hope I haven't violated rules or anything :sad0:
 
Got some pics I was gonna post, but it seems I can't post attachments anymore. Any suggestions? Hope I haven't violated rules or anything :sad0:

Don't know. Might send a message to one of the moderators. I want to see the pics!
 
Ok, here's a few better shots of some of the kit. Sorry the quality is pretty sh*t, they're all taken from my phone.
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The single bevels:
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top to bottom in first pic: Azuma Minamoto 30cm blue 1 yanagiba, Shigefusa 24cm kasumi usuba, Tadatsuna 21cm usuba, 21cm mizuno hon kasumi kamagata usuba, Kanetsune 16cm deba white 2.
 
Close up on the Shigefusa's choil, unbelievably comfy.
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Some of the gyutos:
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Sugimoto 27cm CM gyuto top, Azuma minamoto 24cm gyuto middle, takeshi saji vg10 27cm gyuto bottom.

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Choil shots: Azuma left, sugimoto middle, saji right

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Spines top to bottom: Azuma, Saji, Carbonext 27cm, Sugimoto
 
That's a nice collection Josh. Close up choil shot of Sugimoto #6 makes it feel heftier than mine. Love my Shigefusa choil too, very comfy.
 
Very nice collection and thanks for the pics!
Looking at the pic the Sugimoto #6 seems thicker than I expected.

Regards
 
It tapers a lot towards the front, but yeah, it is still pretty thick behind the edge. Keep meaning to try thinning it. It's not my first choice for dicing onions or most hard root veg (The hattori is much better for this IMO) but it's great for soft veg/fruit and meat. I view it as an all-rounder, pretty good for everything, but doesn't particularly excel at anything either. Having said all that, it's probably my favorite knife and pretty comfy for long prep sessions.
 
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