Any opinion about Hiromoto honyaki gyuto.

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Just ordered one. Koki confirmed they are stamped kanji not screened and there are three handle options (for the 240mm anyway) and they are pakkawood, linen micarta, and white corian.

Got the corian, and figure if its not "my thing" it'll get a nice rehandle from Dave. Not a fan of pakka or micarta...

Excited! Will post pics when its here
 
Just ordered one. Koki confirmed they are stamped kanji not screened and there are three handle options (for the 240mm anyway) and they are pakkawood, linen micarta, and white corian.

Got the corian, and figure if its not "my thing" it'll get a nice rehandle from Dave. Not a fan of pakka or micarta...

Excited! Will post pics when its here

good to hear that it is confirmed as stamped and not screened. I did not know they have handle options, my will get a rehandle regardless.

My knife has cleared customes, so Im guessing it wil be here Mon or Tues - thats quick shipping from Japan!
 
Got an email this morning, so apparently the white corian handle versions have some kind of problem that prohibits Koki from selling them at this time.

They have linen micarta handle versions available.
 
What exactly were you told?
There is a new batch out?

This is what he wrote to me about 3 months ago, I asked him because what I received was different from the photo on his site.

The knife you received was Master Nagao’s final attempt and final challenging of the Honyaki knife which he believed most practical.

Normally his regular Honyaki Gyuto, its blade tang is carbon steel the tang part has possibility to get rust and discolor easily too.

For the easier maintenance and rust resistance, Master Nagao thought it is best the only blade has White Steel No.2 Honyaki blade and the tang should have stainless steel. Master Nagao thought that is the most practical Honyaki knife for new generation and he finished such Honyaki knife
 
Just missed my mailman.... that is fast shipping! I can post one tomorrow. My thought is that these are sleeper knives from a legacy and are the last of them. The AS knives are fantastic and have no doubts about these honyaki.
 
My knife came in today - ss bolster and looks good so far.

hiroh.jpg

hiroh1.jpg
 
Nothing wrong with that choil. Verrrrnaaais!
I received one of these yesterday. There is a continous distal taper along the spine, so my guess is that a choil shot may not tell the whole story about the grind. But what else is new? ;)
 
it too much Kanji for me. So far, food release is meh and the tip has flex..... the board contact has quite the feedback that I like and I like the western handle. The heel on my knife needs work....
 
it too much Kanji for me. So far, food release is meh and the tip has flex..... the board contact has quite the feedback that I like and I like the western handle. The heel on my knife needs work....

222grams is pretty light for a 240mm western. For comparison's sake a 240mm gesshin ginga western weighs 206 grams. Ofcourse this doesn't take into account the balance point and handle weight.
 
222grams is pretty light for a 240mm western. For comparison's sake a 240mm gesshin ginga western weighs 206 grams. Ofcourse this doesn't take into account the balance point and handle weight.

bolster & western handle add to weight. Yes, very light feel and I like board feedback. Going to get my Hiro AS back on Fri from John and see how they compare.

Now I have 2 too many gyutous.
 
So far, food release is meh and the tip has flex..... the board contact has quite the feedback that I like and I like the western handle. The heel on my knife needs work....
Agree. The heel has a rather agressive back-belly.

Regarding performance, yes food release doesn't seem to be one of its strengths. However, I'm putting this knife in my "need-to-work-with-it-a-while-to-know-it" category. Regarding food release, I'm getting a feeling this knife will favor quick, decisive action & speed. I just need to figure out which parts of the blade works best for different tasks and with which technique. Some knives just "work out of the box" for me, they are already suiting my default technique. This seems to be one of those with a learning curve for me, it's going to be fun. ;)

Personally, I really like that it's feeling so lightweight, but that can be because I'm used to blade heavy knives with wa handles.
 
Agree. The heel has a rather agressive back-belly.

Regarding performance, yes food release doesn't seem to be one of its strengths. However, I'm putting this knife in my "need-to-work-with-it-a-while-to-know-it" category. Regarding food release, I'm getting a feeling this knife will favor quick, decisive action & speed. I just need to figure out which parts of the blade works best for different tasks and with which technique. Some knives just "work out of the box" for me, they are already suiting my default technique. This seems to be one of those with a learning curve for me, it's going to be fun. ;)

Personally, I really like that it's feeling so lightweight, but that can be because I'm used to blade heavy knives with wa handles.

Interesting. I must have gotten a thicker grind. I would have said food release on mine is not too bad and it's not a super light knife. It is certainly one which needs a bit of getting used to for me, although I do get a bit of the "begs to be shown a pile of food" feling with it. I'm not sure if this comes from the grind or from being a monosteel or maybe it's just in my head.
 
Interesting. I must have gotten a thicker grind. I would have said food release on mine is not too bad and it's not a super light knife. It is certainly one which needs a bit of getting used to for me, although I do get a bit of the "begs to be shown a pile of food" feling with it. I'm not sure if this comes from the grind or from being a monosteel or maybe it's just in my head.

has there always been an inconsistency with Hirmoto? I remember a while back there was quite a bit of inconsistent grinds & edges on the AS knives.

I ended up buying an AS knife a while back before they ran out and never used it because of the chunk behind the edge.
 
So it's been a few months since the last post. How do people like it after using it for a while? Did anyone try thinning it a little?
 
I got mine about two weeks ago and went from aloof to in love. The steel and ht is top shelf. And I am thinning as I go and splurged on an atoma 140 to help with that. And each thinning i do moves it a little closer to its immense potential. It takes a sick edge but refinement cause a dramatic drop off in toothiness. But a lot of latent class under the hood, just gotta be unafraid of laying it flat on a stone. King Hyper 1000 eats up the metal. King 300 needs opening up every so often with a diamond plate.
 
I would like to report that i thinned a third part of the blade near the tip and although it's not there yet, it improved significantly. No more a lot of force needed to dice onions.
 
I got mine about two weeks ago and went from aloof to in love. The steel and ht is top shelf. And I am thinning as I go and splurged on an atoma 140 to help with that. And each thinning i do moves it a little closer to its immense potential. It takes a sick edge but refinement cause a dramatic drop off in toothiness. But a lot of latent class under the hood, just gotta be unafraid of laying it flat on a stone. King Hyper 1000 eats up the metal. King 300 needs opening up every so often with a diamond plate.
Otto, was your thinning bevel flat or convexed? How far up the blade face did you thin?

Did you refinish it yet?

What do you think is the sweet spot grit for edge refinement?
 
AS mentioned b4, the weight of the knife can range between 210 adn 255 grams. The thinner one wld hv a very thin tip and possibly flex a little.

The HRC i believe is a on the lower side... ard 62 as i am able to get a almost mirror polish without breaking a sweat as compared to my other Honyakis. In that process i lost close to 15 grams and I stopped removing steel.

On the whole... a lovely western handle knife , easy to touch up the edge and it is a robust knife adn if you must have an uber sharp knife...... remove some steel behind the edge if it is not thin enough

I do prefer a edge retention though...

have fun rgds Z
 
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