Perplexed by the performance of a very cheap knife

[nortagem]

Hi all,
I’m a home cook, and recently my 9yo daughter’s asked for a small Japanese kitchen knife for herself so she could also “chop food” like her father.
I chose the Hatsukokoro "Kokugei" Aogami #1 Kurouchi 165mm Santoku, as it is seemed like a really nice beginner’s knife and is very cheap for a blue#1 steel.
The fit & finish was unsurprisingly terrible, and the OOTB edge was practically non-existent.
However, after a few minutes on the stones, I’ve noticed it performs better than my “real” knives.
(I own a 210mm Hado Junpaku White #1, a 240mm Yu Kurosaki Aogami Super kurouchi and a 210mm Shibata Koutetsu R2).
This cheap little knife glides through produce like it’s not even there. I don’t even have to rotate potato pieces to make them shorter - because it doens’t matter. It’s like cutting air, almost.
This, of course, left me very perplexed as to what makes a certain knife perform better than others: This cheap Santoku is not a “laser” not does it seem unique in any way. It also makes me question the price we pay for certain knives.

I wonder if anyone can shed light on this subject: What makes a knife perform this well? Why don’t all knives are built to perform this way?
Why do we pay so much for knives when the main difference seems to be only F&F?

 

[SWF]

I've got a Mikami Santoku, which was rather cheap and is one of the best knife I have. Exceptional food release and heat treatment. But handle was crap and the finish is typically very rough. F&F takes time and many knives are traditionally sold by wholesalers who themselves sell to intl. dealers. This all costs money. So the previously $100 knife costs $400 when you buy it. Easily more if the blacksmith isn't making many knives.

F&F has not that big impact on the cutting quality, it's more overall shape and forging quality of the blade.

Regarding Hatsukokoro. As far as I know this is a company from China that has Japanese blacksmiths under contract and makes the finish by themselves. Kind of a big player in knife business. So the knife you have may well come from an excellent blacksmith, but the F&F has been kept low to reduce production costs. This would explain the surprisingly good quality of your knife.

 

[Jovidah]

There's a gazillion factors that can make a knife more or less expensive. Generally speaking 'time is money', so the more time it takes to make / finish a knife the more expensive it'll be (so any F&F steps that may not impact performance will still impact price). But there's other things to consider:

-Last couple of years demand has for many knifemakers exceeded supply. This tends to drive up price since supply is inelastic.

-How many middlemen are involved? Especially when there's shortages this tends to push up price.

-Desirability of the brand... yes you are often 'paying for the name'. Because the community is willing to do so...

-Is the knife made by an esteemed smith? Or one of his or her apprentices? A lot of knife makers aren't clear about who actually does what, but generally speaking you can expect an apprentice knife to be cheaper while not necessarily being significantly worse.

-Carbon core, iron clad is probably the quickest and easiest knife steel to finish, with shorter knives having the least dropouts due to warps etc. So they get relatively cheaper.

-What you sometimes see with cheaper knives is that there's more knife to knife variance. So you might have gotten lucky and gotten a good one, but potentially others would have a less optimal experience. Although admittedly price doesn't say everything here.

-There's some clear costdowns in your knife. Simple handle (no horn bolster), mediocre edge. These might not be problematic for you but they do clearly impact price. You may not care about F&F steps like rounded spine or choil but that doesn't mean they're irrelevant.

I'm not 100% sure about the background of Hatsukokoro; they showed up a few years ago but were supposedly already a distributor or wholesaler of knives who started to release their own lines contracted to different blacksmiths.

Also, considering how much prices have gone up in the last 5-10 years... yes we are overpaying for most knives.

 

[refcast]

1. If the knife cuts through food with little resistance it's thin behind the edge, despite choil or spine thickness. . . Sometimes choils are just much thicker. You can feel for thinness behind the edge by pinching the blade with you fingers, and moving from shinogi to edge. It can also be thin in the blade road too

2. Not all knives are made very thin behind the edge or through the blade road, or overall. Some knives are thicker . . . Some are flatter geometry. Labor, some people chip knives and like thicker ones. You can examine the geometry of the knives you have to check.

3. Knives that cost more can have more consistent grind, be straighter, etc, nicer in hand feel, might come from a higher cost of labor area etc. Some people like nice things, some people like rougher things and can make do or upgrade on their own. Pre laminated stock is cheaper usually, less forging etc, skipping steps, changing them etc. Not as hard, lower failure rate.

 

[blokey]

lots of cheap Tosa knife cuts quite well, their FF is not usually there tho

 

[ile74]

As in any collectibles, good knife is quite simple thing. It''s just stories and myths raising the price and desirability.

 

[nortagem]

Thanks for the comments, all. I guess this issue wouldn't bother me so much had this cheap knife performed just as well as my higher-end knives.
It easily outperforms them.
Let's take for example my Hado white #1 - it's a great knife, made by reputable craftsmen, with impeccable F&F. Lots of work and care had been put into making it.
It performs great, but when it comes to taller poduce which offers some resistance (e.g potatoes), there is some wedging.
Or the Kotetsu - it is a laser, and and such glides through food. But the "stiction" is there, particularly when it comes to starchy vegetables.
So it seems like the blade geometry of the cheap Hatsukokoro, made by anonymous craftsmen and looks as if it were "rushed", is much better suited for the home cook (who knows how to care for delicate blades). It performs like a laser without the stiction.
In my mind, most higher-end knives should perform this way.
I just wonder why that is not the case.

 

[refcast]

Oh yeah specifically I can totally answer this better

There's a special grind on some cheaper kurouchi knives where it's very very thin behind the edge, concave blade road, then at the shinogi it's concave blade face. So when food hits the shinogi it violently pops off -- very little stiction when cutting. I've had many cheaper kurouchi knives like this, and some expensive ones.

Not my favorite grind in the world but very excellent

 

[blokey]

Funnily the rough forged geometry might be why, I tried some really thin high end cleavers but they offered more resistance than CCK 1302, they are as thin and similar geometry, turns out their surface are too perfectly smooth that they caused more suction whereas CCK1302 is rough af with all the highs and lows there’s nothing to cling to… If you are interested Kyohei Shindo offers something similar for very little money. This is kind the reason that turn me off high end lasers, there’s only so many things you can play with geometry on a 2mm blade

 

[blokey]

Also obligatory KnifeJapan.com

 

[HumbleHomeCook]

Welcome to my playground:

https://knifejapan.com/

 

[KasumiJLA]

I have a good example here. I ordered a custom knife from a beginner blacksmith because I like the look of his creations and I obviously wanted to encourage him in addition to trying an S grind. When I received the knife, phew, it wasn't pleasant at all. It was so thick behind the edge that my axe had better performance than the knife..

Obviously I didn't pay a super high price for this blade and I had to put in the time on my part to thin the blade and bring everything back to my liking. I also constructively shared with him the things he would need to fix to make his knives nice to use. And it's ok, everyone have to learn and it's part of the process!

But now it's wayyyyy much better and cut like a charm. It outperform some of the high end knives I tried. But yeah.. I had to put a lot of elbow grease on it

 

[Transmaster]

The key is knowing how to sharpen a knife. I was taught how to sharpen knives by my German Butcher uncles, and my outfitter/game guide Grandfather. For years I used Norton carborundum stones. I graduated to soaking whetstones. They didn't work as well as the old Norton's. It is here I learned here that not all whetstones are created equal. I purchased a set of Shaptons which have made all of the difference.

 

[SharpestToolintheShed]

We don't buy expensive knives for the "better performance," we buy them because it's fun.

 

[pitted_soul]

Yes, two of my more expensive knives were total let downs, but I've learned some things. Polished knives like to stick to things, we're talking mirror polished. I've had more stiction with those than anything. They were my most beautiful too. Very frustrating.

I have been underwhelmed with Y. Tanaka's stuff overall. His forging is gorgeous but I haven't found one yet that is an elite cutter. I had the Junpaku too. I have not had the Kyuzo variant yet, that has been elusive to me. I got a Damascus clad Blue 1 that was thinned and polished by Maxim over at JNS and it even isn't any better of a cutter than the Junpaku. Maybe some of his other Hado lines could be more promising too.

I like Shindo's work too, well done where it counts. And knifejapan.com is an absolute treasure in many ways. Okubo is a popular hamono that makes rustic, high-performing knives. I recently got an Otsuka Bannou that is just the most awesome thing ever imo. Rustic, cool, very well executed and well priced to boot.

 

[myguidingmoonlight]

Yes, two of my more expensive knives were total let downs, but I've learned some things. Polished knives like to stick to things, we're talking mirror polished. I've had more stiction with those than anything. They were my most beautiful too. Very frustrating.

I have been underwhelmed with Y. Tanaka's stuff overall. His forging is gorgeous but I haven't found one yet that is an elite cutter. I had the Junpaku too. I have not had the Kyuzo variant yet, that has been elusive to me. I got a Damascus clad Blue 1 that was thinned and polished by Maxim over at JNS and it even isn't any better of a cutter than the Junpaku. Maybe some of his other Hado lines could be more promising too.

I like Shindo's work too, well done where it counts. And knifejapan.com is an absolute treasure in many ways. Okubo is a popular hamono that makes rustic, high-performing knives. I recently got an Otsuka Bannou that is just the most awesome thing ever imo. Rustic, cool, very well executed and well priced to boot.

I've tried many knives with a reputation for awesome grinds and I find the cutting performance of many of them are totally gimped by the conservative sharpening bevels they come with. One of them was a Tanaka Kyuzo too.

 

[pitted_soul]

I've tried many knives with a reputation for awesome grinds and I find the cutting performance of many of them are totally gimped by the conservative sharpening bevels they come with. One of them was a Tanaka Kyuzo too.

This has piqued my interest considerably. Where do you set the angle? And is that what angle you always sharpen to?