Suien VC Cleaver profile.

[joec]

Often when there was a positive post about Sugimoto, typically you respond with a glib comment that your Sugimoto was a disappointment. The problem is that to date you have not been able to come up with a reason why the Sugimoto was a disappointment. In the past when I've asked for more details, you have either been evasive or defensive.

In the end, it comes out that your Sugimoto was screwed up, by the previous owner, who posted that he changed the bevels so he could chop up chickens. After all the effort you and Dave put into the knife, the problem was unable to be fixed.

How can you form an opinion on a knife that came to you with problems? How is any of this Sugimoto's fault?

Jay

The problem was that when I sent it to Dave to fix after I spent a few hours trying to fix he discovered the blade was a strip of metal about 2" wide set into the rest of it. It was separating as I stated when I first posted about it of at KF. I don't like the fact their blade is basically two pieces of metal instead of a single solid piece but that is me. Based on the price of them I find they aren't a good buy for dollar to value. I've cut with a couple that where fairly new that cut good and felt good but wouldn't spend as much as they ask for their Cleavers as their in MHO that are better buys. Sorry if you find that offensive but that is how I feel.

 

[Cnimativ]

The problem was that when I sent it to Dave to fix after I spent a few hours trying to fix he discovered the blade was a strip of metal about 2" wide set into the rest of it. It was separating as I stated when I first posted about it of at KF. I don't like the fact their blade is basically two pieces of metal instead of a single solid piece but that is me. Based on the price of them I find they aren't a good buy for dollar to value. I've cut with a couple that where fairly new that cut good and felt good but wouldn't spend as much as they ask for their Cleavers as their in MHO that are better buys. Sorry if you find that offensive but that is how I feel.

I don't understand you completely. You mean its a shallow warikomi instead of a full fledged sen-mai??

 

[mateo]

The Mizuno has more belly then the Suien.

Thanks for the input, Jay. Do you own the Mizuno? If so, would you be able to post either a photo or, better yet, a tracing of the blade like Rottman did earlier? It's incredibly hard to tell via photos... and the profiles seem to have a decent amount of variation. I wonder if Mizuno would do a custom edge at non-custom pricing?

 

[joec]

I don't understand you completely. You mean its a shallow warikomi instead of a full fledged sen-mai??

I'm not familiar with the terms however every one of my other cleavers the blade is pretty much a single piece of steel or if not I sure see no clear line as I did with the Sugimoto #6 that I owned. Now Dave did as good a job as humanly possible but even he commented at the time that the blade steel piece was narrow compared to other cleavers he had seen using that method of construction. The blade steel also had a bit of movement in it. Now I bought it used and yes the blade edge was made steeper to handle chicken bones however it didn't damage it really other than trying to thin it back out to a slicer type cleaver. At the time I had a limited amount of stones so gave up and sent it to Dave to re do, which he did.

Now they have a very comfortable handle and blade profile with great balance. The one I bought used however had some serious flaws in the construction which I've not seen in others. With that said, this is why I stopped giving opinions on knives years ago as I get tired of dealing with this maker is better than that maker when the fact is they all screw up from time to time. I limit my opinion to those I actually own and to be honest my Suien VC, Takeda, Forum Cleaver and even my old CCK all cut equally a good with the only difference is how quick they go dull. All function as designed to do and that is what is important to me as they are nothing but tools.

 

[mikemac]

I don't understand you completely. You mean its a shallow warikomi instead of a full fledged sen-mai??

This has nothing to do with either the Suien or Sugimoto, and I don't want to get lost in the different ways 'we' think Japanese knife terminology is translated, but YES - there are (at least) two ways a harder, higher quality core steel is clad in softer iron, etc. One way is a 'sandwich' - with the core steel running from spine to edge. Another way I would call a 'taco' where the core steel is inserted into a slot in the cladding iron (on Ichimonji's site, this is google-translated as "interrupt").

IIRC, on Moritaka's, Takeda's and Watanabe's websites, if you dig around you can find pictures of them doing this - splitting the red hot cladding, and then laying a smaller strip of metal into the slot.