Hatsukokoro Yoake impressions?

Miura knives
Kitchen Knife Forums

Help Support Kitchen Knife Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
20221214_213041.jpg

I'm not great at choil shots and it's dim in my kitchen but here it is.
 
jedy617 said:
Here's a good shot of mine. Not super thick but def not as thin as yours. Probably on the thicker side of medium? Can't complain that much for the price, and it does have a 7mm spine. Near the tip does feel thin tho.
Click to expand...
My thick one was wider than that out of the box. Yours looks not bad. If that's representative of the entire length of the edge, you can simply thin and convex the edge a bit and you'll have a sweet workhorse.
 
I'll just add to the thread that I got a KU 240 Yoake at a great price from Homebutcher over Thanksgiving. Unfortunately the one I picked up was pretty obviously bent, beyond what I'd try to fix myself. And while it was really thick at the neck, it tapered quite fast to a kinda normal midweight spine by an inch or two past the choil. Definitely not a gradual/continuous distal taper that would make it feel like a serious workhorse.

That said, Phil was great about accepting the return - no fault on the seller side, but add one to the inconsistent/wabi sabi side of the ledger.
 
tostadas said:
My thick one was wider than that out of the box. Yours looks not bad. If that's representative of the entire length of the edge, you can simply thin and convex the edge a bit and you'll have a sweet workhorse.
Click to expand...
Yeah true. Gotta decide if I make a project out of it or pass it along. I am very impressed with the kasumi on it tho, and it's a nice profile.
 
Is anyone able to speculate who made this blade? Seems to be someone good.
 
Last edited:
Duukt said:
Couple more pictures. The spine feels exactly like a kurouchi finish.

View attachment 214121View attachment 214122
Click to expand...
What is up with that spine? If you put a straight edge against it is there a noticeable gap? Or is it the drastic DT close to the handle that the pic is highlighting?

Personally I think these start out as Ku and then get refinished to Migaki, but they forgot to do the spines.
 
madmotts said:
Been assessing the migaki 210 and decided I "needed" the 240. Hoping mine will have something like choil on @itzjustchris1 copy. There's still at least one left with Homebutcher with the promo...
Click to expand...

I also wanted to buy the Migaki version but get the Gyuto this time. Then I told myself that I spent too much already this year and accumulated about 30+ knives starting from early of this year on the month of January.
 
tostadas said:
My 210 migaki is well convexed, the 240 migaki is convex at the edge, with a bit of concavity further up the grind. The 210 ku also is convex at the edge and concave higher. My 240 ku was concave but super fat but there's enough material for me to regrind it to be convex if I decide to go that route..

Haha yea I really like this line a lot. Despite all the stuff I say about inconsistency. Similar to how I think tf f&f is terrible but the knives are still great. The yaoke f&f is still better than tf. I haven't taken the knife all the way up the shinogi yet on my 240, mainly focusing behind the edge for now. Still deciding how much effort I want to put in.

Here's a copy of those photos of thinning progress I uploaded on the other thread. I forgot to take a "before" photo.
View attachment 214095View attachment 214096
Click to expand...
Holy moly that’s like a Shihan or Kato
 
So the F&F is pretty rough as others have noticed. I have forge scale on my migaki as has been mentioned, my kurouchi finish looks pretty messy on the other side. Am I bothered? Nope, not at all, they are beasts and thin behind the edge, especially the K-tip. I need to weigh them but these might be my heaviest knives by a bit. Used the k-tip on some veg for a ragu. Factoring in the discount I got, I’m happy to have them.
 
Really enjoy the dimensions on my gyuto. The finish feels rustic across the board but not overly so.
Less than a half hour on a coarse stone and almost all the low spots are ground out too.
What did surprise me a bit is how flexible the knife is. I really enjoy super stiff knives so this is the only aspect that I would gripe about
 
Mine weighed in at 271g and the oversized ebony handle isn't helping. Still doesn't feel unwieldy but I did use a zkramer a lot and that weighs in at 313g.

It's pretty rigid as knives go too so maybe there's some variation there as well.
 
The Yaoke line might be one of the most confusing and inconsistent knife lines ever. I told Phil that mine was quite thick and I wanted a thinner one, so he sent one off my way for a discount, and I decided I will either sell the thick one or use it as a project.

The new one is way thinner, like half the thickness (also looks a little asymmetric), and has a polished choil?? While the K tip doesn't have a polished choil at all. Both have KU on the spines. So weird. Whatever you do, don't expect this line to be consistent if you are buying. However....this thin one looks awesome, they have a great kasumi finish, and the ebony+marble horn handles are top notch, not sure if those are dealer installed tho. The thick one has a machi gap where my new one doesn't.

yaoke1.jpg

yaoke2.jpg

yaoke3.jpg
 
jedy617 said:
The Yaoke line might be one of the most confusing and inconsistent knife lines ever. I told Phil that mine was quite thick and I wanted a thinner one, so he sent one off my way for a discount, and I decided I will either sell the thick one or use it as a project.

The new one is way thinner, like half the thickness (also looks a little asymmetric), and has a polished choil?? While the K tip doesn't have a polished choil at all. Both have KU on the spines. So weird. Whatever you do, don't expect this line to be consistent if you are buying. However....this thin one looks awesome, they have a great kasumi finish, and the ebony+marble horn handles are top notch, not sure if those are dealer installed tho. The thick one has a machi gap where my new one doesn't.

View attachment 216488
View attachment 216489
View attachment 216490
Click to expand...
Keep the thick one! Can always regrind it to a thin convex. That's my current project and after doing a quick test yesterday, it's gonna be good. I agree, the grinds are a mixed bag. And the handle I wouldn't call so much a Machi gap as just ghetto install.
 
tostadas said:
Keep the thick one! Can always regrind it to a thin convex. That's my current project and after doing a quick test yesterday, it's gonna be good. I agree, the grinds are a mixed bag. And the handle I wouldn't call so much a Machi gap as just ghetto install.
Click to expand...
Yeah I thought it would be a perfect use to test my jnats on, plus I like the profile and the size, and heat treat seems to be good, just needs a little love and I can coax out the goodness from it
 
Yeah saw this thread, but seems like most comments here are for the gyuto and not k tip
 
I had one and it was a lot of fun! I just found something I wanted more. Honestly though? Especially for the money… they are great. I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. I like the 260-290 grams a lot. For me it’s about perfect weight so the yoake falls in that weight category. Performance was quite good on my example, but grinds on these seem like a mixed bag as others have mentioned.
IMG_1642.jpeg
IMG_1643.jpeg
IMG_1647.jpeg
IMG_1651.jpeg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top