A high-end no-fuss knife - contradiction in terms?

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I only sharpen one side of my knives and I've never noticed any steering at all. I have a knife with an 80/20 grid which steers but it's pretty manageable
 
Lefty said:
I've learned number 4 with a micro bevel is damn good too, for a gyuto.
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Really? I have a chisel grind and I can't stand it for a gyuto. Even, tried micro bevel, adding a back bevel, everything, I just can't make it cut well. Of course it could be the way I cut too.
 
I'd guess mine is 95/5, so more like a big macro-micro bevel. :)

Matt, are you a lefty? I can't keep track of all of us.
 
Lefty said:
I'd guess mine is 95/5, so more like a big macro-micro bevel. :)

Matt, are you a lefty? I can't keep track of all of us.
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No, righty, otherwise I would send you mine.
 
Haha. I was going to offer you a trial of mine in the future! Haha
 
I always thin the left side of my knives and only sharpen that side, I get no steering at all and they cut great. Here's a shot of my Kono HD. I guess it's not really a chisel grind but I like it whatever you would categorise it as. I am a lefty. I wonder if being a lefty sort of balances it and stops it steering?

IMG_0114-002.jpg
 
Blobby said:
Don't know about that. If you're inexperienced you would expect that sort of advice, expressed in a non-pompous way obviously, from knowledgeable people.


@OP: If you're after a superior sharpness and edge retention, the entry level carbon knife I've got ($70 delivered) knocks ten barrels of s...t out of any stainless knife I've ever used or owned. Honestly, these things are in a different league. Assuming it's a similar story with entry level Japanese stainless you don't need to spend a lot or you could get several knives. At present I've yet to determine why, aside from the collecting/custom/bespoke/appearance aspect, anyone would want to spend $400 on a single, general use kitchen knife.
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Quality of steel/heat treat/grind. Technique is involved. You don't have to pay $30 for a plate of food. But when you experience technique that elevates common ingredients, it warrants the price.
 
JBroida said:
i think he's talking more about something like #5 or if #3 had hamaguri edges and a tiny bevel towards the edge
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Yes. Heiji, Fujiwara, Yoshikane, etc. all have at least one line ground in this fashion. Single bevel knives are also sorta like this. I cut hard root veggies with mine all the time. I actually prefer thin knives for this work.

As for asymmetry and steering, at least part of it is about evening out the amount of force applied on either side of the cutting edge. You can often mitigate some of the steering. You can also compensate a by modifying your angle of attack or applying slight pressure as you cut. After a while, you don't even think about it.
 
Blobby said:
...@OP: If you're after a superior sharpness and edge retention, the entry level carbon knife I've got ($70 delivered) knocks ten barrels of s...t out of any stainless knife I've ever used or owned. Honestly, these things are in a different league. Assuming it's a similar story with entry level Japanese stainless you don't need to spend a lot or you could get several knives. At present I've yet to determine why, aside from the collecting/custom/bespoke/appearance aspect, anyone would want to spend $400 on a single, general use kitchen knife.
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The OP was pretty clear about the way he uses cutlery. I've used a number of carbon steel knives in varying price ranges. In general, I would agree with your assessment with regard to keeness although the stainless options we've bandied about here will at least be in the same "league." I will also agree that price does not correlate to performance. Nevertheless, the best performing 240 mm gyutos I've used have all been over $200, iirc and most have been in the $300+ range regardless of whether they are stainless.
 
So as a quick update, I've gotten all my stuff in the mail (and am impressed at how much evident care is put into the package from JKI).

I haven't had a chance to use the Gesshin yet, except to chop up some limp celery I had lying around. It is, even on that, easily and evidently sharper than the machine-sharpened Henckels; the fit and finish of it is excellent, and it feels great in the hand. I clearly have little basis to review this knife, but I will say that it does not disappoint, and I'm excited about using it.

(An interesting thing was that when I tried doing a rocking cut with it, a) the front of the knife was clearly starting to cut into the board, and b) the celery took so little effort to cut that it felt like I was just going through the motions; I can certainly see why that's not the preferred method to use for knives like this.)

As for sharpening stones, I got those too, and had a go at sharpening one of my Henckels knives, using just the 1000 stone to start with. I did a total botch job of it (I started at too low an angle, so was "sharpening" the shoulder of the bevel more than the edge itself), but did eventually manage to get a knife to the point where it's sharper than a machine-sharpened knife. It's not pretty, and I wouldn't dare to touch the Gesshin yet, but I've been watching videos and I've got a pretty good idea of where I need to improve (I'm going to try the marker thing to get a better idea of the angles involved, for one thing), so it's a start.
 
Congrats! When you get comfortable with using it you can give a more detailed review.

Cheers!
 
mkozlows said:
So as a quick update, I've gotten all my stuff in the mail (and am impressed at how much evident care is put into the package from JKI).

I haven't had a chance to use the Gesshin yet, except to chop up some limp celery I had lying around. It is, even on that, easily and evidently sharper than the machine-sharpened Henckels; the fit and finish of it is excellent, and it feels great in the hand. I clearly have little basis to review this knife, but I will say that it does not disappoint, and I'm excited about using it.

(An interesting thing was that when I tried doing a rocking cut with it, a) the front of the knife was clearly starting to cut into the board, and b) the celery took so little effort to cut that it felt like I was just going through the motions; I can certainly see why that's not the preferred method to use for knives like this.)

As for sharpening stones, I got those too, and had a go at sharpening one of my Henckels knives, using just the 1000 stone to start with. I did a total botch job of it (I started at too low an angle, so was "sharpening" the shoulder of the bevel more than the edge itself), but did eventually manage to get a knife to the point where it's sharper than a machine-sharpened knife. It's not pretty, and I wouldn't dare to touch the Gesshin yet, but I've been watching videos and I've got a pretty good idea of where I need to improve (I'm going to try the marker thing to get a better idea of the angles involved, for one thing), so it's a start.
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Gratz on a great buy. And welcome to the knut side of knives. I hope you have found what you were looking for at the beginning.
 
chinacats said:
Congrats! When you get comfortable with using it you can give a more detailed review.
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So, it's three months later now, and I've got some solid usage of the Gesshin Ginga in. With the same caveat as before -- my only basis of comparison is Henckels knives, not other Japanese knives -- I'll say that I love this knife. The light feel, thin blade, and sharp edge, combine to make it feel much more like I'm slicing food than chopping through it with a food axe. I've used it for pretty much everything I've cut over the last few months, and it's cut better than my old knife ever did, and the difference isn't small.

From a handling perspective, I was a bit worried about whether the extra length would be too much (I got a 240mm, and had been using an 8" chef's knife), but that hasn't been a problem at all; in fact, if I go to use the 8" knife now, it seems too short. The fit and finish are remain excellent, with the contact surfaces of the knife rounded off, and the handle well-finished. It just feels great in the hand.

The last thing I remained worried about for a while was sharpening. As I'd said, I wanted to practice on my Henckels knives until I was confident enough that I wouldn't do any damage to the Gesshin. Well, I wasn't 100% happy with how I was doing on sharpening, but I'd pretty much taken that plan as far as it could go, recently -- the Gesshin should really have been sharpened some time back, and was very noticeably dulled. So, with some trepidation, I took it to the stones, and... it came out just fine. I could be nuts, but I think it's an easier knife to sharpen than those Henckels.

(Also, when I bought the knife, some part of me thought that maybe I should have just bitten the bullet on carbon steel; but as I've used it, there've been plenty of times when I've left the knife sitting out long enough before cleaning that I had to give it a hard scrubbing to get it clean, so yeah, I made the right call going with stainless.)

All in all, I'm very pleased with the purchase, and wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone else looking for an excellent low-fuss knife.
 
don said:
Thanks for writing an update. Glad to hear that the Gesshin Ginga is working well for you.
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Amen, good to see somebody post an update.

Yes, the Gesh is way easier to sharpen than a Henkels. Why? Because the steel is actually capable of getting sharp. Not something people are used to with most knives, unfortunately.
 
ThEoRy said:
It's not so much as putting a better edge on your knives than a machine can, which is easily doable. It's more about caring for your knife through proper maintenance. I don't think the machine can put a proper asymmetrical edge which is required for Japanese knives. Without a proper edge the knife will wedge or steer or both. The machine won't properly thin behind the edge as you would after repeated sharpening either, leaving you with a thick wedge over time. Machines just grind away metal shortening the useful life of the knife. Then there's convex edges, micro bevels, stropping etc. There's just so much more you can do freehand vs machines and jigs its ridiculous. You can do anything freehand on stones, any other system has limitations.
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Sharpening machine> if it is 2 circular stones, then it is designed for symetrical edge. Eventually the edge will become symetrical. Also bear in mind that the thinner Japanese knives, the Cnnvex grind may affect the edge retention as the over all result is too thin.

finally, it may be simple, just sliding it between the stones the whole length but it is too aggresive. The thicker part of the knife towards the handle area is always thicker and needs more grinding. ON a flat stone you can do what is needed accordingly.. ON teh circular stone machine, I suppose there is a way to do this?

Whilst you are at it, Have fun. I used mine for a week adn that was teh end of it..WLd only give it to someone I do not like.

Rgds

d
 
So, as an update on this nearly a year later: Still loving the Gesshin Ginga, and I’ve gotten to the point where I’m no longer hideously embarrassed at my sharpening ability, which is nice, too. And those scratches on the blade add character, right?

My opinion at this point is not only that this is an excellent knife, but that it’s especially an excellent knife for beginners, because:

1. It is stainless, so all the carbon steel care stuff doesn’t need to come into it. If you’re coming from a regular ol’ German knife, you don’t need to be any fussier about this one.

2. It’s easy to sharpen. Now that I’ve gotten to the point where I can put a good edge on it, and have a reasonable idea of what I’m doing, I can look at other knives and see how much more difficult they’d be to sharpen, with their secondary bevels or what-not (as others were saying earlier in this thread). This one is very straightforward: It has a thin edge, and you sharpen that edge straightforwardly, and the blade itself is thin enough that you don’t really need to do more than that.

If you’re in the position I was at the start of this thread, I can definitely recommend this knife. It certainly lives up to the no-fuss, high-end goal that I was shooting for. So, thanks again, everyone.

Now then…

While there’s absolutely no reason for me to need another gyuto, I find myself wanting another one just so I can compare and contrast, and find out where my tastes really lie.

So, what I’m looking for is a gyuto to explicitly contrast with the Ginga, one that’s going to be pretty dissimilar in some major ways. Maybe a blade on the thicker side of average (and definitely not another laser). Probably carbon or at least semi-stainless. A different profile maybe. 270mm instead of 240? Although obviously I still want it to be excellent, not just different for the sake of being weird.

I’m biased toward a knife available from JKI, as I was very pleased with the experience from them, but if there’s a strong recommendation for a knife they don’t sell, I’m interested in hearing it still.

Right now, after some googling and reading, my first thought is the Gesshin Heiji. It’s a lot thicker, it’s got that secondary bevel so would sharpen up differently, and general opinion on it seems to be pretty positive.

Given my goals, does that seem like a good choice? Anything else you’d recommend instead?
 
I'd say that meets your requirements spot on. Others to consider woild be shigefusa, kato, or watanabe.
 
A Yoshikane SKD could be another example of a (good) knife with marked differences with your Ginga
 
Gengetsu or Gesshin Heiji would be noticeably different that the Ginga. Heiji's are getting a lot of attention recently and it's justified. Another solid option is Kochi. But if you want thicker than average, the Heiji will treat you really well.

If you want to try a 270, look for a passaround.
 
Congrads on stepping into the world of J- Gyuto's.Also learning to freehand keeps the edges going.I would talk to Jon since your experience with JKI was good.He sells all kinds of high end knives.Stain-resistant & great carbon blades.
 
I too love my Gesshin Ginga. I have a white #2 and the grind makes it one of the best slicers I own. Edge holding is pretty good but due to the grind it still glides through food even when it needs a touch up. The stainless version should be just as good.
 
Glad I found this thread! I just purchased my first high end kitchen knife today and I believe its the exact one you have (240mm Gesshin Ginga from JKI). I'm a total novice when it comes to kitchen knives but am looking forward to putting this one to use.
 
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