Posted by Unknown on
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Although I had admired Shigefusa knives for a while, and browsed longingly at images of Shigefusa knives in other peoples kits, it was a not a knife I had planned to 'try' and aquire in the immediate future. For those not familiar with Mr.Iizuka Tokifusa's work, here is a quote taken from www.japan-tool.com: Shigefusa (Iizuka Tokifusa and his two sons) is the one of the most famous houchou (Japanese style chef's knife) blacksmith in Japan. Shigefusa has trained under the famous tamahagane razor maker Iwasaki Shigeyoshi for 10 years, and before he became independent he received several months of training by another very famous swordsmith Nagashima Munenori by the recommendation of Iwasaki-san.
By the age of 38 he had already been celebrated as the best houcyou maker in Japan. The beautiful poished look of Shigefusa knives are acheived by applying the special Japanese sword poishing technique creating the hazy polished look. Now with his two full grown sons beside him, Shigefusa has achieved an unrivaled state as a houchou maker.
Now to acquire a Shigefusa knife, you basically have 2 options. First is to order one through a retailer or middle man who places the order with Mr. Iizuka Tokifusa(Shigefusa) himself, then you wait for the knife to be made. Being hand made and hand finished using natural Japanese whetstones, the current wait for a Shigefusa knife to be produced is about 1.5yrs. Or the other option, you find someone who already owns a Shigefusa knife and is willing to sell it to you.
So as it happens, the other day I stumbled across this knife listed on eBay from a seller in Japan and at a very reasonable starting bid. It is a 270mm Yanagiba 'Kitaeji' version which has damascus or 'ink' patterned steel and was described as 'new'. I thought about it for a couple of days and decided I probably wouldn't get one for that price again so set a sniper bid and waited to see what happened and I won it! Well since then I have been waiting impatiently for it to arrive and today it finally did! I'm not disappointed, it is an awesome blade.
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Posted by Unknown on
Monday, April 12, 2010
Just a gratuitous knife photo! Some prep for a beef stir fry using my Yoshihiro Yanagi.
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Posted by Unknown on
Friday, April 2, 2010
After waiting almost 3 months for my King combo stone to arrive, I was chomping at the bit to finally try my hand at freehand whetstone sharpening. The Kanemasa E Honcho gyuto was originally purchased as a knife I could use to make mistakes on whilst learning to sharpen, being a relatively cheap knife and high carbon which is supposedly easier to sharpen using whetstones. It also comes from the maker with a very obtuse almost single bevel, the back bevel is almost undetectable. Obviously a blank canvas meant for the end user to work into the edge they so desire.
I colored in the edge with permanent marker so I could see what I was doing and went to work with the Beston #500 stone to set a new bevel, then onto the King 1000 until I got a burr happening on each side, then finished off with the 6000 side of the King. I was stoked with the result - it looked great and sliced paper easily and cleanly. The end result was much better than I expected for my first real attempt. I'm looking forward to giving the new sharp edge a run on the next meal prep!
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Posted by Unknown on
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Two thumbs up for Keiichi from
BluewayJapan. I ordered this whetstone from him 'originally' over 2 months ago! But it never arrived. When I ordered it I chose the cheap "SAL" slow shipping option with no tracking number or insurance over the faster insured, but more expensive "EMS" method. ETA on "SAL" shipping was 2-5 weeks.
After 5 weeks I was getting worried and was in desperate need of a sharpening stone so emailed Keiichi to check if it was normal. He replied quickly saying that it usually didn't take that long, if it wasn't there in another couple of weeks he would refund my money! A couple of weeks later, still no whetstone. I emailed Keiichi again to inform him that it still had not arrived, but because I was still without a stone(above my Beston 500) to sharpen with, and knives that were getting duller by the day, I asked if instead of a refund could I just pay the extra for the EMS shipping and have another stone sent. He agreed and less than a week later the stone finally arrived.
Great service - he was under no obligation to provide a replacement for a shipping loss when I chose an un-insured, un-tracked shipping method, I am grateful he was willing to help me out. I will definitely be happy to deal with him again.
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