Japanese cutlery I got recently from CKTG

[littleknife]

Taz,
Thank you so much for taking the time and sharing your unique experience and insight.
Besides some retailers of Japanese knives, no other person could have handled so many knives over so many years, and your observations during sharpening add yet another very important for the end user practical aspect.
It was especially interesting for me to learn that Japanese makers used a different set of parameters regarding what is the acceptable level of fit and finish for the domestic market and how did the US and Western customers' expectations changed the level of acceptance.
It was also very interesting to learn the story why CKTG was or might be still treated badly on some forums.
For me all the negative posts on those forums came across as likely biased, since none of them alleged that they were victims of fraud, which is the major red flag for me.
And even of those forums there were people who praised CKTG, so that suggested that there is more behind those stories than what the posters lt to meet the eye.
As they say, buy the knife, not the story.
So I placed my first order. I was very satisfied. Then I placed another order...Then another...
Not only had I received very nice and functional knives, but also got very valuable advice from Mark.
He even suggested not to buy some of his merchandise (sharpening stones) knowing that my funds aren't limitless and what would be sufficient to get a good result with a planned setup.
Since all my experiences were very positive, I decided to share my experience here.

 

[Taz]

If you aren't already on it, check out the CKTG forum as well. Lots of good information, sharpening help, reviews and classifieds geared towards Japanese knives.

I got to play with a lot of cool knives over the years from customers sending in for new handles and from what I am seeing now, the Japanese makers have really stepped up a lot! New steels, better F&F, more options available at all price ranges. When I looked around recently, I saw much nicer handles, better F&F on spines and choils across the board, too.

With sharpening stones, I still use my Bester 1200 and Rika 5K on kitchen, hunting, edc blades. I have a ton of other stones coarser and finer, but rarely use them on anything. White, Blue, Aogami Super, R2, AHP40, AEB-L, Nitro V, CruWear, 3V, S30V, S35VN, 80 CRV2, D2, Elmax, etc are do pretty well on those 2 stones! I use strops past the Rika 5K if needed, but I have a 12K stone and some stupid fine Japanese Natural stones for straight razor honing.

 

[littleknife]

If you aren't already on it, check out the CKTG forum as well. Lots of good information, sharpening help, reviews and classifieds geared towards Japanese knives.

I got to play with a lot of cool knives over the years from customers sending in for new handles and from what I am seeing now, the Japanese makers have really stepped up a lot! New steels, better F&F, more options available at all price ranges. When I looked around recently, I saw much nicer handles, better F&F on spines and choils across the board, too.

With sharpening stones, I still use my Bester 1200 and Rika 5K on kitchen, hunting, edc blades. I have a ton of other stones coarser and finer, but rarely use them on anything. White, Blue, Aogami Super, R2, AHP40, AEB-L, Nitro V, CruWear, 3V, S30V, S35VN, 80 CRV2, D2, Elmax, etc are do pretty well on those 2 stones! I use strops past the Rika 5K if needed, but I have a 12K stone and some stupid fine Japanese Natural stones for straight razor honing.

I am familiar with the CKTG forum, I have read a lot of posts there too.
It is good t o know that the current Japanese knives are of higher quality.

Special thanks for the sharpening advice, especially that it comes from a pro.

 

[Ourorboros]

The Richmond knives that people complained about were made by Lamson, a company with heat treating as well as other quality issues.
Those were hit and miss.
His current house brands - Kohetsu and Yahiko (for different smithy co-operatives in Japan, with separate lines for different smiths) are much better. I have a Kohetsu AS nakiri, thin and with great heat treatment.
I started buying from him in 2016 when lasers and Konosukes were all the rage. I saw those posts too, but I've had only a good experience.

 

[littleknife]

I read about the problems with the first Artifex line and Lamson.
I agree that the Kohetsu brand is great, provides a lot of choice for the widest variety of customers.

 

[Taz]

I don't want this post to be seen as protecting or "shilling", but I figured some may be interested in some more in depth information about Lamson and some of the Artifex. I did a lot of knife handles for CKTG between 2012 and 2014, especially on the Artifex line and got to go up to the factory a few times, meet the people, see a lot of the process, etc, so I have a more insider view than most!

Lamson sent out blades for heat treating after they were blanked out (I believe they laser cut them on site, but can't remember 100%?), so it was farmed out to another company. It is done in large batches, so if one is off, the whole batch is probably off. Also, AEB-L responds better to more care and attention during heat treating to make it perform well, which is harder to do in large batches. Other steels do very well in large batches though, but AEB-L is picky! So if a step was missed in a batch or a temperature is off, or if someone used the wrong protocol for heat treating (ie followed the protocol for another companies AEB-L blades), it could be the whole batch that was off. Also, one of the "heat treat" issues I have read about is when someone took it down to 5 degrees each side where it failed, which is pretty thin for any steel! The company that did the heat treating would only go up to 60-61 rockwell max on AEB-L. I had some AEB-L done there as well, 60.5-61 rockwell that I ground and sharpened after heat treating with no issues, so I think the main issue was the factory sharpening at Lamson overheating the steel. I use my boning knife a lot (I custom made it from scratch from AEB-L, heat treated at the same place) and it's ground super thin and doesn't chip when hitting bones. I've reground and pushed my much thinner AEB-L Artifex gyuto pretty hard with no issues and really thinned out a few petty and honesuki blades as well with no issues. Others doing AEB-L can push it to much higher levels like 62-64, so that tells me that with a batch process, some performance can be lost with that steel. The other complaint I saw was the gummy edge for a few sharpenings, which could be overheated steel from when they were sharpened at Lamson. Fatter edge means more sharpening time and more chance to overheat the blades at the edge, especially if they are using duller belts at high speed. Lamsons blade grinding (main blade bevels, not sharpening) machine was 100% water cooled with water from the Shelburne water falls, which was then cleaned and processed and returned to the river in a cleaner state than it went in at (which I though was pretty cool seeing the process!), so the blades shouldn't have been overheated during the grinding process. The blade was cool to the touch when we took it out to swap to grind the other side.

Whenever I make a knife, I leave the blank oversized and grind after heat treating, so the grinding will remove any decarb on the blade or edge itself. When heat treating, I have read that .020" at least should be removed from the profile of the blade to remove all of the possible decarb in that area after heat treating (maybe more if it was laser cut and not water jet cut out), but I didn't see this step done at Lamson when I went through the tour. From what I understood and saw, it went from the HT/tempering right into the grinding machine to be ground down to have the edge at .020" and then polished and sharpened, so it is very likely that the decarb at the edge was not removed fully. .

020" thick at the edge is fairly fat for a Japanese style kitchen knife, but was done that way to be more durable as a line knife and not chip out as easily for people. It was a knife with Japanese style/shape and harder steel, but still fat behind the edge so it would be more durable for people who were new to the Japanese knives or in an enviroment where they would see more heavier use. The grinds were so so with how they were done in a machine instead of by hand because it was a production knife and had only a little of convexing on the sides. The small amount of convexing and fat edge led to lower performance and harder sharpening than other Japanese knives, which they were often compared to. When I reground the blades with a rotary platen, convexed and thinned them down to a near zero edge and put a fresh bevel on, they performed so much better! I did this to 30 M390 blades that I did custom handles (had to do the handles twice because all 30 pieces of wood curled/warped/cracked a short time after Mark received them, especially with temperature changes) for as well as numerous others in the Artifex series (and Addict series as well) that were made by Lamson. There were other Artifex made by Fujiwara and other companies that had better grinds and thinner behind the edge because they were made in Japan. I worked on a lot of Artifex (mostly custom handles and final sharpening) between 2012 and 2014 and Lamson would often drop ship them directly to me with the rubber protectant still on the blade for custom handles and final sharpening and I would send them to Mark at CKTG.

Lamson also went through some business changes and the person Brian Hayes that was big into the knives left between fall 2013 and spring 2014. They filed for bankruptcy in 2014 to reorganize as well, so things may have changed then, too. Brian Hayes was a knife guy and really was into knives and listened to what I was telling him about some of the grinds and stuff, but some of the limitations were the machinery they were using and the design specs (Mark specifically wanted a fatter behind the edge dimension for durability). He was gearing up to start a custom knife shop to do one of's and small production runs by hand and was thinking of having me come up and help out setting up the shop, but I didn't want to have to move out of state and give up my good job in CT after I had just gotten promoted at work in the fall of 2013. I was glad I turned that down because the wood allergies started in Fall 2014 and I got out of knives and handles completely in early 2015. When Brian left, a lot of things changed with the company it seems. I had a set of 3 fillet knives I wanted to have made in AEB-L and textured rubber handles similar to what Dexter Russel uses geared towards saltwater/bigger fish and Brian was willing to do a run of 20 in each size. His replacement told me the minimun run size was now 250, so that project and the electric fillet knife blade project died before they got started really unfortunately. I had prototypes that I had made up, but we never got to see production.

I love the Kohetsu line CKTG carries, as well as the Harukaze brand. They have stuff at a variety of price points, steels and I have found that even the lower prices items still perform really well!

 

[sharp_edge]

I didn't know CKTG has many complaints. I bought a tojiro dp 210 from them a few years ago. Everything went smoothly. There is no f&f issue. The knife appears to be thinner than my 8 inch shun classic. I guess that is why people claim tojiro dp is better than shun? I believe both use VG-10 as their core.

I don't mean to hijack the thread but I have been looking at yoshikane SDK nashiji 240mm gyuto. $300ish is not super expensive though not cheap, so I want to make sure my money is well spent and I will get the real deal not fake. I guess my questions are: anyone here has used this knife and if so, what do you think about it? and has anyone here bought this particular knife from CKTG? Thanks.

 

[littleknife]

Taz, thank you for sharing your experience and the story behind the first Artifex line.
It is very interesting to get a peek into some of the practices, difficulties and roadblocks of the knife making industry.
Your posts here and on the CKTG forum are very helpful and educational for people like me, with limited experience or skills regarding Japanese knives and their maintenance.
Thank you!

 

[littleknife]

I didn't know CKTG has many complaints. I bought a tojiro dp 210 from them a few years ago. Everything went smoothly. There is no f&f issue. The knife appears to be thinner than my 8 inch shun classic. I guess that is why people claim tojiro dp is better than shun? I believe both use VG-10 as their core.

I guess the fit&finish issues were resolved over the years, as Taz pointed out in his earlier posts, the Japanese makers improved the f&f to meet the expectations of Western customers.
I never had a Shun, so I cannot comment on their comparison, but my Tojiros are not only looking fine but perform admirably as well, at least to my expectations and according to my quite limited experience regarding high end/high performance kitchen cutlery.
I recommend going to the CKTG Forums where there is a special subforum called Knife Recommendations.
I think there you might get additional input as well.

 

[littleknife]

After two more transactions, all I can say is that CKTG is Top Notch!
I got some Shapton Glass stones and additional strop.
Also I managed to get the CCK Large Slicer.
It is really-really thin.
In the same time, fit and finish wise is nothing special.
It is all about utility. Great kitchen knife!

 

[scdub]

Thanks! Is it recommended to seal the tang?

I seal the tang and all my wooden handled tools (and some carbon steel blades too) with pure tung oil diluted with pure orange solvent for better penetration/drying.

It’s a drying oil and is arguably the best one for this application.

A coat every year or so works great.