Masakage Yuki Nakiri

Masakage Yuki
Nakiri



Specs
Rockwell: 61:63
Blade Length: 165mm
Spine at Base: 3.05mm
Width at Base: 59.90mm
Steel: White #2 Shirogami, Stainless Cladding (Karouchi finish)
Handle: Oval, Magnolia with Pakka wood farrell


Price and Availability

A few places carry the Masakage line of knives and pricing on them is very reasonable. I found this on a general search looking for info at Knifewear in Calgary, who to my surprise just happen to have it on a 15% sale, which was in its last day of that sale. so I pulled the trigger as I didnt want to pass it up. Ordered late on thursday, got it by noon monday.. works for me. The yuki series as a whole tends to price below a lot of other brands I was looking at with similar specs, I paid $163.00 plus 15 bucks shipping for this at the sale price, and very happy with what showed up at the door this morning.

Fit and Finish



The seem between the two woods is perfect, but the magnolia handle does have a bit of a ruff spot on the under side, its not really much to worry about, I cant even take a pic of it because you cant see it, only feel it a bit, I would imagine the newspaper this is wrapped in would be enough to smooth it out its so mild. the. One of the nicer touches Masakage does with there knife, is leave the blade extended out a bit from the handle and then rounding off the choile (I am not sure how to spell that Ill google it later), not just the edge but the corner itself, very comfortable for finger placement while in a pinch grip. The spine edge is not completely rounded but it has been smoothed down as well, it seem to me that there has been more attention paid to the left hand side where it would ride your knuckles during chop then the right hand side though, but im a righty so thats okay for my knife to have that for me. I dont see anything I would consider to be a defect, nothing that I find oddly placed or out of proportion, the red pakka looks very sharp to the bare Magnolia, may not be the highest of materials available, but its not the highest of prices either. so far so good

The Blade





My inexperience is going to show here as I have nothing to compare this too, hopefully you guys can see what you need to see in the pictures here. I can say that OOTB edge is very sharp, there was a minor incident we wont go into, but very sharp indeed, being so thin behind the edge I would imagine the OOTB edge would be more then enough for most people, and if given the personal touch on stones this thing would be a killer knife in anyone collection.


First thoughts


Being my first Japanese knife, and only having it for a few hours, I can say I havent been disappointed one bit, I keep looking at this guy and finding neat little touches that I love, like how the karouchi finish plays in the light, or the rounded choile for the grip. the balance feels good in hand, but we can talk more about that when I put it to use. Out of the box, the handle wont super impress you but at this price point it is more then enough, as attention was paid to put it together tightly with a perfect fitment. I am a happy boy who has dinner decisions to make (Although knifewear did include a recipe for soup)

Part II In Use to follow...


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Nicely done James. Now go to town on those onions!

 

Nice looking nakiri. Glad you're enjoying it so far. Looking forward to hearing what you think after you put it through some work!

 

Please tell me this didn't involve the cat?


That's a nice knife you have there James!!

 

Check

 

James
That is a sweet knife. The price, I think is exceptional. I have some bush-craft type knives hand made which involved getting a piece of stainless bar stock and grinding away everything that didn't look like a knife and paid that much for one of them. I'm not saying that the knife maker of the bushcraft knife isn't skilled, but in the case of the Yuki line, if I understand correctly they are hand made from the hammer forging of the core to lamination stainless, shaping, grinding and finishing by two people the maker (Kato San?) and the sharpener. Considering the work involved and the quality of materials, superb fit and finish one has to wonder how they sell that knife for that price. It is beautiful and cause for much lusting on this end.

I have to admit I'd been thinking of the 210 Gyuto in the same line but wonder if it might be too big. CKTG does not carry the 180, but I see that Knifewear does. Any one know if they ship to the US?

I am hoping to see that pile of veggys reduced to mince meat pronto!

 

Yeah most are already done lol I have to peel potatoes though, and yes Kato son os the maker of the Yukis from what I read. As of this morning Knifewear did still have the 15% discount showing on the site too

 

Yes, they do.

<$200, $15 shipping
$200+ it's free

- Steve

 

Very nice James, tuck those fingertips under!

 

Utter and complete decimation... and no worries Jim, no cuts

Let me get dinner going here and ill report back, as I had a few surprises here I thought were groovy

 

Nice! Whats cooking?

 

So of course I started with the Onion, I mean, we all knew that would happen lol worked my way through the carrot (Was a really big carrot one was enough) then celery, potatoes and finally the garlic. Here is how it went for me

Onion - Boy did this show why working on a tiny little cutting board isnt the best way to do things, the onion started to pile up quickly, Side cuts through the onion glided through with zero effort, the second cuts were the same, and did so without pulling to much of the onion apart, that was the first time I had ever done that. the chop was nothing, a few times I would have though I missed if it weren't for the onion bits flying. Onion meet Nakiri,... Nakiri wins.

Celery - I kind of though this would be pretty much the same, I had an odd bit of feedback I wasn't expecting. Used two sticks did them differently, the first I sliced and diced, pressing the Nakiri for the slice first met with a tad of resistance before it released into nothing, but I was using the tip for this part and pulling back, rather then a down and forward, I switched to that for the last slice and the nakiri had no issues with that cut. The second stick I just choped up half moon style, if it wasnt for the sounds of the crunch, I never would have known it was under the blade lol

Carrot - I could feel the carrot in the blade, it is a fair bit more dense then the other two ingredients so that wasn't unexpected, the blade still had zero trouble though, I sliced into sticked and chopped the rest, easiest carrot i ever did that to before, blade just fell right through it.

Potatoes - OMG lol the only time i have ever cut myself bad in the kitchen was a knife that got caught, turned the tater on me and sent the edge my fingers way,... not here though, even more then the other ingredients the knife really went through the taters like a knife though butter. zero resistance swift clean strokes with very very minor feedback, these took no time to cube up for mashing later... I wouldn't have thought they would have released right off the blade either, but they did no trouble. This was my A HAH moment right here,... Potatoes have now met their match in ma kitchin'

Garlic - big wide blade, makes for a nice safe smash, though they did stick a bit to the blade it more I think that garlic itself is a bit sticky then the blade. Garlic isnt really much of a test, but it did help show why the flat profile can be nice.

I have a portabella mushroom here as well, but thats for the gravy later. All in all, with nothing else in my kitchen to compare to, I was very happy to know that these things from the Japan guy Jason mentioned earlier, are absolutely what you read about.

the knife was comfortable to hold, didnt even think about it while I was cutting away, and the balance didn't even enter my mind, meaning it was probably right where It should have been. Job very well done,... I need that SaniTuff I ordered for a little more desktop space to play with now lol

 

I have a rump roast here, with a nice fatty layer on top, that should make for some great brown sauce gerrravy like. just going to prep the meat now, a few slices in the top with garlic salt and paper, brown in the oven for a few about 20 minuts to collect some drippings, then into the veggies for the remainder of the cook... I used to be excited for the eating part of cooking, but im a little sad the cutting part is pretty much over lol

 

Great choice in knife James, My nakiri is a go to both for home and work

 

Thats good to know I can bring it to work as well,... Then again my boss may become a little worrisome about a parts guy bring a cooking knife to work

 

I know some parts guys might not be that big of a deal.....

 

One meal.. one knife, even cut the roast with it... totally forgot to buy horse radish



Ill add, the veggies taste very well cut !

 

Wow---I really like how thin that blade looks as shown by the choil shot. Nicely done.

 

It is not easy to get a cell phones auto function to zero in the zoom on that shot lol, I was rather proud i actually got a usable one there

 

Looks pretty sweet. It seems that higher-end nakiri have a kind of peculiar geometry, and this one is no exception. I got a Takeda nakiri which is pretty awesome for thin slices of sticky stuff, but it is not ideal for thick sections where wedging occurs. I should really try one of these nakiri (Itinomon is the one that speaks to me, but this one looks like it might hold its own) and see how it handles wedging (I recently cut a raw carrot in a video and measured a slice @ 83mm diameter).

Addendum: Crap. Mind went blank for a few minutes...came back to consciousness and got an email confirmation from JNS...