Jovidah
Vocal amateur
Figured I'd at this to the pile... had this quite a while already but I never got around to it. At this point these knives have a justifiably good reputation and I don't want to detract from that, but I figured I'd add a few points that stood out to me. I have the 240 with teak handle and saya that originally came from K&S.
About the woodwork; top notch. The sayas are definitly a step up from the usual el-cheapo ho-wood sayas. All really nicely done and luxurious.
In general about the aesthethic... I don't know how they make or grind them but the knife has a certain 'factory-made' feel to it in it's consistency. Bevel that is flawlessly executed, the way the finish looks, etc. Now that doesn't mean it IS factory-made, but if you're looking for a certain wabisabi or 'handmade' rustiqueness; look elsewhere. The knife looks great, but it's borderline boring because of its execution.
The steel is great; it's definitly in the more semi than stainless category - which I like, and as a result it sharpens easy. Keeps an edge well too. No complaints... but if you're looking for something that's really really stainless because you expect it to sit overnight being dirty, this might not be it.
The grind itself is the main selling point. It's really thin behind the edge and so it's great on any root vegetables and cuts awesome out of the box. Personally I'd describe this knife as a bit of a 'laser with a fat spine'. So you get laser-ish performance, while still having a more comfy grip because the spine isn't so skinny.
The profile is.... either an acquired taste or something you have to get used to. It's definitly not something you want to rock with, and others already mentioned that it feels a bit dead flat on the heel. If you're struggling with that I'd say loosen up a bit on the rear fingers on your grip, and then it didn't bother to me.
Personally I only really have 2 negatives on the knife. One is that I think people really overstate the sanjo taper. Yes, it has a nice fat neck, and if you look at spine - center blade - 1 cm from tip values it looks awesome. But it's not a linear taper. After the fat neck it pretty quickly narrows down, which is fine, but then keeps that thickness until really late in the blade. There isn't really much spine taper until the last few cms near the tip.
So it's a lot like my Y. Tanaka where whatever taper you have near the tip is simply from the grind coming up to the spine. Which still looks good in the numbers and works fairly well because they're both thin behind the edge, but whenever your tip reaches some depth you notice there's some drag because there's not that much taper 5 cm from the tip. My Masamoto KS's tip vastly outperforms both these blades in that aspect because it starts tapering down earlier.
Last issue for me is that the knife feels 'delicate'. I don't know if this is justified; this is largely a psychological thing, but due to the combination of thin behind the edge, hardness and sanmai construction the knife has a delicate feel for me. Subconsciously I start babying it a bit, because the cutting feedback isn't as confidence inspiring. As a result it's not a knife I really hammer away with as quickly as some of my other knives.
About the woodwork; top notch. The sayas are definitly a step up from the usual el-cheapo ho-wood sayas. All really nicely done and luxurious.
In general about the aesthethic... I don't know how they make or grind them but the knife has a certain 'factory-made' feel to it in it's consistency. Bevel that is flawlessly executed, the way the finish looks, etc. Now that doesn't mean it IS factory-made, but if you're looking for a certain wabisabi or 'handmade' rustiqueness; look elsewhere. The knife looks great, but it's borderline boring because of its execution.
The steel is great; it's definitly in the more semi than stainless category - which I like, and as a result it sharpens easy. Keeps an edge well too. No complaints... but if you're looking for something that's really really stainless because you expect it to sit overnight being dirty, this might not be it.
The grind itself is the main selling point. It's really thin behind the edge and so it's great on any root vegetables and cuts awesome out of the box. Personally I'd describe this knife as a bit of a 'laser with a fat spine'. So you get laser-ish performance, while still having a more comfy grip because the spine isn't so skinny.
The profile is.... either an acquired taste or something you have to get used to. It's definitly not something you want to rock with, and others already mentioned that it feels a bit dead flat on the heel. If you're struggling with that I'd say loosen up a bit on the rear fingers on your grip, and then it didn't bother to me.
Personally I only really have 2 negatives on the knife. One is that I think people really overstate the sanjo taper. Yes, it has a nice fat neck, and if you look at spine - center blade - 1 cm from tip values it looks awesome. But it's not a linear taper. After the fat neck it pretty quickly narrows down, which is fine, but then keeps that thickness until really late in the blade. There isn't really much spine taper until the last few cms near the tip.
So it's a lot like my Y. Tanaka where whatever taper you have near the tip is simply from the grind coming up to the spine. Which still looks good in the numbers and works fairly well because they're both thin behind the edge, but whenever your tip reaches some depth you notice there's some drag because there's not that much taper 5 cm from the tip. My Masamoto KS's tip vastly outperforms both these blades in that aspect because it starts tapering down earlier.
Last issue for me is that the knife feels 'delicate'. I don't know if this is justified; this is largely a psychological thing, but due to the combination of thin behind the edge, hardness and sanmai construction the knife has a delicate feel for me. Subconsciously I start babying it a bit, because the cutting feedback isn't as confidence inspiring. As a result it's not a knife I really hammer away with as quickly as some of my other knives.
