Moritaka - how long?

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yea this is a sad issue and its gone on too long.

i like guys like no chop are proud of a nice knife they own but ya know what sucks is when a friend brings over a moritaka and ya gotta turn to him and say i cant fix this or i cant really help.(i sharpen a lot of friend and family members knives whether they like or not sometimes because i like to not for money... when they offer to pay i laugh and say come to the restaurant; pay me to cook because im a cook... sharpening my knives is more then a hobby but sharpening yours is only a hobby) sure i can make it sharp but the bevel/edge is barely better. sure they are cheap considering the steel used gets sharp but why even sharpen them if you plan to muck up the whole thing... look at aritsugu as a clear example... sometimes its better to get an unsharpened knife in great steel then it is to get a knife with a bevel that takes unbelievably more time to fix if your even good enough to do it. dave sharpens a loooot of knives and is telling us that this problem isnt worth his time to fix... this to me is the most telling picture as dave is proud of his work and wont work on a knife he doesnt plan to be proud of... making it better is not enough because its still flawed and you didnt pay him to leave your knife flawed.

either way i dont like the whole context of moritakas work... and i own a good one btw. imo friends dont let friends buy moritaka.
 
dough: What is it about "the whole context of moritakas work" that you don't like?
 
I had heard/read all about the issues and I went and bought one anyway direct from Moritaka and gave the odds that there was a 50/50 chance of a FUBAR blade. Far as I can tell, it's fine/all good.
 
Luck of the draw I guess.But like I stated on another post,that's the risk you take when you're buying anything manufactured,knife,car, tv whatever.It's the customer service that makes the difference.
 
Some may accept or even like the lottery, but I'm one of those who insist on a zero dead pixel guarantee, so I'd never gamble on getting lucky with a knife. Thaks for the warning.
 
Booink said:
Some may accept or even like the lottery, but I'm one of those who insist on a zero dead pixel guarantee, so I'd never gamble on getting lucky with a knife. Thaks for the warning.
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It's the same with Masamoto's CT and HC series and quite a few other household names, Aritsugu comes to mind.
 
The bottom line is that if you want to get a KU knife in that style, you should go with Takeda. I've never heard of these kind of issues with Takeda's knives.
 
Mattias504 said:
The bottom line is that if you want to get a KU knife in that style, you should go with Takeda. I've never heard of these kind of issues with Takeda's knives.
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At almost double the price,plus I've heard of other QA issues with Takeda.
 
And then there's Yamawaku which is amazing for the price (under $100).
 
yea sorry for delayed response but these knives pretend to be a bargain for a quality knife even claiming to be custom in that you can attempt to get the design and grind you want for a.... bargain price. it turns out yes they will make that shape but that work cant support the shape.
with that said sometimes it can. my knife takes a great edge and its very easy to sharpen. i like the steel.
maybe my point is im not a gambler but in general most cooks i know think 150 aint cheap and for that money a failure in a knife represents more then oh well ill learn from my mistake... its more f this... this money could have been blah blah blah and now i gotta spend blah to fix it at best or just spend that much or more again.
so to me the context is that these knives being a bargain when they are a gamble.
 
You're not stuck with the knife because both Moritaka Hamono and CKTG accept returns.
 
i never bought one from cktg but moritaka hasnt been the nicest to me. perhaps thats me. i wasnt looking to send it back just curious what was up.

in the end admittedly im just a fool.
 
That's funny, Akiko was perfectly nice about it when I said that I had heard on the forums about the grind issues and I wanted them to be extra careful when they did the grind on mine.
 
shankster said:
At almost double the price,plus I've heard of other QA issues with Takeda.
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For example? IMO its not responsible to make claims w/o supporting cases. But its just me.

At least people complaining about Moritaka in this thread have supporting evidences.
 
Cnimativ said:
For example? IMO its not responsible to make claims w/o supporting cases. But its just me.

At least people complaining about Moritaka in this thread have supporting evidences.
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I've read about complaints of too much/messy epoxy work on the collar more than once(sorry no names or addresses to back up my evidence),does that make Takeda a bad knife? Certainly not,but it goes to show that even a highly regarded blade-smith can have some faults with some of his products

And from what I can read,most of the people complaining or commenting negatively on this thread about Moritaka don't own,have never owned or even seen the "problem" first hand. Just jumping on the "anti-Moritaka" bandwagon.
 
I dunno -- sloppy epoxy work isn't the same thing as a screwed up cutting edge. The epoxy is not a performance issue. The meat of this thread seems to be about flaws that affect the ability of the knife to cut properly over time (as sharpening opens the holes). So it's about a maker who delivers a product that does not always perform the intended function the way it should.
 
WildBoar said:
I dunno -- sloppy epoxy work isn't the same thing as a screwed up cutting edge. The epoxy is not a performance issue. The meat of this thread seems to be about flaws that affect the ability of the knife to cut properly over time (as sharpening opens the holes). So it's about a maker who delivers a product that does not always perform the intended function the way it should.[/QUOTE

I never said it was the same thing,I was using it as an example of how even the most beloved craftsmen can produce less than perfect examples of their work.I am in no way condoning the "overgrind" issue Dave found on some of the Moritakas he's worked on,especially if it affects performance of the knife.I'd be pissed if my knife had that problem,just like I'd be pissed if I paid $300+ for a Takeda with sloppy epoxy work.

Peter
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I think people have only said Takedas excess epoxy is ugly.... I don't know if I'd call it a flaw. One thing I always thought was odd from Takeda was the fact that from knife to knife, the profile/ geometry can be completely different. My buddy owns a 240mm gyuto, same as me. Mine is thinner and his blade tip is noticeably lower???????
 
NO ChoP! said:
I think people have only said Takedas excess epoxy is ugly.... I don't know if I'd call it a flaw
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This is the only 'complaint' I've really ever heard about Takeda.

But as long as you don't want an immediate re-handle, I actually am cool with the epoxy on Takeda because it completely seals off any tiny gaps from moisture.
mrenow.jpg
 
For what it's worth, I have an AS gyuto from Moritaka, and I had a great experience in ordering it a few years ago. I requested some specific details about setting the handle and the balance point, which they accomodated very nicely. There was a slight low spot on the bevel grind near the heel, which has disappeared as I've thinned the whole knife. There's also a tendency for the knife to curve to one side, and I just adjust it the other way. I don't doubt that some people have had some issues, but for me I feel I got a fair deal - a semi-custom AS knife which I have now tweaked and tuned to my liking.

~Tad
 
There is nothing sloppy about the epoxy on the handle of the Takeda. It is very tidy and smooth. It is merely the way that he insures that nothing gets into the handle. As a truely hand made article some variation from piece to piece is inevitable, the blanks are not stamped out. And the performance of the knife is above reproach.
So how does a comparison to Takeda excuse the issue of over-grinding?
 
SpikeC said:
There is nothing sloppy about the epoxy on the handle of the Takeda. It is very tidy and smooth. It is merely the way that he insures that nothing gets into the handle. As a truely hand made article some variation from piece to piece is inevitable, the blanks are not stamped out. And the performance of the knife is above reproach.
So how does a comparison to Takeda excuse the issue of over-grinding?
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"Sloppy/messy" were words used by others in some the of reviews I have read on Takedas knives,not mine. Sorry if I have offended any Takeda owners,that was not my intention.I guess if you weren't expecting that kind of epoxy work on your knife,you might think it was a "flaw". If that's the way Takeda makes his knives and there's a reason for it,then no it's not sloppy or messy,but not everyone is going to like it.
 
Sorry to bring this thread back, but I have a question that I can't seem to figure out myself. Maybe Dave can help me answer it. How is the problem with these Moritakas any different from the high and low spots people seem to find on a lot of single beveled knives? From what I understand based on what I've read, people fix those issues, right? I know people have already said why they don't think you can fix this issue, so I'm more looking for how this issue (i.e. the Moritaka overgrind) is different from the high and low spots on yanagis, which is an issue that seems to be fairly common and commonly repaired.
 
On western style knives overgrinds on the face of the knife manifest themselves in either dents or weak spots in your edge that crumble or deform readily. On traditional Japanese knives, a low spot on the secondary bevel will just grind out with normal sharpening. A lot of people choose to homogenize the blade road but it really doesn't affect the edge in the same way.
 
Another way to look at it would be, on a yanagi, the high and low spots are more accurately a proper and an improper (fat) spot. Grinding down the fat spot isn't necessary, as long as the edge is true. It's more to improve the performance, and make everything uniform.
From what i'm getting from the info we've read here, and elsewhere, on a double beveled knife (as is the case with said Moritakas) the improper grind is more of a hole waiting to show itself, once the support underneath it has been sharpened away. So, there's a proper thickness/grind (thicker) and an improper grind (thinner). You can't really fix the problem by creating uniformity (thinning), because in the process the entire edge would fail.
Hope that clears it up.
 
heirkb said:
....how this issue (i.e. the Moritaka overgrind) is different from the high and low spots on yanagis, which is an issue that seems to be fairly common and commonly repaired.
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As I understand these two different issues, the hi and lo spots on the 'Moritaka' type of overgrind impact the cutting edge, and can be seen by placing the edge on a cutting board and observing hi spots with light coming thru where the edge is not contacting the cutting board. On a yanagi, the hi & lo spots are on the Blade path, from the Shinogi line to the edge bevel (or to the edge?), and this would seen by laying the knife on its flat side and looking 'down' the balde path (or road).
 
Actually Mike, the Moritaka issue is also (and often only initially) seen on the side of the knife (blade road) similar to a yanagi.


@heirkb, The issue with yanagiba is depressions in the blade road that seem to never effect the cutting edge because they are up high enough from the edge that when the blade road if flattened the problem is corrected, this happens long before the cutting edge is worked into these low areas. On Moritakas, the blade road/bevel is worn right down into the cutting edge making the hole appear. It's a similar problem yet very different simply because of the location of the depression is different on each knife. Now if we're talking usuba then we could say many cheap ones have Moritaka bevels because they do.....I hate cheap usubas.
 
Lefty said:
You can't really fix the problem by creating uniformity (thinning), because in the process the entire edge would fail.
Hope that clears it up.
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Ouch! Yah, that would be cause for huge disappointment. I really wish we had an accurate number as to how many knives are affected; 1 in 10; 9 in 10????

Its obviously been pointed out to them by now, I wonder if they are currently paying closer attention....

Could it have been certain batches only? Others being fine????
 
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