spaceconvoy
Senior Member
... with good distal taper.
I'm loving my latest KS-style Doi gyuto, but feeling the semi-annual urge to go fully stainless. The Swedish steel Masamoto would seem like the obvious choice, but I've read it's very disappointing compared to the classic white steel KS. I'm looking for:
- Stainless or semi-stainless, monosteel preferred but sanmai is fine. Doesn't need to be fancy, a basic moly steel would be fine
- 240-250 long, 48-50 tall, give or take a mm or two
- middleweight with a slightly convex grind would be ideal, 170g min, 200g max
- wa handle (obviously) but otherwise unimportant since I'll almost certainly rehandle it
- plain kasumi / migaki finish, no fugly nashiji or kurouchi patterns. Could be damascus if not super expensive
- nice distal taper all the way down the blade, this seems to be the most difficult criteria to find
- smooth continuous curve low profile with no sanjo-style gut, as close to a KS profile as possible. I don't mind if the spine has some forehead and the tip isn't super pointy, as long as the edge profile is good
- ideally under $400 but I can flex for something nice, let's say $600 max
Maybe I'm getting morepicky discerning, but I can't seem to find what I'm looking for. Is the Swedish Masamoto not as bad as I've heard? Maybe I need to bite the bullet and contact Shihan for a custom.
I'm loving my latest KS-style Doi gyuto, but feeling the semi-annual urge to go fully stainless. The Swedish steel Masamoto would seem like the obvious choice, but I've read it's very disappointing compared to the classic white steel KS. I'm looking for:
- Stainless or semi-stainless, monosteel preferred but sanmai is fine. Doesn't need to be fancy, a basic moly steel would be fine
- 240-250 long, 48-50 tall, give or take a mm or two
- middleweight with a slightly convex grind would be ideal, 170g min, 200g max
- wa handle (obviously) but otherwise unimportant since I'll almost certainly rehandle it
- plain kasumi / migaki finish, no fugly nashiji or kurouchi patterns. Could be damascus if not super expensive
- nice distal taper all the way down the blade, this seems to be the most difficult criteria to find
- smooth continuous curve low profile with no sanjo-style gut, as close to a KS profile as possible. I don't mind if the spine has some forehead and the tip isn't super pointy, as long as the edge profile is good
- ideally under $400 but I can flex for something nice, let's say $600 max
Maybe I'm getting more