Kiritsuke with matching saya

[haburn]

Hello,

I finished this kiritsuke up last night to use as a demo knife. I did some art on the saya in black and white to match the G10 spacers. They are Japanese Maple leaves...
Any feedback would be appreciated, I'm always striving to make a better product! I have just a over a year of experience in knifemaking. I've never enjoyed doing something
so much, so hopefully I will have years more to come.
Thanks for looking.

Some specs:

Steel: Aldo's 52100
Handle: G10 bolster and spacers, carbon fiber pin, cocobolo
Overall length: 14.3 in.
Blade tip to handle: 8.5 in.
Handle length: 5.8 in.
Spine meeting the handle: .095 in. and tapers down to .075 in.
Behind the edge: .011 in.
Saya is poplar and cherry

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[Chefget]

Wow, that's a beautiful knife!


-Michael

 

[k1ssthecook]

That is bloody magnificent. Bravo sir.

 

[haburn]

Thanks for the compliments Chefget and K1ssthecook! I'm glad it's getting some positive feedback. I really enjoyed planning the knife along with the saya.

 

[Mooreblades]

Very impressive !!! Great precision work from blade to handle

 

[WRGreen]

Beautiful knife. Anyone would be proud to be able to use such a gem. Some might say too pretty to use, but if 'food is a celebration of life', then prep with this kiri is a grand fete.

 

[olpappy]

Nice work, I like the cutout at the heel. Technically this is a kiritsuke shaped gyuto, kiritsuke is a single bevel knife with urasaki.

 

[haburn]

Nice work, I like the cutout at the heel. Technically this is a kiritsuke shaped gyuto, kiritsuke is a single bevel knife with urasaki.

Thank you. The knife is a single bevel, but no urasaki. I was under the impression that kiritsukes didn't have a urasaki from several websites, but it's always hard to tell who is accurate. Do you have an literature to recommend on Japanese knife styles/features?

 

[olpappy]

There is the book by Chad Ward on Japanese kitchen knives, it is pretty good.

Korin's web site has a downloadable pdf catalog with a great variety of knives from various Japanese manufacturers and a glossary of knife terminology.

Another good way to learn about Japanese knives is to browse the web sites of major Japanese kitchen knife makers like Ichimonji, Suisin, Masamoto, etc. Although the descriptions are in Japanese there are lots of photos.

Japanese Knife Imports has a nice web site with a wide selection of knives.


Here are some online links (mostly definitions/glossary)

http://www.knifeforums.com/forums/showtopic.php?tid/809833/pid//

http://survinat.com/2013/04/japanese-kitchen-knives-part-one/

http://www.google.com/url?q=http://zknives.com/knives/kitchen/misc/jpnktknvterms.shtml

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Most western chefs will prefer a kiritsuke shaped gyuto without urasaki for the style of cutting we do. In Japan the kiritsuke with urasaki/single bevel is generally said to be only used by the most experienced Japanese chefs, as it is difficult to use properly.

In reality the styles of Japanese kitchen knives are very specialized and unless one works in a Japanese restaurant or cooks a lot of traditional Japanese food, in most cases the double beveled styles like gyuto and petty get used a lot more often.

 

[haburn]

Excellent! Thank you so much, I've been to a couple of the websites and will definitely be looking into the other info you suggested.

 

[olpappy]

The Japanese knife manufacturers themselves are rather loose in their use of terms, I just looked at this page

http://korin.com/Knives/Professional-Multi-purpose-KnifeKiritsuke_5

and I can see why it is confusing, they are calling all of them kiritsuke, but 5 are "single edge" like a yanagi and 2 of them are western style "double edge" blades (the Nenox wa and the Suisin Inox). In this case the latter two are better described as kiritsuke shaped gyuto, as they are essentially both gyuto with a pointy tip. Furthermore the Suisin Inox honyaki is not honyaki in the sense of water quenched differentially hardened, but it is stainless monosteel as opposed to kasumi construction....

Here is a link to a nice variety of knives by Masamoto:

http://www.japanesechefsknife.com/MASAMOTO.html#Masamoto