After he married, his father-in-law was none other than Hiroshi Kato, who is one of the most respected blacksmiths in Japan and a founding member of the Takefu Knife Village. Stepping away from his project manager job in 2012, he started his apprenticeship at the family business alongside other members of the Takefu Knife Village, Yu and Makoto Kurosaki.
Traditionally, a smith will apprentice for 10-15 years, but Kato-san took over the reigns from Hiroshi Kato in 2017. Only 5 short years after his obsession with metallurgy, annealing, quenching and tempering has made him a force to be reckoned with.
Its hard to pick a most popular line from Kato-sans knives because we're rarely able to keep them in stock. However our favorite would have to be a tie between his R2(SG2) Tsuchime line and his R2(SG2) Black Damascus line.
The R2(SG2) Tsuchime line has great thin-behind-the-edge hollow grinds and a stiff spines, with fantastic heat treats (which can be said about all of his knives, as this is what Kato-san really nerds out about) But what really catches my eye on these knives is the tsuchime finish on them. I don't know exactly what it is about these knives but when I close my eyes and picture a tsuchime, THIS is exactly what I see. He really beats the crap out of these knives giving them deep hammer marks, but with enough control to not go so deep as to hinder the life of the knife when it comes time to thin and move up the shinogi line.
The R2(SG2) Black Damascus line is as high performing as it is beautiful, featuring a thinner spine and a gentle convex grind. These knives definitely fall into the laser category and are thin and light overall, which allows a 240mm gyuto to disappear in your hand, effortlessly nimble and fast. They require a more delicate touch and control from the user, but they will be rewarded for this attention to detail when these knives fall through carrots and other harder ingredients like a hot knife through butter.
When we saw Shiro Kamo last, during our April 2023 visit to Japan he was still working away, well into his 60's, hammering out some sobakiris. One of the most difficult shapes to make, usually reserved for special order from most shops and smiths, he effortlessly worked through a large batch during our short visit at the Takefu Knife Village. While still pumping out knives of his own Kamo-san has been a mentor to many other smiths over the years and continues to pass down his knowledge to the younger generation to this day, notably having trained Shigeki Tanaka in Echizen before he returned to Miki City to take over his 4th generation smith that used to focus on more agricultural tools, but now specializes in both single and double beveled knives.
Kamo-sans knives are another product that we have difficulty keeping in stock. If you've watched many of our Youtube videos you know how much Gage and the guys love anything from Shiro Kamo, however his nakiris are always a standout.
Being Gage's long standing favorite nakiri pick, the Shiro Kamo Kurouchi Nakiri boasts a very tall, thin aogami super blade with a stainless cladding that is not only high performing, but incredibly fun to use. Sure you can find Chinese cai-dao, or Japanese chuka-bocho if you're really looking to commit to the cleaver life (I do even have one myself I like to play with from time to time) but maybe you don't want to dive right in to that, but a nakiri still isn't scratching that itch. This is exactly where Kamo-sans tall nakiris slot in. So thin and light that they fall through food, and the tall blade gives you lots of travel for chopping over larger ingredients. The blade being so tall also makes it a stand in for a bench scraper during prep not only surgically shredding cabbage, peppers, carrots or whatever you put in front of it, but acting as a scoop to move those ingredients from the board to wherever they need to be.
While the nakiri gets a lot of love, most the same things can be said about his other shapes as well, though we do find that particularly his nakiris and gyutos are the ones that tend to be on the taller side, and I love a nice tall gyuto.
Stainless steel, carbon steel, powdered steels, iron clad and stainless clad, gyutos, nakiris, bunkas, sujis, pettys and more, Kamo-san makes a little bit of everything and you'd be hard pressed to not fall in love with any of his knives]]>
https://sharpknifeshop.com/blogs/news/shigeki-tanaka-spotlight2023-06-15T16:26:46-04:002023-06-16T10:28:43-04:00Shigeki Tanaka SpotlightGage CorlettHyōgo, Japan. Originally the shop was run by his great grandfather and produced sickles mainly during the Meiji period. The next two generations, his father and grandfather also both specialized in sickles. It was in 1996 that a young Tanaka-san headed to Echizen and found himself at the Takefu Knife Village. He spent three years there working under Shiro Kamo and the others at the shop before heading back to Miki city to work with his family.
Due to the decreasing demand for traditional sickles, Tanaka-sans father, Kazuyuki Tanaka, and uncle experimented and gained experience making knives. When Kazuyuki Tanaka passed away Shigeki took over the family business. Shortly after taking over Tanaka-san transitioned away from sickles and into almost exclusively kitchen knives, though there were sickles in various stages of production kicking around the shop during our last visit, the shop was in full swing production on knives. Seeing cases of every stage in production littered around every nook and cranny in the large, open shop.
Tanaka-sans forge is tucked away in the back corner, opposite the entrance, overlooking the rest of the stations. During our last visit in April of 2023 we were lucky enough to be invited into the cockpit between the forge and the spring hammer and got to try our hand at forging out a knife. Let me tell you, its not nearly as easy as it looks, and it doesn't look easy. We recklessly hammered away at the steel, having a hard time controlling the delicate touch you need to maintain on the foot lever while being tossed around from trying to keep a firm grip on the billy tongs. Tanaka-san was in high spirits as he watched us try to tame the spring hammer, and tried to guide us. You can see more about this on our Youtube channel where you can find our visit there, including our attempt at forging, and watching him do it properly!
While Tanaka-san transitioned originally to kitchen knives he has been experimenting with some other products including kamisori, pocket knives, higonokami, knives designed for children with animal shape cut outs and round tips, and extravagant hunting knives with wings along the spine of the blade, and ornately decorated handles, which while seemingly made to be displayed by a collector, still boast a stainless clad R2(SG2) san mai construction.
With many diverse products he's been making, I'd say that his flagship line is his R2(SG2) Black Damascus. While its not the biggest deal in our opinion, these knives specifically, have yet to be beat for out of the box edges. And while that first edge will be fleeting, the heat treat is really impressive on them. At 63-64 HRC they're definitely going to hold and edge for a long, long time, but the feedback and response on the stones makes them sharpen up super quickly and deburr easily, giving you a very keen edge for very little work. They are some of the thinner knives we have in the shop and while some black damascus knives have been etched so heavily that the texture starts to cause drag with some ingredients, we havent found that to be an issue with these.
If I had to pick the most popular line of knives from Shigeki Tanaka that would have to be his VG-10 Damascus. While it is a noticeable step down in edge retention from the R2(SG2) Black Damascus line, these knives have many of their own great features that include a hefty discount over the latter. What you'll find on these knives is a taller blade height on most shapes (especially on the larger gyutos), a thicker, more workhorse spine and a more aggressive convex grind. The thicker grind and slightly softer steel still have great edge retention and feel great on the stones, but that steel being a few points softer and more material to support the apex means these guys are tough. While Tanaka-san also makes some VG-10 and ginsan options with a hollow grind that are in a more affordable laser category, these are the ones I would feel confident throwing in my knife roll and taking into a Mother's Day brunch shift.
Having worked with carbon steels in the past Masutani-san has focused the business to making mainly stainless steel knives. You'll find options in both V1-Gold and VG-10 at the moment. With the recent discontinuation of the hand forged line of knives with the departure of the smith they worked with, they are focusing on pre-laminated blanks they stamp into shape and take from there and finish by hand, which is not an uncommon method of production on more affordable knives. With that being said it is also important to note that even on most higher end hand forged knives, either a stamp, or sheering machine (kind of like a giant paper cutter from middle school, but for steel) is used to clean up the forged out blank to save time from removing that material with a sharpening wheel. This has absolutely no effect on the finished product but saves them time and you money as a byproduct.
Being that Masutani-san focuses the business on the home user that often doesn't have a need, space, or money for a large set of knives they only make a few shapes, which also helps streamline the production, further bringing the cost down.
We got a chance to tour Masutani Hamono on our most recent trip to Japan in April of 2023, and were promptly greeted by a very friendly Masutani-san. Not a young man by any means, but you had to hustle to keep up with him! He showed us around the shop, which started at his sharpening station. 4 large vertical sharpening wheels from coarsest to finest up against the wall, with his grandson working away on the coarse wheel setting up the ground work for his grandfather, Masutani-san to adjust on the final wheel before getting sent off to be handled, and later the final edge sharpened. Having no sons to take over the family business, his daughters help run the shop with him and his son-in-law helps around the shop when he has time. His grandson has been working alongside Masutani-san and is no slouch when it comes to sharpening himself and is lined up to take over the business when Masutani-san retires in the next 5-10 years to have some well deserved time to relax. This was my first time meeting Masutani-san and it was very quickly apparent the passion and excitement that he still feels towards towards his craft, and that he is still learning and perfecting things to this day, so even after retirement its hard to believe that he won't be involved with the company for a long time to come.
After our time at the sharpening station Masutani-san took us to see some new equipment he was very excited about, including his new stamping machine and heat treating machine. The stamping machine was a massive floor to ceiling behemoth of steel, making quick work of large batches, and the heat treating machine looked like something used to keep a Batman supervillain alive. A massive white metal box with a chasm in the middle used to heat salt until it liquifies that the knives are plunged into it. This gives a quick, consistent transfer of heat to the knives, super accurate temperature control and allows larger batches to come out without sacrificing consistency. Well this isn't necessarily a new technique for Masutani Hamono, he was using the communal machines at the Takefu Knife Village until just recently.
Masutani Hamonos knives are in our opinion completely unmatched value. At such affordable prices not much can compete wth the performance of these no frill knives. And while they're often a first knife before someone goes deeper into the rabbit hole, there is also a huge amount of our customers that this was a means to and end and were happy to retire the German knife block for a smaller, focused kit of two or three pieces that do everything they could ever need for an affordable price.
We do find that Masutani''s knives can get a bit of a bad rap sometimes because of how thin they really are. This is why these knives perform so well, and its the same reason a $500+ laser performs at a super high level. While they may not have the same edge retention as some of these higher end options they are also incredibly easy to sharpen.
That being said, a very different user tends to purchase higher end lasers who are experienced in Japanese cutlery and more confident in their technique as to reap the benefits of these thin grinds without the consequences of being too heavy handed or careless with them. Where as we find Masutani's are often gifts or first Japanese knives they are more likely to be put in a heavy hand that is used to a heavy, dull 15 year old German knife that you could pry a safe open with. We still strongly recommend these knives to beginners and home cooks alike, and we still think they can't be beat for price, but we do suggest starting slow and taking your time while you and the knife get to know eachother!]]>
https://sharpknifeshop.com/blogs/news/yu-kurosaki-spotlight2023-06-14T09:49:13-04:002023-06-14T17:00:57-04:00Yu Kurosaki SpotlightGage Corlett
There are a lot of things to be said about Yu's work. We find him to be one of the most innovative and daring smiths that we work with, never seeming scared to change his techniques, finishes, designs and try new materials. This can be seen on his coveted Fujin line, based around the mythology of Fujin, the Japanese god of wind.
And the latter can be seen in his more recent Gekko line, which has been a line experimenting with offset designs, convex grinds (which are historically out of character for Yu's work) and new steels such as HAP40 and VG XEOS more recently.
While there are some staples in Kurosaki-sans work like the more affordable Senko line, seen here with wenge & turquoise handles but come in many variantions
And of course the Fujin line that he has been making for some time. I never expect to see the same knife from him for too long before he is off on another adventure, though regardless of how wildy different his knives can look, they are unmistakable from across a room if you've become familiar with his work.
Another standout feature of Kurosaki-sans work is their performance. His work often featuring a high, hollow grind really is the pinnacle of performance, effortlessly ghosting through the hardest carrots, and sliding through onions while leaving everything intact ready for the cross cuts of a dice. Not only is grinding knives this thin exceptionally difficult, but it wouldn't be possible without the double blade forging technique that we can only assume he picked up from Hiroshi Kato, as the same technique can be seen by Yoshimi Kato who he trained alongside, but we believe this to be a technique specific to the Echizen region, which has a rich 700 year long history of blacksmithing which all began when a traveling knife smith from Kyoto named Kuniyasu Chiyozuru happened upon Takefu, but thats a story for another blog post.
With all of Kurosaki-sans success, he has never sacrificed integrity of his products and maintains one of the highest levels of fit and finish that we see at the shop. With perfectly ground bevels, rounded spines and choils, not a hammer mark out of place and razor sharp edges. We consider ourselves very lucky to work with such a talented, humble smith, offer his knives in our shop, and are constantly excited to see what he comes up with next!