Monosteel western handle Gyuto discussion thread

[labor of love]

Take my advice with a grain of salt but it almost seems like you could sharpen that out without too much hassle? Then once you have it how you want it just thin to desired geometry. Maybe try and exchange if you don’t feel like it.

 

[enchappo]

Take my advice with a grain of salt but it almost seems like you could sharpen that out without too much hassle? Then once you have it how you want it just thin to desired geometry. Maybe try and exchange if you don’t feel like it.

Thanks, appreciate it. Yeah, I think I could get the profile back to flat very easily. I just worried that I might run into issues when thinning. Very happy to do the work though - and I may be writing about nothing

 

[blokey]

I worked on the 270 Yo Gesshin GingA a bit, the Yo handle version seems to be thicker than Wa, original I was planning on taking this to Jon but his schedule is full atm, can’t match his work but I’m pretty happy with this now
Before

After

 

[labor of love]

I love thinning those mono Sakai lasers. Used to have a tad wh2 270mm that I got really thin bte and asymmetric with relative ease

 

[refcast]

@enchappo

You could ask them to reprofile it and thin it to geometry again. Or do it yourself. Or disclose to them, but do it yourself too. It's a ... Surprisingly common thing on edge profiles. Unshu yukimitsu, Yoshikane, hinoura, I've seen all have that edge profile recurve or overgrind. Usuba and takohiki tend to have it more often too

 

[enchappo]

@enchappo

You could ask them to reprofile it and thin it to geometry again. Or do it yourself. Or disclose to them, but do it yourself too. It's a ... Surprisingly common thing on edge profiles. Unshu yukimitsu, Yoshikane, hinoura, I've seen all have that edge profile recurve or overgrind. Usuba and takohiki tend to have it more often too

Thanks. Yeah, I think I will just do myself. I think I just got a bit worried that the overgrind was on the ‘thin’ side and I wouldn’t have enough meat to work with. But definitely I don’t think it crosses the midline, so should be fine

 

[Choppin]

I worked on the 270 Yo Gesshin GingA a bit, the Yo handle version seems to be thicker than Wa, original I was planning on taking this to Jon but his schedule is full atm, can’t match his work but I’m pretty happy with this now
Before
View attachment 285023
After
View attachment 285021
View attachment 285024

looks good! was it hard to thin compared to your other monosteel knives?

 

[blokey]

looks good! was it hard to thin compared to your other monosteel knives?

Its definitely more abrasion resistant than carbons, not hard but clogs stones more often.

 

[blokey]

Bit more work on Togiharu, now it is quite a good knife, the steel is good and hard, just need bit polish one the surface.

 

[labor of love]

Bit more work on Togiharu, now it is quite a good knife, the steel is good and hard, just need bit polish one the surface.
View attachment 285199View attachment 285197

Do these share a lot of likeness to masa HC?

 

[blokey]

Do these share a lot of likeness to masa HC?

I don’t have HC but they do look very similar to me, Korin also carries them

 

[blokey]

Ginga after more thinning, it kind bugs me they still don’t cut as well as I expected, maybe it’s just how thin knives are, they can cut open sweet potato easily but would stick on the way down, whereas a Spåre MCX has no problem at all, is it because the coarse stone finish?

 

[labor of love]

Yeah maybe drag from low grit finish from thinning, if that turns out not to be the case try and make it as asymmetric as possible.
I put an insane bevel on my 180 ginga western petty it almost appears like an honesuki but it helped a lot

 

[Benuser]

Do I see some flattening at the right bevel? Always hard to see on choil pics. I want the right bevel and face to flush, forming a continuous arc without facetting. I usually check with a 2k for any remaining friction. A convexed bevel has the least contact with produce and cause minimal dragging.

 

[kpham12]

Yeah, coarse scratches from thinning are going to cause some drag. Gotta go up to at least 2-3k scratches for test cuts and even then, the first few cuts will still drag a little until it’s “broken in”. Test cut, run under hot water, test cut again, run under hot water again then start judging how it cuts IME.

 

[blokey]

Do I see some flattening at the right bevel? Always hard to see on choil pics. I want the right bevel and face to flush, forming a continuous arc without facetting. I usually check with a 2k for any remaining friction. A convexed bevel has the least contact with produce and cause minimal dragging.

The right side is convex, left is flat. (Assuming the knife is facing down)

 

[Benuser]

The right side is convex, left is flat. (Assuming the knife is facing down)

Sure. I believed though I saw some flattening at the edge. The convexity seemed to stop.

 

[deltaplex]

Ginga after more thinning, it kind bugs me they still don’t cut as well as I expected, maybe it’s just how thin knives are, they can cut open sweet potato easily but would stick on the way down, whereas a Spåre MCX has no problem at all, is it because the coarse stone finish?
View attachment 285335

How close is this to the listed weight on JKIs site (237g)?

 

[blokey]

How close is this to the listed weight on JKIs site (237g)?

242g

 

[blokey]

Sure. I believed though I saw some flattening at the edge. The convexity seemed to stop.

Yeah it’s flatter on the top

 

[labor of love]

242g

Oh you got 5g to shred away haha

 

[deltaplex]

242g

It could simply be a mass thing, a 242g 270 Yo isn't going to have the same forward balance and mass over the front 1/3rd of the blade that your Spåre has, and tall, dense, produce is where that difference in momentum is going to become most apparent

 

[blokey]

I will probably take these 2 to JKI next year to see how to improve them, seems to me there’s just some nuisance in the grind I don’t know about, the JCK Kagayaki original still kind out cut both atm.

 

[labor of love]

Surprised to hear this.

 

[blokey]

Surprised to hear this.

Yeah bit surprise to me too, I’m still trying to figure out why, the cheaper JCK Kagayaki and Dongsun VG10 are really good knife tho, can’t out cut hand made stuff but for me it’s the benchmark for stamped knives.

 

[zizirex]

it's not thin enough I would guess, especially on the middle side. also based on the Spare choil shot (on MCX web) it has a steep taper from the spine to the edge, who knows there's a slight hollow in the face like Yoshikane.

 

[blokey]

it's not thin enough I would guess, especially on the middle side. also based on the Spare choil shot (on MCX web) it has a steep taper from the spine to the edge, who knows there's a slight hollow in the face like Yoshikane.

Might be, I'm aiming for something like Toyama grind, but Toyama dose have distal taper.

 

[zizirex]

Might be, I'm aiming for something like Toyama grind, but Toyama dose have distal taper.

it's hard to recreate similar with less meat on the spine. the weight helps with the cutting performance.
if you make it too thin it will become pretty chippy

 

[refcast]

@blokey

Had a like new gesshin ginga 240 (forget if stainless if not) that was that was oddly thick behind the edge, similar experience and choil shot. Didn't cut well until thinned

I had a Ashi ginga 270 gyuto white 2 that was great however

Also 2 western handle nakiri that cut well

I had a umeji Kiya gyuto that was super sticky and flat ground until I thinned it behind the edge more; maybe that will help. Helped with food release funnily enough, when thin behind the edge with tiny tiny convexing

 

[blokey]

@blokey

Had a like new gesshin ginga 240 (forget if stainless if not) that was that was oddly thick behind the edge, similar experience and choil shot. Didn't cut well until thinned

I had a Ashi ginga 270 gyuto white 2 that was great however

Also 2 western handle nakiri that cut well

I had a umeji Kiya gyuto that was super sticky and flat ground until I thinned it behind the edge more; maybe that will help. Helped with food release funnily enough, when thin behind the edge with tiny tiny convexing

Thanks for the tip! I has a Wa Ginga Nakiri, bought like 2 years ago that was very thin and nice, stainless so I was suspecting that’s the difference between Wa and Yo. I emailed Jon, he said there’s change of stuff of Ashi hamono and the new ones are younger, also sadly Ashi-san’s younger brother passed away, some of the knives has been thicker lately, but still depending on style. Still tho the Ginga cuts better than the Togiharu with more thinning.