Review: Yoake A#1 Migaki Gyuto – Canvas of a Knife

[ModRQC]

Yup... intrigued with these since their inception, often backed down, but Tler had a Migaki BST for a reasonnable price (I mean, try to source a Migaki of these in Canada and you’ll see) and I had some money. Oh and I don’t care who did it, really. The knives it reminded me the most are very unlikely candidates. Intel puts the Yoake as Sakai forged... Who’d have guessed, initially? Not me.

By any definition of the critierions I’ve most always used, this unit here should hit quite a lower score than the last few J-knives – all quite excellently done and the latest two reviewed under the New Formula. So it’ll will be a good test of the parameter changes I introduced with the latter, which were mostly designed to force me to recalibrate any aspect towards my appreciation until truest equlibrium.

With this unit, it took a lot of... shifting all of the flaws and irks around to a score that felt right.

RESELLER/SERIES​	Hatsukokoro Yoake​
TYPE & LENGTH​	Gyuto 210mm​
STEEL & BLADE​	Aogami #1 Iron Clad​
FINISH​	Migaki​
WEIGHT / BALANCE​	248g / -5​
HANDLE MATERIAL​	Ebony/Buffalo Horn​
​	​
TOTAL LENGTH​	375​
BLADE LENGTH​	237​
EDGE LENGTH​	218​
​	​
HEIGHT AT HEEL​	54​
HEIGHT AT MID BLADE​	44​
HEIGHT 35mm TO TIP​	29​
​	​
SPINE THICKNESS​	(7.8mm out of handle)
HEEL​	6.4​
MID BLADE​	2*​
35mm TO TIP​	2.1*​
10mm TO TIP​	1.4*​
​	​
EDGE THICKNESS​	@ 10 / 5 / 1mm over
HEEL +10mm​	1.5 / 0.9 / 0.2*​
MID BLADE​	1 / 0.6 / 0.1​
35mm TO TIP​	0.9 / 0.5 / < 0.1*​
10mm TO TIP​	1.4 / 0.9 / 0.3*​

*I’d like you to look closely at the “unusual” evolution of taper/BTE where so marked...

 

[ModRQC]

GRIP
Handle ... Fit

I’m satisfied with the rough smoothing done to spine and choil. No sharp angle to complain about, and the rough texture feels right for it, the whole thing fitting the idea of that knife. It surely isn’t a stellar example but so far it’s down the middle line where I am concerned.

Most sadly, anything else “fit” is quite missing: the handle on the Yoake is affixed offset three ways, as in not centered with the choil, at a slight oblique with the spine, and the neckline slanting down with a rather gaping machi that is useless there and quite aggravating as it amplifies the bad fit with its unwieldy sharp “corners”. No problem in use - couldn’t manage to even catch a snag in cleaning - so I’m mostly describing what I got here.

The ebony handle, if big, is about perfect, and it has an heavily patterned blonde horn, which gets it to sexy levels. It’s well lacquered but not slippy. Its fortright integrity DOES make its rather careless fit on the blade much more of a shame than it ever ought to be with some stupid Ho saving good bucks.

Balance here a moot point: how it turns out is that even with the heavy ebony you can feel how the blade just settles to its own weight “around” the neck. Any balancing act from there any regular Wa handle shape/material can achieve at best is very modest to the massive chunk of steel there. So I guess the big, heavy handle is only logical while still conceptually fitting... if nowhere close nicely fitted.

What is good enough in this criterion works together splendidly in use while awakening some satisfying Neanderthal instincts. The knife doesn’t feel backwards nor especially neutral, and tip work willingly follows its overall comandeering. It’s a precise, controlled cutting feel to a rugged workhorse feedback.

1.5 /2 +0.5


GRIT
Finish ... Maintenance

Where Finish is concerned, it’s quite alright: lenghtwise Migaki, grits make sense since it’s fine enough for the quality iron cladding there to get a nice stable patina without a fuss, looks good enough and seamlessly linear if not so particularly polished. Still fits the concept, and it is surely down the middle line again, and of itself rather favorable towards easy refinishing.

While we’re discussing it, and on the more positive side of this knife still... Awesome patina.

However, with the quirks of this unit, neither short nor long term Maintenance will be anything close to remotely easy. To speed things up I’ll just discreetly point towards the stuff with asterisks in the Specs Grid... where basically it should be obvious that the tip area presents with a thicker spine than mid blade specs that also goes into thicker BTE specs 10mm before tip than 35mm before tip, the very tip there squarely regressing into the beefier BTE measurements found at Heel + 10mm or worse. Only thing you won’t see in the grid is spine thickness ramping up a sizeable amount to 2.4mm about an inch before tip.

Aaaaaand if you thought that was lumpy and off-putting, how about this disheartening one?

To aggravate things, the left (in my case “non-cutting”) primary bevel of the blade is... just about as flat as an exacto. Not something that will readily show in pics or specs. More bothersome than the tip situation where Maintenance is concerned: if you want to preserve the integrity of the blade, long term BTE geometry convexing is the way. Meanwhile lots of work ahead to grind that tip properly + refinish.

Adding a minor quibble: weirdly angular, small heel upsweep here in fact also delineates the whole heel segment ground much thinner into the choil. Nothing rare with J-knives, cherry on top with this unit being extreme: quite obvious to pick up on both sides in the patina shots above; won’t help one bit with a consistent polish there in refinishing. Then again, most things with this knife are obnoxious like that.

On the super happy side A#1 is fantastic to sharpen: crisp, easy deburring, excellent retention. Feels – and acts – tough as nails. As a quite demanding project knife, that’s the kind of steel that’s worth it.

1 /2 +0.5

 

[ModRQC]

GRIND
... Performance ...

I’ve always said I try to disconnect a knife’s performance from the experience. Therefore the actual review formula is meant to focus my appreciation, and even extra liking, of a knife within the two first category while I discuss what surrounds Performance but shouldn’t define it. Performance is something “dry” that should be assessed as straightforwardly as possible since it is the essence of the tool.

The new Formula accounts that there cannot be a 0 Performance. You’ve seen how it’s like out there: folks will still use a knife in a state of degradation that we consider unusable, but if it’s a knife, required the user is ready to suffer and put out a LOT of efforts, well it is “usable to someone”. A hair dryer would be a 0 Performance knife, because it ain’t one. This, in turn, makes everything else much more obvious:

- 0.5/2 is basically a dud. The very simple definition befitting this category is “not achieving proper separation with a proper edge”. The amount of work required usually begs the question of worth.

- 1/2 therefore represents “achieving proper separation with a proper edge”. It needs some rather substantial work to get to the next level, but where it’s at it’s fairly usable.

- 1.5/2 is where you expect any quality knife to land: “proficient separation to regular maintenance”.

- 2/2 is the only score that thus implies my personal preferences as it requires a leap of faith for the reader to take it at face value. It’s not rare for me to give full scores: once you know and wisely buy into your preferences, it’s what you likely get. Best perceived as “flawless and thrilling/regular maintenance”.

For the Yoake, because of the stuff already pointed out in Grit category, the best intrinsic performance is still impeeded most of the times, and it’s not rare at all that the Yoake is just subpar – yet definitively usable. Being subpar easily defines performance with half the stuff I’ve thrown at it. Yet when used on its pretty generous flat spot/thinnest BTE area, it can truly be proficient, although a lot of sticking, sometimes to the point of wedginess, because of the flattish left face and the fat grind. Very tip performance had me consider a 0.5 score, yet it doesn’t fairly reflect what I got here overall, but still it’s borderline just like that: about 40mm of hardly serviceable tip to 180mm of about proper behavior...

I’ll have used the pics allocation for this post to also bring a comparison into it: my Wakui KU-Nash A#2. It, as well as my former Shi.Han, was often used as comparison points for various workhorse-ish knives, and a few times even pitted one against the other into such comparisons. You’d likely find half a dozen posts about them in the Daily Knife Pics thread, possibly more in comparative reviews I often made.

Why I bring it up here, if not for a sense of continuity with myself and with comparing a particular kind/feel of knives, was quite obvious with the chosen pics: there was NEVER any knife that could just basically dwarf the Wakui that way...

I’m not meaning anything good or anything bad to add to the Performance score, just a pretty telling image of what kind of beast a Yoake is – for better or worse is in the cards for you to see your own hand.

1 /2

COMBINED SCORE: 3 +0.5 /6 +1


Introduction/Explanations for the scoring system:

https://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/...-210mm-forensics-of-a-natural-spotlight.65006 (Full Review)

https://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/...sics-of-a-natural-spotlight.65006/post-994832 (+ next post for clarifications on the New Formula)

 

[ModRQC]

Of course I've already done some work on the Yoake long before I got to publish this. Should post about some of that as soon as I can in guise of "Afterword".

 

[Duukt]

I just checked my Yoake and it has the same bulge over the tip but not as pronounced. Could it be intentional rather than a grinding error?

 

[Vertigo]

Holy heck, way to set the bar for knife reviews!!!

 

[ModRQC]

I just checked my Yoake and it has the same bulge over the tip but not as pronounced. Could it be intentional rather than a grinding error?

With yours probably but I’d like to see.

With mine just no one would want it how it came to me.

Also saw pictures of best Mazaki-like taper and tip. It’s a lottery there I think hence why I finished the review with « your hand is in the cards for you to see »…

 

[ModRQC]

Holy heck, way to set the bar for knife reviews!!!

Depends what « bar » you like to have a beer at.

Around here 20 words and 5 pictures usually does it.

For good reasons probably… most people got a wider experience than what they review. I just don’t work that way. I’ve been reviewing around the same since a noob 4 years ago. My experience now would be a few more than what I reviewed. That is not something you’ll see much.

 

[Duukt]

With yours probably but I’d like to see.

With mine just no one would want it how it came to me.

Also saw pictures of best Mazaki-like taper and tip. It’s a lottery there I think hence why I finished the review with « your hand is in the cards for you to see »…

It's a bit hard to catch on camera but you can feel it widen when pinching the spine and sliding towards the tip.

 

[ModRQC]

It's a bit hard to catch on camera but you can feel it widen when pinching the spine and sliding towards the tip.View attachment 308465

Makes sense man. Barely something to talk about 35mm from tip onwards to it, and you do get a "pointy" tip.

Not saying you don't have some bulge over there somewhere between what we see of your spine shot and what you get of a cutting performance/BTE tip. After all with that kind of a beast knife and weight, you're not about to see outstanding laser tip configuration on these if grinder is any kind of smart. Not talking about a custom maker that "gets you" before getting to work. Talking about Hatsukokoro which clearly tries to establish the name as "pushing the envelope of desirable gathering best work available around for the pricepoint - and a lot of secrecy and unspeakables about that"... for just "the western crowd out there".

But I'd have like to get a Yoake more like yours. That being said, you seem to be only middle ground of all of these.

 

[ModRQC]

And if "just pushing the envelope for the western crowd out there", the Komorebi made MUCH better sense and overall congruence of the stocks we got to see and - many of us - try. This one wins its crowd mostly with A#1 and "larger-than-Mazaki" stance.

 

[ModRQC]

Afterword:

My decision about how to go at it might seem counterintuitive to many:

I used the coarsest most ****** stone in my arsenal and I worked mostly only at the tip there in any direction that felt appropriated as I went to get to where I wanted it to be.

My point being:

This wasn't going to be a one shot deal. A final "refinish" would come in time. I expected two more go at it to get to a nice finish just as much as to refine the whole geometry, as to obtain something that would just mean mostly straightforward maintenance from there. And I wanted to be able to test the knife some after getting a more proper tip, but BEFORE throwing everything at it.

Meanwhile, I wasn't gonna use a good stone like the Nanohone 200 to do that kind of work - basically wasting it for no good reason. After all I had to both thin the spine itself and thin BTE at tip, where for the rest of the blade, there was no real thinning necessary. Which meant a carefully balanced act.

In fact, I wanted the rest of the blade to go MUCH more slower, because I wanted to try and impart as much slight convexing BTE on the flattish left side as I could without starting to eat into the blade width/profile so much.

So that's the Imanishi 140 so called Pink Brick, and what I would call very brutal work. I didn't spend an hour over it before going to the Cerax #320 either. This was a less than 10 minutes job.

I elected these two pictures because, for roughly the same amount of work on both sides, it showed very clearly what I was saying about the left side being way flatter than the right side: difficult to contain the scratches at the tip only. Also not much of any low/high spots there since it's so flat already, whereas a big hollow is clearly identified on the right side.

The spine though, feeling under fingers as I went, was more "rotund" on the left side, so do notice the faceting I created in trying to equalize it with the work done on the right side.

I then went to remove as much of those ugly scratches as I could while starting the left side BTE convexing work on Cerax #320. Finished quickly on Cerax #700 and some sandpad work and etched.

Where I got at is not especially nice to see so far, but the changes were significant when cutting food.

Basically the choil looks about the same, perhaps a tiny weeny bit thinner.

But the tip was entirely different. Nothing crazy thin, just what I felt was "regular" to this knife, and would surely prove eons better cutting food. Which it entirely did. I'm still using it as is as of now, because the edge retention is just excellent, but as soon as it'll dull some, I intend to have another go.

And just doing THAT removed about 2 grams of steel.

Since I'll probably thin the tip some more with the next go and blend the faceting under the spine on the left there, as I start into a nicer polish on it and a final go into convexing BTE on the left side as well, I fully expect another good 1 gram of steel to be removed by the very end of all the work done (including a third go mostly aimed at blending and equalizing all things throughout the blade), but I do not expect a drastic change to the OVERALL geometry. It already works WAY better as it is now, and has been one of my favorites since. When that thing cuts so well, and with a definite improvement already to left side stiction, it is more than properly proficient in use, but we're not entirely there concerning just "regular" maintenance. The second go will be a crucial stage.