Honyaki prices bordering the absurd!

[Andrew]

I guess I missed the days when honyaki knives from known smiths could be found for relative bargains, so take what I'm about to say with some grain of salt...

Even at inflated prices, I find almost all Japanese knives to represent cost bargains compared with their western competitors. I fault neither for their pricing approaches, but find it somewhat funny that a honyaki from a smith who's been doing this work for decades is considered expensive at $1,700...

 

[Barmoley]

kato and shigs going for nearly 1k, now that's absurd.

i wish smiths would produce generic honyakis with straight non wavy hardening line with no mirror polish at a more reasonable price.

But why, what is the benefit? If the benefit is only visual then what would be the point of a generic none wavy, none polished honyaki?

Not saying there isn't anything else, just can't think of anything and can't get an answer from anywhere.

 

[labor of love]

But why, what is the benefit? If the benefit is only visual then what would be the point of a generic none wavy, none polished honyaki?

Not saying there isn't anything else, just can't think of anything and can't get an answer from anywhere.

I like honyakis because they’re superior mono blades with higher hardness and often have cooler profiles than the $200-300 cheap Japanese mono counterparts. I like how diff hardening feels in use.
I don’t care about expensive mirror polishing or hamons or mt fuji blah blah blah.

 

[labor of love]

I also don’t like that most honyakis seem to come with extravagant handles.

 

[refcast]

Yeah, I've been looking for honyaki that have plain finishes and handles. A lot of the sakai honyaki have a different spine profile; they're more dropnose along the whole spine. the only one that I didn't see like that (that I can recall) is Ashi. There's a lot of self-built in hype features (mirror, ebony) that I don't like about the honyaki mythos, because those particular things don't contribute well to performance.

 

[frank358fr]

1700 is really ridiculous for me to say the least.

 

[panda]

i'll tell you this tho, if a masamoto hs popped up for 1700 i'd snatch it up in a heart beat.

 

[chinacats]

Best feel on the board of any knife I've used was Salty's blue 2 Mizuno (honyaki). That said likely best value/dumbest sell of any blade I've owned wa the old JNS Singatirin (as i recall was ~400 usd.

 

[panda]

Best feel on the board of any knife I've used was Salty's blue 2 Mizuno (honyaki). That said likely best value/dumbest sell of any blade I've owned wa the old JNS Singatirin (as i recall was ~400 usd.

jim i have a hiromoto honyaki i can pass on to you on the cheap

i miss my miz honyaki (white2) a lot. i will get another one eventually but custom length.

 

[chinacats]

jim i have a hiromoto honyaki i can pass on to you on the cheap

i miss my miz honyaki (white2) a lot. i will get another one eventually but custom length.

Thanks man, i owned one (Hiromoto) and it just never clicked for me. I'm w/ you on the Mizuno (make mine white 2 and ~255 x 53). My next honyaki is going to have a feather on it

 

[JayGee]

kato and shigs going for nearly 1k, now that's absurd.

i wish smiths would produce generic honyakis with straight non wavy hardening line with no mirror polish at a more reasonable price.

Yah - that was the Hiromoto... which was$480 or something at sale time. Killer knife too.

 

[Chicagohawkie]

i'll tell you this tho, if a masamoto hs popped up for 1700 i'd snatch it up in a heart beat.

Ha Ha! Those are like 5 figure knives now! I’d like to get my mits on one too!

 

[osakajoe]

kato and shigs going for nearly 1k, now that's absurd.

i wish smiths would produce generic honyakis with straight non wavy hardening line with no mirror polish at a more reasonable price.

You wouldn’t see that much of a price drop. Getting a mirror finish done usually adds an extra $100 to the price. The hamon is the forgers preference and the cost are pretty much the same if it’s straight or not.

Someone else already mentioned it before. Supply is higher and a lot of the Japanese blade-smiths are now old and don’t do as much or retired.

Due to the timing and market when they would expect to take in apprentices they were competing with machine forged knives newly being produced out of places like Seki. Markets shifted to these cheaper knives and forgers and grinders had to work hard and sell cheaper. The Japanese business model at that time, and technically now, is that craftsman went through wholesalers who would try to drive the cost me down on the craftsman but then jack the sales price on their end. This means craftsman in no way could afford to take on apprentices. Essentially wholesalers are responsible for a lot of the top craftsman not passing on the skills.

So today you see a lot demand for the same quality knives but now with not as many who can do the same work, especially for honyaki knives. This drives up prices. Coupled with recent increase in carbon steel prices you end up with much higher prices. And if you read above going through a wholesaler,such as Jikko, you can expect to see those prices.

 

[Barmoley]

When you guys talk of honyaki you speak of specifically Japanese made differentially heat treated knives?

Not to say there is no difference in feel, but it is hard to believe that there is one on a hypothetically exactly the same knives with the only difference being one differentially heat treated and one fully heat treated to the same hardness as the edge of the first one.

I hope some makers can chime in. I've seen some honyaki where hamon was pretty high, close to the spine, so that most of the blade is hard steel at that point how making it fully hard be any different?

I get it that Japanese Smith's do honyaki as a separate item, so profiles and grinds might be different from regular knives, but if they weren't would there actually be a difference?

 

[Corradobrit1]

Honyaki in my mind is a generic (Japanese) term for any differentially HT'ed blade, be they made in Japan or outside. I think only makers who have compared uniformally HT'ed monosteel with DH blades in the same steel, with the same edge hardness, will know if there are differences.

 

[Chicagohawkie]

Yes, if anyone has one of those terribly overpriced JNS honyakis I’ll gladly take it off your hands.
Atleast shirakis apprentices makes true edge length 240mm Honyakis!

How about the 600 dollar Tesshu Honyaki on BST?

 

[labor of love]

How about the 600 dollar Tesshu Honyaki on BST?

I’m a quite a stickler for my 240mm gyutos not running short in edge length otherwise I’d grab it.

 

[Chicagohawkie]

I’ll send you my knife stretcher, Ha! Ya, that was my Tesshu gripe, too small and too short.

 

[Chicagohawkie]

You wouldn’t see that much of a price drop. Getting a mirror finish done usually adds an extra $100 to the price. The hamon is the forgers preference and the cost are pretty much the same if it’s straight or not.

Someone else already mentioned it before. Supply is higher and a lot of the Japanese blade-smiths are now old and don’t do as much or retired.

Due to the timing and market when they would expect to take in apprentices they were competing with machine forged knives newly being produced out of places like Seki. Markets shifted to these cheaper knives and forgers and grinders had to work hard and sell cheaper. The Japanese business model at that time, and technically now, is that craftsman went through wholesalers who would try to drive the cost me down on the craftsman but then jack the sales price on their end. This means craftsman in no way could afford to take on apprentices. Essentially wholesalers are responsible for a lot of the top craftsman not passing on the skills.

So today you see a lot demand for the same quality knives but now with not as many who can do the same work, especially for honyaki knives. This drives up prices. Coupled with recent increase in carbon steel prices you end up with much higher prices. And if you read above going through a wholesaler,such as Jikko, you can expect to see those prices.

I wish someone would set up a Japanese Etsy type thing that would help the knife makers access a worldwide market and eliminate the middlemen or something like the western makers do and sell direct. I’m sure heads would roll though.

 

[Corradobrit1]

I’ll send you my knife stretcher, Ha! Ya, that was my Tesshu gripe, too small and too short.

You and Kevin have something in common.

 

[labor of love]

I’ll send you my knife stretcher, Ha! Ya, that was my Tesshu gripe, too small and too short.

Well, that one is still like 52mm tall or so. It’s a solid deal, for the right person.

 

[McMan]

Ha Ha! Those knives are not differentially hardened and have no hamon. They have been around for a long time, sold by many resellers. A few people picked these up 4-5 years ago and said they were horribly unfinished.

Mario re-furbed one way back when and reported a hamon--buried but there after etching--and differential hardening:
https://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/threads/takagi-gyuto-first-impressions.2940/page-2

 

[Eloh]

Would like to see a double blind test for people who say they feel a difference between differentitially hardened and regular mono steel knives

 

[labor of love]

I said it. Maybe it’s the feel of a high hardness mono blade edge against a board that makes me feel this way and not the diff hardening. Then again, I’ve used high hardness mono non diff hardened blades and didn’t feel it. Maybe it’s just a matter of some sort of density in the steel. Who knows?
It’s something I can’t explain, I’m big enough to admit I may be mistaken.

 

[refcast]

I bought one of those Takagi abura honyaki to try the steel. There are nicer steel out there. In terms of finish--its not that they're unfinished, it's that they're finished in a rustic manner and purpose. Which is to say, more mal-finished for our standards than un-finished.

But they work in a manner what he's known for -- tough woodworking tools, specifically adzes. Basically like a kind of axe (but not exactly).

They are middle to heavy-middle weight behind the edge in thickness, but lightweight in the blade face. So the spine isn't the thickest part, the top of the bevel is.

For instance compared to watanabe blue honyaki steel . . . takagi was tougher, softer-feeling. Watanabe was sharper, hair poppingly. Watanabe felt harder in use and was harder in sharpening. Takagi felt actually around where the ginga white 2 is. Maybe even just barely slightly softer.

More rustic than TF for sure. But no overgrinds!! Just a fat convex axe-kinda bevel. I mean, I was able to use it. . . but there are better knives and steel and grinds out there. So the "magical" honyaki steel is not to be found in this instance. It's just another different heat treat here.

 

[osakajoe]

I wish someone would set up a Japanese Etsy type thing that would help the knife makers access a worldwide market and eliminate the middlemen or something like the western makers do and sell direct. I’m sure heads would roll though.

Then you have craftsman who turn into sales representatives and pass on all the making to the apprentices lowering the quality. You have people like Kurisaki who’s running around every where selling and promoting. You have to wonder who’s making his knives or most of them.

Plus they deal with volume. Selling one here and there is not good business. If you stick to the well known knife retailers who don’t tell pirate tales old samurai fairytales about all their knives, you have generally gotten pretty close directly to the source as you can get.

 

[rick alen]

With san-mai construction you can harden to anything you want I would think. So why a Honyaki in the first place?

 

[Chicagohawkie]

I said it. Maybe it’s the feel of a high hardness mono blade edge against a board that makes me feel this way and not the diff hardening. Then again, I’ve used high hardness mono non diff hardened blades and didn’t feel it. Maybe it’s just a matter of some sort of density in the steel. Who knows?
It’s something I can’t explain, I’m big enough to admit I may be mistaken.

I think Honyakis have a different resonance than a San mai blade, but I’ve found handle wood species and fitment really bring an undescribable feel to Honyaki blades. When I changed over the handle from an ichi handle to an ebony that was epoxy fit vs beeswax on my Ittetsu Honyaki, it became the most resonant and Wonderful feeling knife I’ve ever used. The difference was huge. It’s kinda the way different tone woods effect the sound of guitars, for example on my les Paul’s a rosewood fret board a warm and rich tone vs say a ebony board which sounds far brighter and pronounced vs a maple fret board which I feel is the brightest and sparkiest. Subjective I know, but ya I agree that Honyakis mostly have a unique feel.

 

[chinacats]

With san-mai construction you can harden to anything you want I would think. So why a Honyaki in the first place?

San mai makes a thud when it hits the board...feels dead imo.

 

[Michi]

I don't understand why a honyaki would in principle be better than a mono-steel knife either. I get the aesthetics and the difficulty of creating them, but I don't see any in-principle difference.

I don't have a honyaki; even if I did, I probably couldn't draw any firm conclusions, unless I had the same knife as a honyaki and as a mono-steel. I do remember a video from Salty where he compared the normal KS to the honyaki version and said that there was little (if any) difference.