Valgard's gear

[valgard]

I thought I'd post some stuff here in one place to be able to go back to it. This is probably going to end up stone heavy...

Collection shot from about 5 months ago. About a dozen of those are in new homes since them and some have come in.

Current top of the top stones in my collection

 

[Anton]

Mind blowing - gorgeous

 

[McMan]

Wow!
Well done.

 

[valgard]

Current top of the top in my collection, some details.

Right: my all time favourite stone, perfect Nakayama suita 205x76x41mm
Left: Ohira Uchi with karasu (lots more karasu inside the stone and some namazu at the back) 207x78x49mm

Right: Ohira renge suita with brown net pattern, has pink and purple renge. Perfect lvl 3 easy and fast stone 208x76x36mm.
Left: Uber dense pink renge Ohira suita 206x80x32mm

Right: Big Okudo renge suita, seriously nice to use, crazy crazy looking. 220x80x33mm
Left: Almighty Ohira Ao Renge suita, crazy full of big fat renge inside, you can see the renge in the lower half starting to poke it's head all over. 210x77x38mm

Right: Narutaki Shiro suita, some nice pink renge at the top and right side. Maybe my second nicest to use stone, high shine but very lenient. 220x82x52mm
Left: Okudo Tamagohiro suita, show stopper, very yellow in person, fast as it should be, has a lot of emotional value for me too. 210x85x60mm

Right: Aiiwatani kiita nashiji, super crazy, smooth and clean stone. 210×75×44mm
Left: Nearly perfect looking Honyama suita. Soft, super clean all the way through, some weird purple spot pattern that looks like the mix between renge and nashiji, had never seen that before. 204x76x41mm

Left: Hakka Uchigumori. One of the behemoths, some bits of renge, soft and very easy to use. 3.4Kg.

Monster uber clean Ocher suita 220x85x82mm (above the base).

 

[Nemo]

An even more amazing collection than I had assumed.

Are you planning to build a house with all of those bricks?

 

[valgard]

I need to take some group shots but weather isn't exactly great for that here north of the wall right now...
Here are some pics I have lying around of some knives, some pics are quite old from when the knives were new even.
Watanabe nakiri with Anton Kudris' @icanhaschzbrgr handle.

Custom Watanabe 255mm with machi

Custom Watanabe KU 270 with machi

 

[valgard]

An even more amazing collection than I had assumed.

Are you planning to build a house with all of those bricks?

hahaha, no, that would make using them pretty cumbersome.

 

[valgard]

Wow!
Well done.

Mind blowing - gorgeous

Thx guys, I feel like the stone collection is fairly curated at this point.Although there are two coming soon that I anticipate should make it straight to the top echelon.

 

[valgard]

Two iterations of Kato KU 240. Bottom one unused and traded.

Very old picture of some of the Katos

Random pic of the magnetic bar

My Halcyonforge 260mm 1.2519/wrought iron sanmai with spalted maple handle

Halcyonforge 230mm Blue 2/wrought iron sanmai with oosik/ironwood burl handle

first picture from the maker

my own pic after a few months of use

Very excited for my next project with Joe, stay tuned.

 

[valgard]

Old Comet 52100 230mm gyuto (no longer mine). Coming soonish a Comet sanmai gyuto and a Comet honyaki along petty/short suji.

Comet AEBL 150mm nakiri

 

[valgard]

Yo Shig Kitaeji 210mm (215mm) gyuto

More than a year old pic, left to right: Shig 188mm, Kato 189mm, Shig kitaeji 250mm, Custom Watanabe

 

[valgard]

270 Togashi/Tosa (Sakai Takayuki) Honyaki blue 2. Handle and saya by Cody Paul @juniperburl (thegingernija)

 

[Marek07]

Stop! That's enough photos for one day. I can't take much more. I mean that in a very good way.

 

[Nemo]

I love it when people post knife collections that put mine to shame... It's the ultimate in enabling[emoji41]

 

[valgard]

Raquins, pics from Bryan, I don't have pics of all of them.

285mm Gyuto thin grind

215mm gyutohiki? super fun to use this knife, kind of like a line knife I guess.

310mm suji dual grind

mini cleaver

Neck knife

 

[valgard]

gotta take some group shots this week if time and weather allow it.

 

[niwaki-boy]

Yeepers! Well played Carlos
Lol .. do you have a step stool for that Ocher suita!?
Btw.. cafe cuba is looking good

Oh.. what’s the difference in kanji between the two ku kato?

 

[valgard]

Yeepers! Well played Carlos
Lol .. do you have a step stool for that Ocher suita!?
Btw.. cafe cuba is looking good

Oh.. what’s the difference in kanji between the two ku kato?

Lol, the Ocher suita is actually hard to find unless sitting on the floor, too tall on my kitchen counter and I look like T-Rex using it.

The top KU Kato has a kaō (a type of signature, often used by Japanese swordsmith on sword tang) closest to the tang, it's made for a shop in Tokyo. The bottom one has the regular kanji found in the standard line.

 

[zoze]

Lovely stuff. Great collection of knives and stones.

 

[ThinMan]

Fantastic collection!

 

[Gjackson98]

Awesome collection lol, you can probably built a backyard with that many stones! Very stunning

 

[Grunt173]

Man,thanks for sharing.Most amazing collection.I feel even more honored that you suggested an Aizu to me during a topic discussion.

 

[Iggy]

The top KU Kato has a kaō (a type of signature, often used by Japanese swordsmith on sword tang) closest to the tang, it's made for a shop in Tokyo.....

Morihei right?

 

[ashy2classy]

Amazing collection! What's your secret to getting the Raquins and Comets? I've been waiting for a Comet from Trey for over a year. He said I'm close to the end of his list, but I haven't heard anything in almost 5 months.

 

[tgfencer]

Amazing collection! What's your secret to getting the Raquins and Comets? I've been waiting for a Comet from Trey for over a year. He said I'm close to the end of his list, but I haven't heard anything for a few months at least.

I think like with most custom lists, you just gotta wait. Every once in a while you see a Comet pop up in a retailer. Most often Carbon Knife Co, though I think maybe eating tools may have had one or two.

 

[YG420]

AWESOME!!

 

[valgard]

Lovely stuff. Great collection of knives and stones.

Fantastic collection!

Awesome collection lol, you can probably built a backyard with that many stones! Very stunning

AWESOME!!

Thx guys

Morihei right?

yes

Amazing collection! What's your secret to getting the Raquins and Comets? I've been waiting for a Comet from Trey for over a year. He said I'm close to the end of his list, but I haven't heard anything in almost 5 months.

I think like with most custom lists, you just gotta wait. Every once in a while you see a Comet pop up in a retailer. Most often Carbon Knife Co, though I think maybe eating tools may have had one or two.

What Todd said, just wait, I have also been waiting for a while for my sanmai. Recently he attempted one with a blank from Joe but it didn't survive the quench , it was looking really promising too.

For Comets the other secret is that I discovered him very early xD.

For Bryan the second secret is being fast and tenacious with the website (took a long time to score the first one, over a year and more than 10 knives I tried to get).

 

[valgard]

Man,thanks for sharing.Most amazing collection.I feel even more honored that you suggested an Aizu to me during a topic discussion.

I'm humbled and glad you are happy you went Aizu.

 

[valgard]

Some knives I don't have anymore. Two of them I actually never used sadly.

Hinoura River Jump nakiri 165mm (and Masakage Kiri Santoku)

Shig Kitaeji Usuba 210mm

CJA 150 AEB-L tall petty/mini gyuto

Hide Deba 180mm

 

[niwaki-boy]

Like that Hide ... and thanks for the info
You too @Iggy