A few shots of the Yoshikane SLD 240 mm Kiritsuke

Used the kiritsuke this morning. Nice cutter/chopper Maybe a little to bling bling for my taste so I might let it go :scratchhead:

Enjoy the pics :happymug:

Sweet looking knife. Is the last pic a top down perspective from the spine?

Very good looking knife! shame you spend all that money and want to let it go.

I didn't notice anything 'blingy' about that knife. I had a suji from the same series.

Geometry is good for proteins, but will wedge in everything else, the only drawback.

M

I did actually test it in potatoes and squash and it did not wedge in any of them.
I also think he made mine bit thiner behind the edge

The geometry on that knife looks similar to my Carter "heavy duty" suji. Its thick but if you adjust your technique a bit, it won't wedge in hard veg like onions and potatoes.

Sweet knife! :O

My point here is that with that type forging (knife is hammered into shape before quenching) and grind (sword grind), you will get wedging. Depending how thick the spine is and how much a distal taper there is (in this case a good degree of a distal taper), you will get more or less wedging, but there will be wedging. Cut through the apple or a squash to see it. this type of grind is suited very well for cutting raw proteins. Do you agree, Peter?

I am not saying it it is good or bad, just pointing the obvious - it's in the geometry shot (one before the last picture).

M

PS: Heiji and Yoshikane knives have similar geometry. Not surprising as Heiji studied under Yoshikane.

The grind also looks somewhat similar to my Heiji. I'm going to post a picture in a second that'll show how awesome-ly unwedg-y knives like that can be.

Edit: pics should be up now. That's a blue potato. I did nothing to arrange the potato that way, that's just how it stayed when it was cut.

I still can't get over the kuro-uchi / damascus finish. Does anyone know that that is accomplished? Does the nickel/highlight steel just not take a forge scale the way that the rest of the cladding does? Or is it just an extreme etch and not a true kuro-uchi finish?

JLH said:

Very good looking knife! shame you spend all that money and want to let it go.

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I'm all good If it does not trade/sell I'll just start using it for real - no harm done!

As Maxim, I didn't experience any wedging. I cut 1 onion and 1 carrot - maybe I should test some more ...

Marko Tsourkan said:

I didn't notice anything 'blingy' about that knife. I had a suji from the same series.

Geometry is good for proteins, but will wedge in everything else, the only drawback.

M

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Looking forward to hear how your own knifes perform ... one day ... when they are finally done

Marko Tsourkan said:

My point here is that with that type forging (knife is hammered into shape before quenching) and grind (sword grind), you will get wedging...

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Looks like we posted right at the same time. I respect your view and experience on this, Marko. My experience, however, has been to the contrary, even though it's a much much more limited experience. I've tried a thinner Shig gyuto, a Tadatsuna Inox gyuto ("laser"), a few Heijis (gyutos and suji), a Yoshikane petty. Out of all those, the Heijis and Yoshikanes cut the best by far. It's almost hard for me to imagine anything being more effortless given that it was literally effortless to cut those potatoes in the pictures I posted. Now I'll give it to you, the Heiji will wedge a bit on apples, a bit on squash, and the worst is on sweet potatoes. But, so did the other gyutos I've used. The laser wedged with the different techniques I've tried, the Shig (which was fairly thinly ground) wedged. Basically, this means either I suck, I haven't tried the right knives, everything will have a little trouble going through a big sweet potato or a HUGE onion (much bigger than anything I've seen on the videos people here post), or some combination. Out of all those, the Heijis have been much better for me, which is why I only own two knives right now and both are Heiji.

Those are my 2 cents. I LOVE my Heijis, even if I think a super thin suji would be better maybe for butternut squash--the Heiji's not bad by any means, though.

Peco said:

Used the kiritsuke this morning. Nice cutter/chopper Maybe a little to bling bling for my taste so I might let it go :scratchhead:

Enjoy the pics :happymug:

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For what it's worth my Yoshikane 240 kasumi is not ground anything like that.

Marko Tsourkan said:

My point here is that with that type forging (knife is hammered into shape before quenching) and grind (sword grind), you will get wedging. Depending how thick the spine is and how much a distal taper there is (in this case a good degree of a distal taper), you will get more or less wedging, but there will be wedging. Cut through the apple or a squash to see it. this type of grind is suited very well for cutting raw proteins. Do you agree, Peter?

I am not saying it it is good or bad, just pointing the obvious - it's in the geometry shot (one before the last picture).

M

PS: Heiji and Yoshikane knives have similar geometry. Not surprising as Heiji studied under Yoshikane.

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Here's a crappy iPhone pic of my kasumi 240 gyuto:
Clearly it's an awful picture but what I'm trying to show is that it tapers the entire way from spine to edge where the OP's has almost no taper then a very sudden change halfway through. Maybe this is to keep the KU finish?

Mine works well for me, haven't experienced much wedging.


P.S.
In my limited experience with Yoshikane and looking at pictures online of Heiji, I don't see a similarity in geometry.

I think Marko was only referring to the Yoshikane's that have a partial grind. That basically means the kurouchi damascus ones, the hammer finished ones, and maybe some others...the kasumi is not ground the same way.

Marko Tsourkan said:

I didn't notice anything 'blingy' about that knife. I had a suji from the same series.

Geometry is good for proteins, but will wedge in everything else, the only drawback.

M

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I also think it will be very true for Suji witch bevel is much smaller then on Kiritsuke.
On Kiritsuke bevel is made much wider and thiner behind the edge because knife is much taller.
But like i sad these knives was ground bit thiner behind the edge then normal

heirkb said:

I think Marko was only referring to the Yoshikane's that have a partial grind. That basically means the kurouchi damascus ones, the hammer finished ones, and maybe some others...the kasumi is not ground the same way.

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Thanks, that makes much more sense.

heirkb said:

I think Marko was only referring to the Yoshikane's that have a partial grind. That basically means the kurouchi damascus ones, the hammer finished ones, and maybe some others...the kasumi is not ground the same way.

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Exactly.

I had two knives with this grind from Yoshikane and two of them wedged. One was a regular damascus suji and one was KU suji. KU suji wedged less, as it had a thinner geometry, but still wedged at the heel. It worked great on proteins though. I passed this information onto Yoshikane ( as well on on people who purchased these knives) and perhaps he made some adjustments.

I stated before that there as some limitations to a process of forging a knife to shape (KU, hammer-finish). Nothing wrong with that and some find very attractive KU or Hammer finish, and Carter, for instance, forges his knives thinner, so wedging is not much of an issue.

I think it would be appropriate to list all cons and pros of a knife, particularly if a knife might hit For Sale section, so a person who buys it next will know exactly what he/she is getting. That really was my point. 'Blingy' just didn't sound very convincing.

M

Ok after that thread i just had to go and try it out agents my Shigefusa how it wedged.
I try it on some apples big carrots and squash, and my Shigefusa actually wedged more then Kiritsuke.

BTW I love both my Shigefusa and Yoshi i just dont think it wedges more then any other do.
And like it is said before in this tread it is also depends on how you cut.

Marko,

We all have different styles, one might think a knife is to thin, the next guy won't. Same thing goes for wedging, height, lenght, weight etc. So what I think is great, the next guy think sucks. So no way one can tell how a knife acts in a BST post.

And yes, this is bling bling. Beautifull craftmanship compared to most things I've seen. On top of that it cut's well, has no reactivity issues a.s.o.

Again, it's a matter of personal preference, and to me this knife is uber bling - especially if the handle got upgraded.

Shigefusa sucks!






I'm just jealous

maxim said:

Ok after that thread i just had to go and try it out agents my Shigefusa how it wedged.
I try it on some apples big carrots and squash, and my Shigefusa actually wedged more then Kiritsuke.

BTW I love both my Shigefusa and Yoshi i just dont think it wedges more then any other do.
And like it is said before in this tread it is also depends on how you cut.

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