Thoughts on Sukenari SG2 Gyuto
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One more vote for Sukenari. I love their Hap40 and expect their R2 is also excellent. They are not the thinnest knives out there, but my 240 gyuto goes through big apples and carrots without cracking. It is a great do-everything kind of knife, and the steel takes a wicked, angry edge. Diamond stones help alot.
There are various theories about the angle for stropping. I try to match the edge angle, but I don't measure sharpening angles. You can feel when the stropping medium "bites" the edge, especially if using an abrasive compound.
My main point is that if your stropping medium has some give (is flexible or compressible), the actual angle that your edge makes with the stropping medium depends on how firmly you push the blade down into the stropping medium. If you are using, say 'roo leather, how do you know that your 11° hasn't been transformed into 16° by the downwards pressure that you apply?
naptight
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Well you don't know, but if you're not applying any pressure, just dragging the weight of the blade then hopefully you're not increasing the bevel angle.
Duukt
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Yeah I've just been dragging it over the strop relying on the blade weight as well to try and minimize the leather movement to avoid the angle change. Additionally I stopped using the belt strop and have been relying on a wood-backed strop and just do multiple passes per side before switching. It feels like the rapid switching of sides makes me likely to accidentally slice the leather instead.
On a paper test I feel a more "silent" cut after stropping for a while but on actual vegetables, I can't tell the difference TBH.
On a paper test I feel a more "silent" cut after stropping for a while but on actual vegetables, I can't tell the difference TBH.
naptight
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Why do you strop with the edge leading? I've always done edge trailing when using the lapping films as to not slice it.
Duukt
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No no! I meant how you see people stropping usually is to strop one side, edge trailing, then they flip the knife and strop in the other direction, then flip back again and so on. I just don't have the dexterity to flip without the edge hitting the leather so I gave up on that and just do 5-10 on one side, then flip it over for 5-10 on the other.
naptight
Well-Known Member
naptight
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So I got the knife. Is quite cool to you hold something like this in my hand. Obviously it's a huge upgrade from my Victorinox. But I'm wondering how big of a deal/acceptable is this misalignment of the handle. It was inserted I'd guess 5 to 10° off axis and is not, for lack of a better word, concentric. There's a not-great amount of epoxy and unevenness around the handle insertion. The choil and spine are also completely unrounded.
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The choil and spine look polished and pretty normal to me. Lots of times retailers install the handles. Could try shooting them a message and ask for a replacement, or reinstall the handle yourself with hot glue
Another thumbs up for Sukenari.
They have a long history of working directly with pro chefs. Their knives have a great balance of performance, durability and the variety tasks that they can perform. I think the Goldilocks reference makes sense.
They have a long history of working directly with pro chefs. Their knives have a great balance of performance, durability and the variety tasks that they can perform. I think the Goldilocks reference makes sense.
naptight
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Thanks for the reply. Right, it's not rough. There's just almost no bevel. It's maybe 0.005 in. I wouldn't call it polished necessarily, it's more like well sanded to a nice satin finish. I would assume, in general, there's a tier of knives that come with very rounded and polished spines and choils. Also I know that some people prefer less bevel. What would you typically expect in the $300-$400 240mm gyuto tier?
I've been using it, so I would just suspect I can't get an exchange. From a functional standpoint I don't think the handle misalignment will affect anything. The issue is obviously the way the tang mortise was cut in handle. So, reinstalling probably wouldn't do any good. Also, I would think the handle would get damaged from soaking to soften the glue? Do people remove and reuse handles like that?
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Call the vendor about the handle install. It looks faulty to me. They may have suggestions to fix it yourself.
How amenable the handle is to removal will depend primarily on how it was fixed in place. If epoxy was used you may have a hard time removing it without destroying the handle. Beeswax or hot melt glue should be easier. Maybe ask MTC how it was installed?
Check @pkjames from KnS explaining how he removes handles:
And FWIW, how he installs a hardwood handle:
Jules used Sukenari in his videos, that’s good enough for me
Anything from perfect Sakai level of fit and finish to TF tier, really depends on the maker
Apologies, I missed this Qn when you first posted it.
Opinions about optimal grit for kitchen knife use varies quite a bit (from say 400 ish to 5K ish). I usually sharpen on a Naniwa Chosera 3K as my finest stone. This probably has a circa 4K JIS grit. Sometimes on a BBW (Belgian Blue Whetstone), which I guess gives an edge in the 5 ish K range. Your SG2K will be a perfectly adequate finishing stone.
For coarse grained knives like Western Stainless, I sharpen on Chosera 400 then deburr on Chosera 1K.
This is all to say that the benefit you get from using a fine stone (if any) probably depends on many factors, including sharpening technique, skill, steel, etc.
The three use cases for a very fine stone (8K to 12K or more) that I can think of are:
1) Thin slices of delicate food (basically for sushi knives).
2) For shaving.
3) For showing off (HHT, etc).
I'll repeat the often given advice that I wish I had taken when learning sharpening:
Don't use a fine stone until you can confidently create a very sharp, well deburred edge on a medium stone. A fine stone will not make an ordinary medium edge any sharper and may easily dull it.
That amount of cant between handle and knife would likely bug me and I'm not overly picky. It looks pretty pronounced. But @JoBone there runs Sugi Cutlery and is an amazing handle maker. He's already posted here in your thread so he has some familiarity. Check out his website and maybe give him a shout.
naptight
Well-Known Member
Interesting, quite the variation. I guess that's hand made goods for ya. Ty.
I love this forum! You are so helpful and giving of your time and knowledge. Thank you!
Duly noted.
It's nice that I can save money on stones to spend on knives for now haha. I instructed to take it easy on the stropping too. 
Thanks for your perspective. If I do rehandle I can round over things without it in the way. I checked out @JoBone's videos. He's awesome! Looks like a really cool shop.
naptight
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Thanks I'll see what they say. I like to take things apart. So would be a nice thing to learn.
naptight
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I should have been saying fillet here, not bevel.
naptight
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MTC kitchen immediately offered a replacement after I sent them photos of the misaligned blade. No issues with it being used. So that's great!
naptight
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Since I'm getting a replacement and you've all been so helpful, I'm wondering if there's another knife you might prefer. They have in stock both the sukanari ZDP-189 and sukanari HAP40 gyotos. It seems that HAP40 might be slightly more popular than SG2?
They also have the flashy senkou. I didn't consider food release a high priority, but using the sukenari, I had to wipe food off the blade a lot. I know these are roll forged, does anyone know if the sukanari is hand forged? Kurosaki SG2 Senkou Ei Hammered Gyuto 240mm (9.4")
There's also a stainless clad high carbon option. I'm definitely wanting to get some traditional steel knives, but I'm still worried about reactivity on my most expensive knife. I just got a cheap 52100 petty and a KF1302 cleaver, that already need to have rust sanded off.
https://mtckitchen.com/yoshimi-kato-aogami-super-kurouchi-gyuto-240mm-9-4/
What do you think?
They also have the flashy senkou. I didn't consider food release a high priority, but using the sukenari, I had to wipe food off the blade a lot. I know these are roll forged, does anyone know if the sukanari is hand forged? Kurosaki SG2 Senkou Ei Hammered Gyuto 240mm (9.4")
There's also a stainless clad high carbon option. I'm definitely wanting to get some traditional steel knives, but I'm still worried about reactivity on my most expensive knife. I just got a cheap 52100 petty and a KF1302 cleaver, that already need to have rust sanded off.
https://mtckitchen.com/yoshimi-kato-aogami-super-kurouchi-gyuto-240mm-9-4/
What do you think?
I have had Sukenari gyutos in R2, ZDP, and HAP40. They're all excellent and you should just pick whichever speaks to you. For a novice sharpener, I think R2 and HAP40 maybe have a slight advantage, but they all have great edge retention and shouldn't require more than the periodic touch up under normal home use.
There's some stiction with all of them, hairline and damascus, but the knives are nicely thin behind the edge and have a good convex grind that responds very well to skillful cutting.
I wouldn't be afraid of stainless clad carbon. My wife isn't a knife person, but her favorite house knives are stainless clad aogami 2.
I would much rather have a Sukenari than the Y Kato. It's a tossup with the Kurosaki, but I much prefer the unassuming aesthetic of Sukenari to the flash of the Kuroskai (though he does make some knives I find beautiful).
There's some stiction with all of them, hairline and damascus, but the knives are nicely thin behind the edge and have a good convex grind that responds very well to skillful cutting.
I wouldn't be afraid of stainless clad carbon. My wife isn't a knife person, but her favorite house knives are stainless clad aogami 2.
I would much rather have a Sukenari than the Y Kato. It's a tossup with the Kurosaki, but I much prefer the unassuming aesthetic of Sukenari to the flash of the Kuroskai (though he does make some knives I find beautiful).
Roll forged vs. hand forged is largely meaningless in terms of performance/quality and predominantly hype.
naptight
Well-Known Member
Dang that guy has skills. The horizontal flick through the portrait was wild!
Thanks for the reply.
naptight
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That makes sense to me. But I guess, as a beginner, I don't know where I'm going to end up in terms of preferences and collecting. So if I'm buying $350+ knives I'd like to pick ones that have good resale value or some collectability.
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Was your original Sukenari mirror polished? That's gonna max out stiction.
As for steels, Sukenari does a great job on all of them.
When thinking about "ease of sharpening, most beginners are thinking "can my stones remove enough metal to form an apex in a reasonable number if strokes?". The answer to that Qn is gonna be "yes" for any of those steels (I haven't tried ZDP-189 but I pretty sure it's the same answer).
As your sharpening skills progress, you are going to realise that the next important question is going to be "how easily will I be able to reduce then remove the burr completely, leaving behind a clean apex?"
Here, these steels differ somewhat.
Sukenari's AS is a pretty hard heat treament. Only other commonly available one I can think of that is as hard is TF. Very easy to sharpen and deburr. Not a bad knife to learn deburring on. Somewhat reistant to acid foods but not entirely. The edge will last longer than most carbon steels but it will definitely have the least edge retention of all of the other steels that Sukenari does (probably including Ginsanko).
I haven't used their SG2 but I have used many other SG2 knives. It's a decent balance between edge retention and ease of deburring. I used to think that it was easy to sharpen and deburr but as my sharpening skills have improved, I reslise that a full deburring is a bit more tedious than with carbon steels or simple stainless like ginsanko or AEBL. I think I get a slightly better edge with a diamond fine stone on SG2 but it's not necessary to use a diamond fine stone to get a very decent edge on it.
I can't say the same for HAP40. My experience is with Gehei rather than Sukenari but both use pretty hightech HT processes, so I suspecth that they are similar. I can't get as good an edge with an AlOx fine stone as I can with a diamond fine stone. I will say that I didn't realise this until my deburring skills had reached a certain level.
I'm unsure whether this would apply to ZDP. I suspect not, as the majority of the carbides are Cr carbides, which AlOx stones should be able to cut.
Another thing to condider is that with SG2 and especially HAP40 and ZDP-189, you aren't going to get nearly as much practice sharpening. This is a serious consideration if you want to learn how to sharpen well.
Zooming out to 20,000', any of these steels will be great and you will make them work fine, but there is a bit of nuance in the finer details.
As for steels, Sukenari does a great job on all of them.
When thinking about "ease of sharpening, most beginners are thinking "can my stones remove enough metal to form an apex in a reasonable number if strokes?". The answer to that Qn is gonna be "yes" for any of those steels (I haven't tried ZDP-189 but I pretty sure it's the same answer).
As your sharpening skills progress, you are going to realise that the next important question is going to be "how easily will I be able to reduce then remove the burr completely, leaving behind a clean apex?"
Here, these steels differ somewhat.
Sukenari's AS is a pretty hard heat treament. Only other commonly available one I can think of that is as hard is TF. Very easy to sharpen and deburr. Not a bad knife to learn deburring on. Somewhat reistant to acid foods but not entirely. The edge will last longer than most carbon steels but it will definitely have the least edge retention of all of the other steels that Sukenari does (probably including Ginsanko).
I haven't used their SG2 but I have used many other SG2 knives. It's a decent balance between edge retention and ease of deburring. I used to think that it was easy to sharpen and deburr but as my sharpening skills have improved, I reslise that a full deburring is a bit more tedious than with carbon steels or simple stainless like ginsanko or AEBL. I think I get a slightly better edge with a diamond fine stone on SG2 but it's not necessary to use a diamond fine stone to get a very decent edge on it.
I can't say the same for HAP40. My experience is with Gehei rather than Sukenari but both use pretty hightech HT processes, so I suspecth that they are similar. I can't get as good an edge with an AlOx fine stone as I can with a diamond fine stone. I will say that I didn't realise this until my deburring skills had reached a certain level.
I'm unsure whether this would apply to ZDP. I suspect not, as the majority of the carbides are Cr carbides, which AlOx stones should be able to cut.
Another thing to condider is that with SG2 and especially HAP40 and ZDP-189, you aren't going to get nearly as much practice sharpening. This is a serious consideration if you want to learn how to sharpen well.
Zooming out to 20,000', any of these steels will be great and you will make them work fine, but there is a bit of nuance in the finer details.
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Based on testing, HAP40 will have about 15% more edge retention, and be about the same toughness as SG2, while not being stainless. Also yeah a bit harder to sharpen. Considering SG2 already has decent edge retention, I think they are close enough that you should just decide if you want stainless or not, and how you will sharpen each
naptight
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Mic drop. TY!
And yes I'm still trying to practice a lot. So I'm getting some cheaper knives. I know it's not the same but also offering to sharpen my friend's and family's random Western knives.
