Favorite Master-Sharpeners

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silylanjie

silylanjie

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Just curious who is everyone's favorite master sharpener. Here are my favorite:

I got to try an Hado Junpaku Gyuto and was amazed by the fit and finish. I got to say my current favorite sharpener for double bevel is

Also, out of all the yanagibas I had handle the Tadokoro is probably the best fit and finish I seen for single a bevel.

I'm sure there are better knives by alot of different master sharpeners out there but these are just my personal opinion.
Please share who's your favorite.
 
LostHighway said:
Hirosuga Tosa (retired??)

Myojin is unquestionably very good although I worry that he is taking on too much work.
Click to expand...

I've had the same thought about Myojin but although he's attached to a lot of high-end lines they're not high volume generally, right? He's currently/recently doing:

-Kono FM (limited quantities)
-Tetsujin
-Kagekiyo ginsan (maybe just a one-off?)
-His own SG2 line
-Kaiju (super limited, maybe not happening currently?)
-Massdrop knife (one-off, only a few a month)
(Anything I'm missing?)

Of these, the Tetsujin and SG2 lines seem a little higher volume, or maybe just aren't as popular and don't sell out immediately. The others are pretty limited/low volume. And AFAIK he's not forging any of these.

If he starts cranking out multiple product lines at many sellers a la Yu Kurosaki on top of his existing stuff, I would expect quality will suffer... but for the time being his volume of work doesn't seem outrageous?

Edit: of course I forgot a few. Nakagawa x Myojin, Nigara Hamono, that stupid expensive Kurosaki collab yanagiba. I'll concede that he's got a lot of projects going on.
 
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There's a bunch of others but they're even more limited (Yugiri, some with Yu Kurosaki, some with Nigara, Hashimoto). I'm sure he was doing a bunch more before as well uncredited, but possibly finished to a lower standard.

TBH I wonder this for Jiro. It's not as if Jiro #1 is his first knife he's ever made. I actually like Jiro's grind a lot. Put it side by side with my thick version FM and Toyama it was probably the best in terms of trade off between laser-y ness and food release.
 
timebard said:
I've had the same thought about Myojin but although he's attached to a lot of high-end lines they're not high volume generally, right? He's currently/recently doing:

-Kono FM (limited quantities)
-Tetsujin
-Kagekiyo ginsan (maybe just a one-off?)
-His own SG2 line
-Kaiju (super limited, maybe not happening currently?)
-Massdrop knife (one-off, only a few a month)
(Anything I'm missing?)

Of these, the Tetsujin and SG2 lines seem a little higher volume, or maybe just aren't as popular and don't sell out immediately. The othersKawamura Hamono are pretty limited/low volume. And AFAIK he's not forging any of these.

If he starts cranking out multiple product lines at many sellers a la Yu Kurosaki on top of his existing stuff, I would expect quality will suffer... but for the time being his volume of work doesn't seem outrageous?
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Some, maybe most, of the Satoshi Nakagawa knives. He also could easily be doing work for a number of lines (e.g. Baba Hamano, Kawamura Hamono Hitohira,...) without his name being made public.
 
timebard said:
I've had the same thought about Myojin but although he's attached to a lot of high-end lines they're not high volume generally, right? He's currently/recently doing:

-Kono FM (limited quantities)
-Tetsujin
-Kagekiyo ginsan (maybe just a one-off?)
-His own SG2 line
-Kaiju (super limited, maybe not happening currently?)
-Massdrop knife (one-off, only a few a month)
(Anything I'm missing?)

Of these, the Tetsujin and SG2 lines seem a little higher volume, or maybe just aren't as popular and don't sell out immediately. The others are pretty limited/low volume. And AFAIK he's not forging any of these.

If he starts cranking out multiple product lines at many sellers a la Yu Kurosaki on top of his existing stuff, I would expect quality will suffer... but for the time being his volume of work doesn't seem outrageous?

Edit: of course I forgot a few. Nakagawa x Myojin, Nigara Hamono, that stupid expensive Kurosaki collab yanagiba. I'll concede that he's got a lot of projects going on.
Click to expand...
OOC what's he doing with Niagara? a quick search shows a Damascus product on staysharp
 
another vote for myojin here.

of the knives ive tried, sg2+a couple fuji fm's. they absolutely slay produce, outstanding cutters. very thin bte while not being super fragile like say yoshikane(excellent as well, just not my thing)

i'm trying really hard to keep my knife purchases at bay, but i think about picking up a shihan constantly. thank god hes trying some different stuff for the time being. if his shop page within the past few weeks showed 52100/aebl 210/240 gyutos in stock i think id probably have one by now.
 
LostHighway said:
Hirosuga Tosa (retired??)

Myojin is unquestionably very good although I worry that he is taking on too much work.
Click to expand...

My experiences with Myojin has been a bit inconsistent

All three Kono MM I have had have been perfectly consistent.

My Kono FM gyuto may as well have been flat ground.

My SG2 had the hallmarks of the MM, but was a thick boi. Serious thinning needed. This is different than reports of people who got nail flexing edges.

My FM Nakiri is inconsistent - nicely thin at the edge, but higher up the grind varies along the blade and from side to side.
 
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I recently picked up a Hitohiro Togashi 165mm petty, sharpened by Kenya Togashi. I don’t know if I’d consider him a master, but I was impressed with the finishing quality:
 

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pgugger said:
Kawakita is one I haven’t seen mentioned, but really like their grinds on my Migoto knives. I agree with Takada and Myojin too. Not sure who counts as master sharpeners, but I also like the grinds on my Jiro and Toyama
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I love the grind on my Toyama SS, cuts better than my recent Migoto Ginsan that's also Kawakita sharpened.
 
Another vote for Jiro. I am super impressed by the 240 I got. Food release is shockingly good. Carrot planks just jump off the knife. Along with being very thin BTE so performance is fantastic. I haven't polished it myself to prove it, but since they are hand finished on bench stones, I have to expect that the bevels are completely free of low spots.
 
Favorite sharpeners? Basically comes down to who sharpens my favorite knives: Bryan, Yanick, Kato, Shig, Jiro, Tetsujin, TF, Kochi, Heiji, Nihei, Yoshikane, etc.
 
If you’re talking Japanese sharpeners you should really split it into a few different categories.
- single bevel sharpeners
- double bevel sharpeners
- mizuto sharpeners (zero - to finish by hand)
- jidou ken sharpeners (mostly using machines to grind the heavy lifting parts)

I also would take what most retailers post on their listings with a grain of salt. Some people do not wish to publish their suppliers so will be very vague. Look to the post above me, one of those names is a prefecture. Some get from wholesalers who tell them old tales they eat up as truth. Just know there are a lot more sharpeners most people will never hear about and will stay that way since the classic knife production business model in Japan is designed that way.
 
osakajoe said:
If you’re talking Japanese sharpeners you should really split it into a few different categories.
- single bevel sharpeners
- double bevel sharpeners
- mizuto sharpeners (zero - to finish by hand)
- jidou ken sharpeners (mostly using machines to grind the heavy lifting parts)

I also would take what most retailers post on their listings with a grain of salt. Some people do not wish to publish their suppliers so will be very vague. Look to the post above me, one of those names is a prefecture. Some get from wholesalers who tell them old tales they eat up as truth. Just know there are a lot more sharpeners most people will never hear about and will stay that way since the classic knife production business model in Japan is designed that way.
Click to expand...
I think by Kochi he means the Kochi 東風 line of JKI, and the sharpener behind it, not the Kōchi 高知 city nor perfecture.
 
I don't know so much about the specifics of Japanese sharpeners, but I have handled quite a few various things and sometimes a grind / sharpening just blows me away even if the knife is quite blunt. I don't really know how to describe it, but if something's been very well done originally then there's something special about it.

The best I've had or used would be, in no particular order: Shibata, Kippington, Kato, Shigefusa, Toyama. And obviously the latter three are probably not going to have been sharpened by their namesakes (I assume...?)
 
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