Purchased this knife on the black Friday sale to replace a Miyabi 8" gyuto I wasn't super fond of. Starting with the pluses:
- I love the look of this knife, from the finish, hammer marks, grind lines, and the handle. Fit and finish seem to be fairly high, especially for the price paid. Spine isn't super rounded, but the edge is at lest broken
- Food release is better than with my Miyabi (which was my main sticking [pun] point with that knife).
-The profile is nice and flat which was also a reason I was looking for an alternative to the Miyabi.
- So far the exposed core has not been very reactive and has been slow to develop a patina. I wipe it down during prep-sessions, but seems pretty low maintenance at this point.
Cutting performance out of the box was okay. The edge could shave arm hairs, and flew through softer things such as lettuce, peppers, radishes. Anything slightly firmer such as a carrot or potato, it tended to wedge. I didn't expect a "laser", but the initial performance was slightly underwhelming.
I have since taken it to a 1k stone (caveat, my sharpening skills are average, certainly not expert). The factory edge was ground pretty uneven and closer to 70/30 than the 50/50 it should be. One side also had two low spots in the grind (~.5in long) near the heel which became very apparent after applying Sharpie and the first few passes on the stone.
After spending some time on the stone, sharpness is improved and it goes through carrots and potatoes a bit better and tomato cutting performance is improved. That being said, overall it's not that much better than the Daovua V3 Tall Nakiri (also recently purchased from Tokushu) that I have also put to the stone. I will probably spend some more time on the sharpening stone and see what I can do without going to the steps of actually thinning the blade.
In the end, I am overall happy with the knife, especially for the price paid. It will be a good "workhorse" blade and will keep me on the search for a true laser.
