Tsukasa Hinoura Flowing Clouds
Length: 238.5mm
Height: 52mm
Thickness: 4.44mm
Weight: 248g
Steel: Shirogami #2 / Wrought Iron
Handle: Quince Burl / Buffalo Horn
My whitest of whales, my biggest of fish, my unicorn of unicorns is now safe and sound in my trembling grasp infront of my disbelieving eyes. As many of you know, as I have made my dreams and progress quite public, my goal is to have a collection of 240 knives that represents everything the japanese knife making community has to offer. I was already incredibly lucky once to receive a 210 River Jump, but no matter how spectacular it was, it wasn't fitting in to my bigger (30mm bigger to be exact) picture, which was very sad. Today however I am beyond excited to finally have a 240 representation of Tsukasa Hinoura's incredible work. Coming in at 238.5mm x 52mm x 4.44mm this is what is referred to as "Unryu" or "Flowing Clouds" in english. Very similar to the "Ryusuitobimon" which we know as "River Jump". These knives are the absolute peak of his work and quite possibly my favourite knives on the planet.
I've actually had three or four 240 river jumps nearly in my hands before things fell through over and over. Knives disappear, people disappear, scammers, prices suddenly increase. I'll admit it was very near the point of not being fun anymore. Fortunately, I have a lot of lovely people on my side willing to help me achieve my dreams. This knife was available through Knifewear recently and I wasn't about to put all my eggs in my own basket. So I asked around for anybody that could help me snag this one.
@esoo has become my certified unicorn catcher as he managed to scoop this one up off of knifewear for me, beating out god knows how many other people trying to frantically buy it. It made it's way to him in Toronto, he gave the interior of the box a quick inspection to ensure it made it to him safely, added a little extra packing materials and forwarded it off to me. Smoothest transaction in the world. And now here I am, luckiest boy in the world!
I can't thank Erik enough, but I'm certainly gonna try. I of course offered him a respectable finders fee for his troubles, and also a custom Bar Board. The exact Bar Board is actually the one in the photographs below as I really wanted to convey the story of this knife and relationship in both words and images. I picked one of the four bubinga boards I'm working on at the moment and added a lovely birdseye maple border at his request to beef it up and add a bit of a break to the visuals of the bubinga. This will be in the mail to him shortly and the journey of the Cloud Flow will officially be complete.
Now we do have a unique opportunity here in that we have two different examples of Tsukasa's finest work to compare. And they are very interesting to compare! Let me cut right to the chase and say the 210 River Jump is the superior knife in nearly every way. River Jump or Cloud Flow is personal preference, but when you just look at the details of the knives, I feel the RJ was actually done to a higher standard and is generally just more beautiful because of it. The first thing I'll note is the polishing of the RJ is much cleaner. The core steel is more mirrored, the cladding is a slightly darker kasumi and the finish is not as streaky. In addition, the twisting part of the cladding appears to be a more consistant and shiny finish on the river jump. I'm referring here to the unetched twist portions of the cladding, or maybe more likely they were etched, but raised which allows him to polish them afterwards. Either way, the lines of the RJ are quite clean and polished whereas the CF has a couple areas in the low density damascus near the tang and tip where it almost seems patchy. It's like the RJ has blacker blacks and whiter whites whereas the CF is a bit more muddled and has less contrast. In addition, the placement of the damascus on the RJ is slightly nicer in my opinion. Because there is less going on, on the blade, the kanji is far more legible. Lastly, the spine of the RJ is MUCH more beautiful. The twist pattern can be traced from one side of the knife, over the warikomi spine to the other side. It is unlike anything you have ever seen before, that I can promise you. The CF while similar doesn't have this clean set of lines to follow. The overal feeling I get is that one of these is executed to the absolute highest standards of Tsukasa's work, and the other is not quite reaching those heights. Oh! and I don't think it's Tsukasa, but whoever put the handle on this knife should be... executed?! It makes the handle installation from JNS on my Toyama Bloomery look excellent. If you're looking at the choil shot thinking the knife is tilted to the side, it's not. That is literally the handle flat on the table and the blade trying to tell me it's 11pm. Absolutely whack. Fortunately I intend to rehandle it in the near future so I'm not too fussed, but it is still wildly unacceptable for any knife, let alone something this special.
Now please don't misunderstand me and think I am bashing my new CF. We are basically comparing the clarity of diamonds here. I'm just trying to convey some interesting differences for people who may never have the opportunity to compare two knives like this in person. One major point for both knives is the overall damascus pattern. They are both excellent and that does not always happen. Sometimes you will get RJ's with no pattern at all on one side. Sometimes there isn't nearly enough twist and the river won't really be at a diagonal so much as just running down the length of the blade. I almost purchased one like this before the seller increased the price out of my range due to a better offer. I'm glad I didn't end up getting it now because looking back it wasn't so much of a River Jump as it was a Stream Saunter.
Now unfortunately, while the 210 RJ is the superior knife in every way, it's not the superior knife for me. It's meant to be a part of a bigger collection that it simply doesn't fit in to. It is a huge bummer because of every knife I own and have seen, this really and truly is the most amazing knife. It is technically incredible, visually stunning and just radiates tradition and skill. It makes me sick to my stomach to say it, but I would expect for this one to be up on BST in the near future. I simply can't afford to keep both of these knives. And while I usually try to sell knives for what I paid or less, for the sake of my wallet I will certainly be putting this up at market value as opposed to retail value. I need some time to figure out what that is though. I've been chatting with all the usual japanese knife guys and have price recommendations of $3,000-$3,500, which seems... high? I really don't know but I think I'll be closer to $3,000 than $3,500, that's for sure. I also need a 240 yo denka for my collection so maybe a bit of a trade could be on the table as well.
We will see!
For now, some closing comments:
Thank you KKF for having the absolute dopest people who have helped me acquire so many beautiful knives. Thank you
@esoo for being an absolute beauty. Thank you Tsukasa for creating the two most beautiful pieces of art I've ever seen.
And to you, please enjoy these photos, and here's the link to my River Jump photos if you'd like to compare for yourself.
https://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/threads/owl-woodworks-collection.60483/post-995510
Have a lovely day you absolute beauties.
Luke
. Enjoy this absolute measurementfest!
