345mm Shigefusa yanigiba. First time I've seen one these at that length.
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Robert Lavacca
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Nice one man! Those guys are doing an excellent job with those kemadi.
RockyBasel
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RockyBasel
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OMG that is the rarest of unicorns. Congrats,
Takada No Hamono – HH Reika White #2 Gyuto 210mm
350 / 210 / 198 … 46 / 37 / 24 … 2.9 / 2.1 / 1.7 / 1.1 … +5 … 150g … ***
Long (Total/Blade/Edge)… High (Heel/Half/Tip -35)… Thick (Heel/Half/Tip -35/Tip -10)…
Balance (Chin = 0)… Weight… Cutting OOTB ( * Poor ** Avg *** Good **** Great)
Forged by Yoshikazu Tanaka, ground by Mitsuaki Takada who started Takada No Hamono in 2018 after working with Ashi Hamono since 2004. The Reika is a somewhat “limited” series of Takada, distinguished by the finish which the name stands for. Reika is a Japanese girl’s name, and I guess from the various kanjis the one applying best here would be “flower/petal”. I think HH could stand for Hitohira who seems to distribute these knives, but obviously could be dead wrong and couldn’t find any more info.
This unit is one of the cheapest price I’ve seen on a Y. Tanaka blade, yet not the most basic finish you can get on them (see Migaki finishes of either Hitohira or Sakai Kikumori), so I thought the price was quite right. There was however a couple of mild disturbances coming with this knife, but it will hardly show in the final score since it’s either minor or not imputable to the bladesmith or maker.
FIT & FINISH: 5.5/6
Handle: 1.5/2
Aesthetics, Ergonomics
My box says Ho wood handle, but like the pictures from my vendor, and also on Hitohira, this one came in with a Rosewood/pakka handle, and it is a beauty. Quite common admittedly, and it can’t pretend to a perfect score aesthetically, but it is amazingly well sculpted, tapered, finished, and pampered.
For ergonomics I’m pretty cool with this knife: handle is just big enough, comfortable enough, forgettable enough – just the way I find most octagonals to be. I’m one for a bit more space at the neck, but it’s not like there’s not enough here. Balance could ideally be further forward a bit, but then again this is a minute preference of no real importance.
Blade: 2/2
Choil, Spine
A blade perfectly forged and cut to shape as one would expect… and what would one expect here but a perfectly rounded choil and rounded spine? Delivered in spades, to the extent of having this very elegant and polished “overgrind” on the right side that just makes the whole thing majestic and highly comfortable. Spine is of even more perfect rounding than my Matsubara Gyuto, which to date was the best I’ve seen on this point – but nowhere near as comfortable where the choil was concerned.
By the way, if not rounded as beautifully, choil from the left cutting side is comfortable too, probably still better than many. We’ll see the grind is as symmetrical as I can hope a “symmetrical” J-knife can be.
Finish: 2/2
Aesthetics, Maintenance
Here we encounter one of the aforementioned disturbances – the less relevant. OOTB the knife came with a lacquer that looks ugly and is nowhere easy to remove. Upon cleaning the knife with acetone, I found it had a behavior like gummy glue clinging from an old sticker – it went all white, draggy, would mesh a paper towel (even as the acetone worked in) and would not move much. In the end, I removed most of the substance with wet #3000 sanding pad, washed, dried, oiled, and used the #3000 pad again with the remnants of oil to form mud and polish the job. I guess one could be more patient than I was and avoid any “abrasive” – don’t expect it to be pleasant.
According to my vendor, who doesn’t indicate it on his website, the cladding is “soft steel, the exact formula kept secret”. Yeah… According to Hitohira’s website, it is soft iron cladding. Funnily enough, I tried three White with iron clad so far, and none of the other two (Mazaki and Ittetsu) behaved like this one. Truly, cladding here behaves like my Misono Swedish or Masahiro VC would patina – as a monosteel carbon of relatively pure kind. This brings me to a last claim: at Knifewear where they sell the Sakai Kikumori Tanaka, I was told that in fact it was soft carbon cladding that was used… One thing for sure is that this isn’t stainless cladding, but iron or carbon I like that it patinas close to a monosteel – much better than the usual “keen to brown” iron. Reactivity was also somewhat quite tamed for White #2 – it’s the first time I get one that is presumably heat treated with greater expertise, so perhaps it helps.
Left picture shows lacquer OOTB, center picture took after I polished the blade with #3000, right picture after one use.
The finish is exquisite, the grinding marks are very fine and even, with a somewhat shimmering aspect; the “Reika” finish is stunning, with darker patterns and some “scratches” around some elements that make the whole thing look natural and “moving”. My interpretation is flowers and leaves (petals?) caught in the wind as a light but steady rain starts to fall… and we’re getting quite far away from the usual appreciation for a finish here, and passing the threshold to what I’d described more as appreciation for visual art.
As for maintenance I intend to treat this one like I did the Misono – stay careful but let it go all-natural patina from use. We’ll see from there… Washing it after a first extended prep was a breeze, as the Reika pattern doesn’t go deep and no particular attention is needed there. I rinsed/wiped it once in between veggies and slicing pancetta, but that was more a matter of habits, not even necessary where all ended in the same pan.
Cladding is also something to behold; I'm hoping the following, combined with the middle picture of the montage above, will show how seamless, elegant, subtle and beautiful the clad line looks as the core reveals itself. It is a shy clad line, and lighting at my new place is the worst thing; coupled with a rainy week I could never seem to obtain on picture what I saw firsthand with this knife.
EXPERIENCE: 4/4
Box: 1/1
Aesthetics vs. Safeguarding
Neat box, beautiful inside presentation, nice carton sheath branded with Takada No Hamono, friction fit very tight, and I liked that the knife was snug inside with no perceivable movement when shaking.
Performance: 3/3
Profile, Geometry, Grind
Here we find my second difficulty, and it doesn’t even involve neither the maker nor the smith I believe, but the vendor would be my guess: he had only one of these, and he took pictures with it. Admittedly it could have came to him as is and he didn’t see, or decided not to see… Whatever what, it came in with a broken tip – a tiny bit of steel really – that will probably but only require a couple of careful swipes on the side of my NP800 to be repaired or so. That will wait 1st sharpening, and I’m not losing any sleep over it.
Tanaka's profile, relatively speaking, is new to me, quite elegant but also quite natural to work with, and I found tip work to be elevated by the very gentle curve and spear head. On the heel the flat area seems limited, but most of the belly is so gently curved and smoothly continuous with the heel in use that I didn’t need to pay particular attention not to accordion in push cutting. This particular configuration doesn’t make for a splendid rock chopper for sure, but it can be used effectively with some leverage, enough for what little I need of it at this length. And that spine shot… I can promise it is not faux-taper, and it is not misleading either. I was actually surprised how different the response is from heel to mid to tip, which is somehow the case for many knives, but then again the level of perception – and possible refinements of where to cut what as one gets accustomed – is what feels different here.
Geometry is a paragon of convexity in a knife, which applies too forward the blade with beautiful tapering. I would have liked it to be thinned higher over the edge because I’m afraid to undertake such a thinning job on this knife myself, but OOTB the edge is just thin enough behind, with perhaps one free sharpening in bank before minor thinning becomes a necessity – and I hope I can stage this up as I go even if at one point not so far away a good deal of thinning seems unavoidable. Meanwhile I intend to maintain that edge, and that free sharpening, as long as possible, because that knife is one amazingly good cutter just about perfect how it is now – and because it seems I can only degrade such work when I’ll come around it. But I’ll give it an even better edge though, that is within my reach alright. The OOTB edge still beats that of my Ittetsu that had impressed me (Abe-san), but only because it was even further refined, and that combined with a perfect geometry for an incredible first experience in use.
Grind, once again is spectacular; to achieve such convexity at such a level of seamless precision and transition from heel to tip just seems incredible to me. It shows a great deal of skills, experience and care on the grinding wheel I had yet to see until now. Pictures do a poor work of showing just how nice the grinding looks under varying lights - for this knife is not finished "just enough to look nice", it's precision work carried past the functional aspect, past the importance of consistency, until it looked beautiful too.
Overall Score: 9.5/10
Be well folks!
350 / 210 / 198 … 46 / 37 / 24 … 2.9 / 2.1 / 1.7 / 1.1 … +5 … 150g … ***
Long (Total/Blade/Edge)… High (Heel/Half/Tip -35)… Thick (Heel/Half/Tip -35/Tip -10)…
Balance (Chin = 0)… Weight… Cutting OOTB ( * Poor ** Avg *** Good **** Great)
Forged by Yoshikazu Tanaka, ground by Mitsuaki Takada who started Takada No Hamono in 2018 after working with Ashi Hamono since 2004. The Reika is a somewhat “limited” series of Takada, distinguished by the finish which the name stands for. Reika is a Japanese girl’s name, and I guess from the various kanjis the one applying best here would be “flower/petal”. I think HH could stand for Hitohira who seems to distribute these knives, but obviously could be dead wrong and couldn’t find any more info.
This unit is one of the cheapest price I’ve seen on a Y. Tanaka blade, yet not the most basic finish you can get on them (see Migaki finishes of either Hitohira or Sakai Kikumori), so I thought the price was quite right. There was however a couple of mild disturbances coming with this knife, but it will hardly show in the final score since it’s either minor or not imputable to the bladesmith or maker.
FIT & FINISH: 5.5/6
Handle: 1.5/2
Aesthetics, Ergonomics
My box says Ho wood handle, but like the pictures from my vendor, and also on Hitohira, this one came in with a Rosewood/pakka handle, and it is a beauty. Quite common admittedly, and it can’t pretend to a perfect score aesthetically, but it is amazingly well sculpted, tapered, finished, and pampered.
For ergonomics I’m pretty cool with this knife: handle is just big enough, comfortable enough, forgettable enough – just the way I find most octagonals to be. I’m one for a bit more space at the neck, but it’s not like there’s not enough here. Balance could ideally be further forward a bit, but then again this is a minute preference of no real importance.
Blade: 2/2
Choil, Spine
A blade perfectly forged and cut to shape as one would expect… and what would one expect here but a perfectly rounded choil and rounded spine? Delivered in spades, to the extent of having this very elegant and polished “overgrind” on the right side that just makes the whole thing majestic and highly comfortable. Spine is of even more perfect rounding than my Matsubara Gyuto, which to date was the best I’ve seen on this point – but nowhere near as comfortable where the choil was concerned.
By the way, if not rounded as beautifully, choil from the left cutting side is comfortable too, probably still better than many. We’ll see the grind is as symmetrical as I can hope a “symmetrical” J-knife can be.
Finish: 2/2
Aesthetics, Maintenance
Here we encounter one of the aforementioned disturbances – the less relevant. OOTB the knife came with a lacquer that looks ugly and is nowhere easy to remove. Upon cleaning the knife with acetone, I found it had a behavior like gummy glue clinging from an old sticker – it went all white, draggy, would mesh a paper towel (even as the acetone worked in) and would not move much. In the end, I removed most of the substance with wet #3000 sanding pad, washed, dried, oiled, and used the #3000 pad again with the remnants of oil to form mud and polish the job. I guess one could be more patient than I was and avoid any “abrasive” – don’t expect it to be pleasant.
According to my vendor, who doesn’t indicate it on his website, the cladding is “soft steel, the exact formula kept secret”. Yeah… According to Hitohira’s website, it is soft iron cladding. Funnily enough, I tried three White with iron clad so far, and none of the other two (Mazaki and Ittetsu) behaved like this one. Truly, cladding here behaves like my Misono Swedish or Masahiro VC would patina – as a monosteel carbon of relatively pure kind. This brings me to a last claim: at Knifewear where they sell the Sakai Kikumori Tanaka, I was told that in fact it was soft carbon cladding that was used… One thing for sure is that this isn’t stainless cladding, but iron or carbon I like that it patinas close to a monosteel – much better than the usual “keen to brown” iron. Reactivity was also somewhat quite tamed for White #2 – it’s the first time I get one that is presumably heat treated with greater expertise, so perhaps it helps.
Left picture shows lacquer OOTB, center picture took after I polished the blade with #3000, right picture after one use.
The finish is exquisite, the grinding marks are very fine and even, with a somewhat shimmering aspect; the “Reika” finish is stunning, with darker patterns and some “scratches” around some elements that make the whole thing look natural and “moving”. My interpretation is flowers and leaves (petals?) caught in the wind as a light but steady rain starts to fall… and we’re getting quite far away from the usual appreciation for a finish here, and passing the threshold to what I’d described more as appreciation for visual art.
As for maintenance I intend to treat this one like I did the Misono – stay careful but let it go all-natural patina from use. We’ll see from there… Washing it after a first extended prep was a breeze, as the Reika pattern doesn’t go deep and no particular attention is needed there. I rinsed/wiped it once in between veggies and slicing pancetta, but that was more a matter of habits, not even necessary where all ended in the same pan.
Cladding is also something to behold; I'm hoping the following, combined with the middle picture of the montage above, will show how seamless, elegant, subtle and beautiful the clad line looks as the core reveals itself. It is a shy clad line, and lighting at my new place is the worst thing; coupled with a rainy week I could never seem to obtain on picture what I saw firsthand with this knife.
EXPERIENCE: 4/4
Box: 1/1
Aesthetics vs. Safeguarding
Neat box, beautiful inside presentation, nice carton sheath branded with Takada No Hamono, friction fit very tight, and I liked that the knife was snug inside with no perceivable movement when shaking.
Performance: 3/3
Profile, Geometry, Grind
Here we find my second difficulty, and it doesn’t even involve neither the maker nor the smith I believe, but the vendor would be my guess: he had only one of these, and he took pictures with it. Admittedly it could have came to him as is and he didn’t see, or decided not to see… Whatever what, it came in with a broken tip – a tiny bit of steel really – that will probably but only require a couple of careful swipes on the side of my NP800 to be repaired or so. That will wait 1st sharpening, and I’m not losing any sleep over it.
Tanaka's profile, relatively speaking, is new to me, quite elegant but also quite natural to work with, and I found tip work to be elevated by the very gentle curve and spear head. On the heel the flat area seems limited, but most of the belly is so gently curved and smoothly continuous with the heel in use that I didn’t need to pay particular attention not to accordion in push cutting. This particular configuration doesn’t make for a splendid rock chopper for sure, but it can be used effectively with some leverage, enough for what little I need of it at this length. And that spine shot… I can promise it is not faux-taper, and it is not misleading either. I was actually surprised how different the response is from heel to mid to tip, which is somehow the case for many knives, but then again the level of perception – and possible refinements of where to cut what as one gets accustomed – is what feels different here.
Geometry is a paragon of convexity in a knife, which applies too forward the blade with beautiful tapering. I would have liked it to be thinned higher over the edge because I’m afraid to undertake such a thinning job on this knife myself, but OOTB the edge is just thin enough behind, with perhaps one free sharpening in bank before minor thinning becomes a necessity – and I hope I can stage this up as I go even if at one point not so far away a good deal of thinning seems unavoidable. Meanwhile I intend to maintain that edge, and that free sharpening, as long as possible, because that knife is one amazingly good cutter just about perfect how it is now – and because it seems I can only degrade such work when I’ll come around it. But I’ll give it an even better edge though, that is within my reach alright. The OOTB edge still beats that of my Ittetsu that had impressed me (Abe-san), but only because it was even further refined, and that combined with a perfect geometry for an incredible first experience in use.
Grind, once again is spectacular; to achieve such convexity at such a level of seamless precision and transition from heel to tip just seems incredible to me. It shows a great deal of skills, experience and care on the grinding wheel I had yet to see until now. Pictures do a poor work of showing just how nice the grinding looks under varying lights - for this knife is not finished "just enough to look nice", it's precision work carried past the functional aspect, past the importance of consistency, until it looked beautiful too.
Overall Score: 9.5/10
Be well folks!
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Kippington
A small green parrot
That's one killer of a write-up right there.
Two things that cross my mind - The belly flattens out towards the tip, and the handle looks a bit thinner than usual. Add to that the lower heel height than most, maybe this was made with smaller people in mind?
I've had a similar handle on another knife before and strongly disliked it. More to do with the craftmanship rather than the materials.
Two things that cross my mind - The belly flattens out towards the tip, and the handle looks a bit thinner than usual. Add to that the lower heel height than most, maybe this was made with smaller people in mind?
I've had a similar handle on another knife before and strongly disliked it. More to do with the craftmanship rather than the materials.
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Wouldn’t know but I’m 6’1 and feel at home. Perhaps you thought it was a 240mm?
Kippington
A small green parrot
Nah, you made it clear it's a 210mm. It's just an observation, I'm not saying that only smaller people can use it comfortably lol
Idk, I may be only 5’10’’, but 46mm can be fine for a 210 depending on the neck, and seems relatively common. It’s like the 49/50mm 240 of the 210 world, no? This is a Gesshin Uraku - it’s even a real 210, not a 198. The neck on the Takada looks fatter, though.
Kippington
A small green parrot
They were just observations lol.
It's like how the belly flattens out towards the tip - Not saying its a bad thing, but an outlier nonetheless.
It's like how the belly flattens out towards the tip - Not saying its a bad thing, but an outlier nonetheless.
When you become a forum god, every statement you make is scrutinized. It’s like the oft-debated passage in the Bible: why did God ask Abraham to sacrifice his son? See here for a discussion.
Kippington
A small green parrot
Interesting, I was just reading up about that alleged location last night. Divine intervention, perhaps?
"The Foundation Stone the temple was built over bears great significance in the Abrahamic religions as the place where God created the world and the first human, Adam.[4] It is also believed to be the site where Abraham attempted to sacrifice his son, and as the place where God's divine presence is manifested more than in any other place, towards which Jews turn during prayer" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dome_of_the_Rock
I am not a religious person, but I find the history fascinating.
I don’t see where the big surprise is concerning profile, this is pretty much standard Tanaka/Konosuke FM profile and it’s first time I hear about the short people aspect so I find it intriguing. Handle is pretty much standard octogonal bulk - then again, run of the mill handles is all I’ve seen. 46mm is certainly pretty regular too. Quite confused... not that it changes anything in the end.
This isn't a kitchen knife, but it has relevance to a top notch maker. This is one of five knives Michael Rader turned into the judging panel for his mastersmith rating. Pretty cool part of knife history, plus he is my favorite maker. I don't have any knives like this, not my thing usually.
Kippington
A small green parrot
A "big surprise" was definitely not my intent.
Are you talking about this shape, in terms of a standard Tanaka/Konosuke FM profile? Because it looks a little different to me.
https://bernal-cutlery.shoplightspeed.com/sakai-konosuke-fujiyama-fm-210-gyuto-shirogami-2-g.html
https://www.aiandomknives.com/colle...wood-black-horn-handle?variant=15479568236653
https://www.aiandomknives.com/produ...sugi-cedar-handle?_pos=1&_sid=bba64bdf0&_ss=r
These were the ones I had in mind. Also on CKTG video when he shows the profile I had remarked that the Tanaka, and to some extent Konosuke HD even, had a tendency towards short heel flat but very progressive belly.
The link you provided indeed looks mighty different to me though.
https://www.aiandomknives.com/produ...sugi-cedar-handle?_pos=1&_sid=bba64bdf0&_ss=r
These were the ones I had in mind. Also on CKTG video when he shows the profile I had remarked that the Tanaka, and to some extent Konosuke HD even, had a tendency towards short heel flat but very progressive belly.
The link you provided indeed looks mighty different to me though.
The FM in White 2 from Bernal has a slightly longer flat at the heel than the HD2 (at least in a 210). I'm away on vacation and didn't bring my HD2, otherwise I'd do a comparison photo.
Kippington
A small green parrot
So using your link (using a picture from the 210mm to line up better with the length of yours), this small difference is all I was talking about when I said:
"The belly flattens out towards the tip..."
I'll stress again, it was just a small observation. It's not something that I pointed out to you as an error or defect. For example, the Misono Dragon flattens out even more...
juice
Doesn't even buy knives
I think Jules is saying it's not the 11th commandment, forum demi-god status or not.
Barclid
Banned
Bought from Home Butcher. Knife is 50mm at heel, 128g without handle. 243 ish mm cutting edge.
Sounds interesting, what is it?
Can’t remember if I posted my last one... so I’ll post my latest two
mizuno DX was bought in July and I just got a Fu Rin Ka Zan AS Damascus the other day.
mizuno DX was bought in July and I just got a Fu Rin Ka Zan AS Damascus the other day.
Michi
I dislike attempts to rewrite history
Something a little out of the ordinary for this forum. I'm quite fond of that little knife. Great for all sorts of peeling jobs, topping strawberries, cutting the stem out of mushrooms, and similar. I was surprised at how sharp it came out of the box—seriously sharp, as a matter of fact.
@ModRQC What a writeup, thank you putting time for that. I think I should stop posting here after that kind of review.
Surely not, that’s just pictures, what I do, and there are nicer ones for sure around here.
So using your link (using a picture from the 210mm to line up better with the length of yours), this small difference is all I was talking about when I said:
"The belly flattens out towards the tip..."
I'll stress again, it was just a small observation. It's not something that I pointed out to you as an error or defect. For example, the Misono Dragon flattens out even more...
Not at all, I’m glad you take the time to point this out. Those minute differences I don’t see so well from where I stand, it doesn’t come as obvious as it surely does for you. This is making me think, and for sure will become very interesting to me as I’ll soon get to try another knife that in many ways is the antithesis of this one here. Interesting you made a comparison with Misono, I had one of these for a good while (the 210mm mind you) so it’s giving me reference I know of to look at this from your PoV.
That would have been nice! Have a good time on your vacation!
Carl Kotte
Senior Member
Carl Kotte
Senior Member
There is some photos in my comparison thread, but I need to do a better side by side profile shot. A quick Kono comarpison - 210 FM W#2 vs 210 HD2
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