Pictures of my three Itou knives

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a.lber.to

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Over at the New Members' forum, a couple of people asked to see pictures of my three Itou knives, so here they are:

Gyuto 230mm
Itou01.jpg

Hi-Res

Petty 150
Itou02.jpg

Hi-Res

Paring 105
Itou03.jpg

Hi-Res

Hoping to get a matching Santoku one day!

Also, in case you are not familiar with them, here is a picture of one of my Echizen-Japan coreless damascus knives:

Gyuto 240mm
Echizen01.jpg

Hi-Res

The steel has a very beautiful pattern, IMOHO.

Enjoy... :)
 
:wow:wow those are beaut's. Thanks for sharing.:2thumbsup:
 
Great looking knives!
 
I was going to get one of these petties from JCK, but they were out of stock, and the Tanaka Ironwood came in first so I got one of them instead.
 
I really love the looks of those Echizen-Japan knives. Something about the profile, it's curvy, not fat, but sooooo sleek. I normally don't like blobby handles either, but it goes so well with the knife.
 
Itou is always a touch too gaudy for me, but this range is very tasteful!
 
I really love the looks of those Echizen-Japan knives. Something about the profile, it's curvy, not fat, but sooooo sleek. I normally don't like blobby handles either, but it goes so well with the knife.

I have to admit that initially I got a couple of those as I really liked the look of the damascus steel. But they are such a joy to use, that I ended up getting the entire set of eight!!! They are almost paper thin, and glide through food like a scalpel.

My only gripe with them is that the swirly pattern of the damascus blade is actually printed on the curved part of the bolster - if you look at the Hi-Res version of my picture, you can see it clearly. Personally, I would have preferred if they had just left the plain steel there instead of trying to fake the damascus pattern continuing all the way up the bolster. But it hasn't bothered me enough to actually try to remove it, and honestly it is much more visible in the pictures than in real life...
 
Must be something new, the bolster on mine is just polished silver.
 
I have to admit that initially I got a couple of those as I really liked the look of the damascus steel. But they are such a joy to use, that I ended up getting the entire set of eight!!! They are almost paper thin, and glide through food like a scalpel.

My only gripe with them is that the swirly pattern of the damascus blade is actually printed on the curved part of the bolster - if you look at the Hi-Res version of my picture, you can see it clearly. Personally, I would have preferred if they had just left the plain steel there instead of trying to fake the damascus pattern continuing all the way up the bolster. But it hasn't bothered me enough to actually try to remove it, and honestly it is much more visible in the pictures than in real life...

Pssh, they should've just made the whole entire thing out of damascus.

How tall is it at the heel? It looked like a really long blade, but then I saw that it was only 240mm. I really like a sleek looking knife like that, but a lot of people emphasize that a 45mm-50mm heel height is ideal for performance, but they end up looking short and stubby to me.
 
Personally, I would have preferred if they had just left the plain steel there instead of trying to fake the damascus pattern continuing all the way up the bolster.

I would have preferred a plain bolster as well, but I didn't even notice the pattern until you pointed it out. Very handsome knives.
 
Must be something new, the bolster on mine is just polished silver.

Which series do you have, 1110, 1210 or 1310? My understanding is that the clad knives (1110 series) have a polished bolster, while the damascus clad (1210 series) and the coreless damascus (1310 series) both have their respective patterns printed on the bolsters.

If you actually have a 1310 w/o the printing, could you kindly post a picture of it so I can see how it looks? I have been toying with the idea of trying to remove the printing from mine...

Thanks!
 
How tall is it at the heel? ... a lot of people emphasize that a 45mm-50mm heel height is ideal for performance ...

The heel on the 240mm Gyuto is exactly 50mm. Perhaps you would like better their 240mm Sujihiki, which has the same length but a heel of only 37mm...
 
Which series do you have, 1110, 1210 or 1310? My understanding is that the clad knives (1110 series) have a polished bolster, while the damascus clad (1210 series) and the coreless damascus (1310 series) both have their respective patterns printed on the bolsters.

If you actually have a 1310 w/o the printing, could you kindly post a picture of it so I can see how it looks? I have been toying with the idea of trying to remove the printing from mine...

Thanks!

I don't know about series, but I have had it for a long time. It is one of his original blue handle jobs. I'll dig up a pic.
 
I forgot to say that you take very nice pictures Alberto.

How do you do it? Fancy camera? Tripod? Both?
 
It is one of his original blue handle jobs.

Sorry, are we talking about an Itou or an Echizen-Japan? In the post you replied to I was talking about the Echizen-Japan Gyuto, but now I get the feeling that you are referring to an Itou knife instead? No printing on those, of course...
 
How do you do it? Fancy camera? Tripod? Both?

Thank you! Those were taken using the same set-up I normally use for taking pictures of watches (like this one, or this one). Basically a white light tent, with three remote flashes firing into it piloted by the on-board camera flash (which does not contribute to the exposure). Macro lens, aperture-priority mode with a high value to ensure good depth of field, and enough light to allow for comfortable hand-holding (min 1/60 sec). Five minutes to set-up, and five minutes to take the pictures (most of the time swapping knives, actually).
 
The heel on the 240mm Gyuto is exactly 50mm. Perhaps you would like better their 240mm Sujihiki, which has the same length but a heel of only 37mm...

Hmm. Your picture makes the knife look really long and short, almost like the sujihiki itself?

1310_gyuto240.jpg


In that picture the gyuto doesn't look nearly as slender as yours.

Echizen01.jpg
 
Sorry, are we talking about an Itou or an Echizen-Japan? In the post you replied to I was talking about the Echizen-Japan Gyuto, but now I get the feeling that you are referring to an Itou knife instead? No printing on those, of course...

Sorry, lost track of which knives you were talking about...
 
In that picture the gyuto doesn't look nearly as slender as yours.

That's because the knife was sitting almost flat on the table, and I was taking pictures of it at an angle to get through the opening of the light tent (basically the perspective is distorting the shape of the knife). The picture on their web site is of course the accurate one, since it is taken head-on.
 
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