Is there a western mono carbon/iron clad with distal taper and tapered tang?

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chiffonodd

chiffonodd

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Does such a production knife exist? Western mono or ironclad carbon gyuto, distal taper, and tapered tang?

For example, on the stainless side, western blazen sg2 and akifusa srs15 both have super nice balance and in hand feel for a western because of the distal taper and tapered tang. Looking for something similar but full carbon.

Closest I can find in terms of feel is the kogetsu sk5 and morihei hisamoto hagane. Both have blade forward balance in a 240, especially compared to other carbon monos like misono swedish and sugimoto carbon.

Especially the kogetsu. Don't get me wrong - misono, sugimoto, both feel like nice knives. But the kogetsu feels like a gyuto.

But... no tapered tang. So close but no cigar.

Help.
 
Funnily the cheap rose wood Masahiro might have it, at least my honesuki has very slight tang taper, also Masahisa thick gyuto has both taper. If you are going for stainless Kazutada has nice taper, not sure about JCK Kagayaki
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chiffonodd said:
Does such a production knife exist? Western mono or ironclad carbon gyuto, distal taper, and tapered tang?

For example, on the stainless side, western blazen sg2 and akifusa srs15 both have super nice balance and in hand feel for a western because of the distal taper and tapered tang. Looking for something similar but full carbon.

Closest I can find in terms of feel is the kogetsu sk5 and morihei hisamoto hagane. Both have blade forward balance in a 240, especially compared to other carbon monos like misono swedish and sugimoto carbon.

Especially the kogetsu. Don't get me wrong - misono, sugimoto, both feel like nice knives. But the kogetsu feels like a gyuto.

But... no tapered tang. So close but no cigar.

Help.
Click to expand...
Steelport

Edit nvm, I think I misremembered
 
blokey said:
Funnily the cheap rose wood Masahiro might have it, at least my honesuki has very slight tang taper, also Masahisa thick gyuto has both taper. If you are going for stainless Kazutada has nice taper, not sure about JCK Kagayaki
View attachment 328306View attachment 328307
Click to expand...
FWIW... I was going to say 'there isn't any tang taper on JCK Kagayaki knives' but... there is actually some... just not a whole lot. At least... there is some tang taper on my honesuki, 240 and 270 gyutos, but I can't really see any on my 210 gyuto. These are all bought years apart from eachother so it's possible there's some variation over time (however the 210 is one of the ones in the middle).
It's nowhere near as dramatic as the examples you've shown though. I never noticed until I started looking for it right now.
 
Yeah, I would say vintage knives is where I see the best examples of this. My vintage sabs, Wusthof, and Zwilling knives pretty much all have heavy distal taper in the blade and tang. Not easy to find good examples, and they usually need a bit of work to get sorted, but if you are persistent on eBay they are there and worth the hunt in the end.
 
I would expand my search to French Nogent handles. French makers were late to use full-tang — except for export. The forward balance of the Nogents were the reason to taper the tang in the later full-tang construction. German Nogents tend to be neutral in balance.
 
If you're confident... and the knife is not too expensive... consider tapering the tang and scales yourself. Use a flat metal file and you're good to go.
It helps if you have mental picture/example of how you want to end up.
 
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Unless I'm misisng something, I think Merion Forge, Dan Bidinger, and a Isasmedjan have all made knives that fit that description.

I'm not sure how tapered they are in the tang, but Birgersson has also made Westerns that fit that description.
 
stringer said:
OP was asking for factory production knives.
Click to expand...
Fair enough, I took "production" as meaning "non-custom," which would include Birgersson who has done batch releaeses of that style knife.

The other mentions tend to sell more "one-off" but still aren't custom


Edit: the original post doesn't say "factory production," just "production."
 
chiffonodd said:
Does such a production knife exist? Western mono or ironclad carbon gyuto, distal taper, and tapered tang?

For example, on the stainless side, western blazen sg2 and akifusa srs15 both have super nice balance and in hand feel for a western because of the distal taper and tapered tang. Looking for something similar but full carbon.

Closest I can find in terms of feel is the kogetsu sk5 and morihei hisamoto hagane. Both have blade forward balance in a 240, especially compared to other carbon monos like misono swedish and sugimoto carbon.

Especially the kogetsu. Don't get me wrong - misono, sugimoto, both feel like nice knives. But the kogetsu feels like a gyuto.

But... no tapered tang. So close but no cigar.

Help.
Click to expand...
This is a knife ordered from Raphael
52100 mono with tapered spine and tapered tang. Most custom guys are willing to do this. Regarding factory made ones. They could be a tad hard to hunt down
 

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But the balance point is at the pinch grip — at least with my 23cm chef's.
I should add that the distal taper stops just before the tip. This is a change Herder has introduced after users complaining about the tip's fragility, as a Herder employee revealed in our German counterpart Messerforum.
 
Tang taper is highly overrated. Ask Jiro


My vote is also Morihei Hisamoto TFTFTF. Modest tang taper, but it's there.
tang.jpg
 
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