For the love of cutting: a cut-vid thread for all

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A couple of weeks back @JimMaple98 very kindly sent me his 270mm Toyama to have a play with. At the time I didn't really know much about Toyama - I'm no great expert in terms of high end Japanese knives. Though I sharpen a few, and occasionally I come across things that you can tell straight off the bat are a bit special. A slightly hard-to-describe mix of grind and edge, that can happen on thicker or thinner knives, of any size, and which makes them an utter pleasure to use, and insanely easy to sharpen.

This was right up there. A beast of a knife, without feeling unwieldy, and very immediately apparent why they have the reputation they do. So here is a(nother) carrot video:

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Here's me using a JNS Tanaka to cut up veggies and fruit for my son's super simple lunch tomorrow, because I know that's what the people want! Sadly, these are the only four things I cut today. :(

Not pictured: me eating all the scraps afterwards. Only the best for the young man! Any irregular cuts must go into me or into the trash.
 
I am bad at cutting, no doubt about it, but anyway:

Herder Lignum 3 pimped by Uwe "suntravel" Mattern and an onion from my garden... At the beginning you can see a Dick micro.



I really like this little knife, it was my first "better" knife 15 years ago. Unfortunately I had to learn sharpening on this knife, which dind't work well, so Uwe had to do a quick rework on it.

Best,
Mack.
 
Suien VG-10 220 mm Chinese cleaver after reprofiling and thinning. The monosteel VG-10 is very nice. Not too hard to sharpen out of the box and after thinning, it took a great edge off an Aizu koppa. Suien definitely knows what they’re doing heat treat wise. The profile needed a lot of work though. Way too much curve right in the middle so after lessening the belly there, I had to do extra thinning in that area. I’ve got it about where I want it, could thin it a little bit more to really see what kind of geometry this VG-10 can handle. Still got to work on my knife skills with a full size cleaver though.



 
Here's a video of the very first thing I cut with this knife earlier this evening.

I'd had this blade from @Kippington for a week or so, waiting for some smart stabilized wood to make a handle for it. You have no idea how hard that is. Seeing it sitting on the side, unused, all day every day. Eventually I buckled and made a handle for it on Friday using vine wood, brass and winemaking oak spacer, and horn. And actually I'm quite pleased I did...

Vine wood isn't the densest thing in the world, but it feels lovely. Kinda like ho wood handles, but markedly prettier. Normally on a knife this size it'd be difficult to get the balance back enough, but a couple of things were working in my favour: Firstly; it's a laser-y grind, I didn't want something too chunky and forward-heavy as I've got quite a few things like that already. More significantly though; Jules' tangs are long in comparison to most others, which pulls the weight back noticeably, and makes it considerably easier to design a handle for. If I was using heavier wood I could have just ground some of the tang down to get the balance point right, but using quite light wood it was spot on perfect as it was. This has completely neutral balance at a pinch grip, and feels like I've just got a slightly longer, pointier arm.

 
A video detailing the highly-skilled and intricate knife work involved in making a dish I’ve always known as ‘smacked cukes’, though my wife calls ‘bang-bang cucumber’. Which seems appropriate having watched this back with the sound on.

(Involving a cheap, but pretty good cai dao belonging to @JimMaple98)


 
cotedupy said:
A video detailing the highly-skilled and intricate knife work involved in making a dish I’ve always known as ‘smacked cukes’, though my wife calls ‘bang-bang cucumber’. Which seems appropriate having watched this back with the sound on.

(Involving a cheap, but pretty good cai dao belonging to @JimMaple98)


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Oh yea smack em!
 
A Masashi SLD that’s been thinned a bit after a couple sharpenings and given a horizontal belt finish. Profile is similar to a Wat/Toyama and it cuts about as well as one too, but with a thinner tip. The SLD steel holds an aggressive edge very well. Cubing up some potatoes for home fries, pretty good food release as far as I can tell. Also, sweet potato julienne to test for wedging/cutting performance on something dense.



 
Well my state going back into lockdown means I have time to play with my knives a bit more at least!

This is one of my most recent knives, my Morihei TF Hisamoto 240 gyuto.
I thinned it down 3grams OOTB for overgrinds,she is doing pretty well, still has some overgrinds but no point chasing them now and losing a bunch of steel until I need to.
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I bought the ripest tomatoe I could find to test out some stones. First knife is sharpened with King Neo 800, second one is Shapton Pro 2k, third is an Arashiyama 6k. The king neo definitely bites right into the tomatoe, it’s pretty nice.
 
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kpham12 said:
A Masashi SLD that’s been thinned a bit after a couple sharpenings and given a horizontal belt finish. Profile is similar to a Wat/Toyama and it cuts about as well as one too, but with a thinner tip. The SLD steel holds an aggressive edge very well. Cubing up some potatoes for home fries, pretty good food release as far as I can tell. Also, sweet potato julienne to test for wedging/cutting performance on something dense.



Click to expand...


is this Masahi much thinner than a typical Toyama/Wat? My aogami one from him has a dead ringer profile but is WAY thinner. tbh Id probably like it more if it was more like my Toyama
 
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