@captan what did you think of your first hide? How did it cut?
Funny you should ask. In anticipation of the W#2 coming I pulled out the first one (putting all my nakiri's aside) and played with it, along with my Gesshin Ginga and Gegentsu this weekend.
Jon, if you see this - I cannot thank you enough for all the excellent knives you bring to our market!
The Ginga is very nimble and I prefer it for lighter stuff like peppers and mushrooms. The Gengetsu just ticks to may boxes I don't need to sing it's praises anymore here.
The Hide, is by far the most robust of the three. The fit and pear finish is beautiful to behold. The blond horn is a standout (don't know if those are standard) but the knife is pure eye candy.
It did especially well on potatoes and carrots. Fell through onions like butter.
Now - are you ready for this? I pulled out my 210 kasumi shig just for kicks to compare (because it felt like the closest thing in my collection to the Hide).
The Hide weights in at 157g. The Shig at 164g. To be fair to the Shig it's a few mm longer than the Hide which is spot on at 210mm.
With only 7g of weight between them the Hide felt more balanced and I could see why as the tang (do I have that right?) was much thicker than the Hide. The Hide was more evenly tapered the length of the knife while the Shig started thick, and tapered from tang to the blade quickly. Now the rounding on the Shig was more comfortable in a pinch grip (which I'm using more these days as I move to longer knives) but I'll gladly give that up for the beautiful finish on the Hide blade.
For some reason I feel like the Shig did better on the carrots. I think it had to do with the heavier tang at the heel, though both performed admirably.
So I'm really curious to see how the White compares to the Blue. Can't comment on edge retention/sharpening etc because all of Jon's blades have come to me with a screaming edge and I've not yet needed to put any of them, well besides the Gengetsu, to the stones.
So to me the Hide is more of a beefy workhorse. Beautiful knife and feels more natural in my hand than my Shig, if that makes any sense.
From reading Jon's site I believe the blue and white steels (and the Ginsanko?) are made by different smiths? So again, really excited to try the White #2 to see how different it is!