# Pictures of my three Itou knives



## a.lber.to (Mar 20, 2012)

Over at the New Members' forum, a couple of people asked to see pictures of my three Itou knives, so here they are:

Gyuto 230mm





Hi-Res

Petty 150




Hi-Res

Paring 105




Hi-Res

Hoping to get a matching Santoku one day!

Also, in case you are not familiar with them, here is a picture of one of my Echizen-Japan coreless damascus knives:

Gyuto 240mm




Hi-Res

The steel has a very beautiful pattern, IMOHO.

Enjoy...


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## Crothcipt (Mar 20, 2012)

:wow:wow those are beaut's. Thanks for sharing.:2thumbsup:


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## Pensacola Tiger (Mar 20, 2012)

Very nice, love that ironwood!

Rick


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## a.lber.to (Mar 20, 2012)

Thank you. I tried to keep to the "sober" side of Itou-san!!!


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## Andrew H (Mar 20, 2012)

Great looking knives!


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## Talal (Mar 20, 2012)

these knives are stunning..


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## gentlecook (Mar 20, 2012)

petty looks great


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## Johnny.B.Good (Mar 20, 2012)

Looks very similar to the Tanaka knives with ironwood handles...

I like them a lot.


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## sw2geeks (Mar 20, 2012)

Love those knives!


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## ThEoRy (Mar 20, 2012)

Very nice. Thanks for sharing.


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## SpikeC (Mar 20, 2012)

I was going to get one of these petties from JCK, but they were out of stock, and the Tanaka Ironwood came in first so I got one of them instead.


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## AFKitchenknivesguy (Mar 21, 2012)

In general, I dislike Itou knives. But those are attractive, very nice.


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## Don Nguyen (Mar 21, 2012)

I really love the looks of those Echizen-Japan knives. Something about the profile, it's curvy, not fat, but sooooo sleek. I normally don't like blobby handles either, but it goes so well with the knife.


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## Justin0505 (Mar 21, 2012)

a.lber.to said:


> Thank you. I tried to keep to the "sober" side of Itou-san!!!



We have similar taste in his work then. These are, IMO, some of the best looking knives of his that I've seen.


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## dragonlord (Mar 21, 2012)

Those are really pretty knives


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## Tristan (Mar 21, 2012)

Itou is always a touch too gaudy for me, but this range is very tasteful!


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## a.lber.to (Mar 21, 2012)

Don Nguyen said:


> I really love the looks of those Echizen-Japan knives. Something about the profile, it's curvy, not fat, but sooooo sleek. I normally don't like blobby handles either, but it goes so well with the knife.



I have to admit that initially I got a couple of those as I really liked the look of the damascus steel. But they are such a joy to use, that I ended up getting the entire set of eight!!! They are almost paper thin, and glide through food like a scalpel. 

My only gripe with them is that the swirly pattern of the damascus blade is actually printed on the curved part of the bolster - if you look at the Hi-Res version of my picture, you can see it clearly. Personally, I would have preferred if they had just left the plain steel there instead of trying to fake the damascus pattern continuing all the way up the bolster. But it hasn't bothered me enough to actually try to remove it, and honestly it is much more visible in the pictures than in real life...


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## sw2geeks (Mar 21, 2012)

Must be something new, the bolster on mine is just polished silver.


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## Don Nguyen (Mar 21, 2012)

a.lber.to said:


> I have to admit that initially I got a couple of those as I really liked the look of the damascus steel. But they are such a joy to use, that I ended up getting the entire set of eight!!! They are almost paper thin, and glide through food like a scalpel.
> 
> My only gripe with them is that the swirly pattern of the damascus blade is actually printed on the curved part of the bolster - if you look at the Hi-Res version of my picture, you can see it clearly. Personally, I would have preferred if they had just left the plain steel there instead of trying to fake the damascus pattern continuing all the way up the bolster. But it hasn't bothered me enough to actually try to remove it, and honestly it is much more visible in the pictures than in real life...



Pssh, they should've just made the whole entire thing out of damascus.

How tall is it at the heel? It looked like a really long blade, but then I saw that it was only 240mm. I really like a sleek looking knife like that, but a lot of people emphasize that a 45mm-50mm heel height is ideal for performance, but they end up looking short and stubby to me.


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## Johnny.B.Good (Mar 21, 2012)

a.lber.to said:


> Personally, I would have preferred if they had just left the plain steel there instead of trying to fake the damascus pattern continuing all the way up the bolster.



I would have preferred a plain bolster as well, but I didn't even notice the pattern until you pointed it out. Very handsome knives.


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## a.lber.to (Mar 21, 2012)

sw2geeks said:


> Must be something new, the bolster on mine is just polished silver.



Which series do you have, 1110, 1210 or 1310? My understanding is that the clad knives (1110 series) have a polished bolster, while the damascus clad (1210 series) and the coreless damascus (1310 series) both have their respective patterns printed on the bolsters.

If you actually have a 1310 w/o the printing, could you kindly post a picture of it so I can see how it looks? I have been toying with the idea of trying to remove the printing from mine...

Thanks!


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## a.lber.to (Mar 21, 2012)

Don Nguyen said:


> How tall is it at the heel? ... a lot of people emphasize that a 45mm-50mm heel height is ideal for performance ...



The heel on the 240mm Gyuto is exactly 50mm. Perhaps you would like better their 240mm Sujihiki, which has the same length but a heel of only 37mm...


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## sw2geeks (Mar 21, 2012)

a.lber.to said:


> Which series do you have, 1110, 1210 or 1310? My understanding is that the clad knives (1110 series) have a polished bolster, while the damascus clad (1210 series) and the coreless damascus (1310 series) both have their respective patterns printed on the bolsters.
> 
> If you actually have a 1310 w/o the printing, could you kindly post a picture of it so I can see how it looks? I have been toying with the idea of trying to remove the printing from mine...
> 
> Thanks!



I don't know about series, but I have had it for a long time. It is one of his original blue handle jobs. I'll dig up a pic.


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## Johnny.B.Good (Mar 21, 2012)

I forgot to say that you take very nice pictures Alberto.

How do you do it? Fancy camera? Tripod? Both?


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## a.lber.to (Mar 21, 2012)

sw2geeks said:


> It is one of his original blue handle jobs.



Sorry, are we talking about an Itou or an Echizen-Japan? In the post you replied to I was talking about the Echizen-Japan Gyuto, but now I get the feeling that you are referring to an Itou knife instead? No printing on those, of course...


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## a.lber.to (Mar 21, 2012)

Johnny.B.Good said:


> How do you do it? Fancy camera? Tripod? Both?



Thank you! Those were taken using the same set-up I normally use for taking pictures of watches (like this one, or this one). Basically a white light tent, with three remote flashes firing into it piloted by the on-board camera flash (which does not contribute to the exposure). Macro lens, aperture-priority mode with a high value to ensure good depth of field, and enough light to allow for comfortable hand-holding (min 1/60 sec). Five minutes to set-up, and five minutes to take the pictures (most of the time swapping knives, actually).


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## Don Nguyen (Mar 21, 2012)

a.lber.to said:


> The heel on the 240mm Gyuto is exactly 50mm. Perhaps you would like better their 240mm Sujihiki, which has the same length but a heel of only 37mm...



Hmm. Your picture makes the knife look really long and short, almost like the sujihiki itself?






In that picture the gyuto doesn't look nearly as slender as yours.


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## sw2geeks (Mar 21, 2012)

a.lber.to said:


> Sorry, are we talking about an Itou or an Echizen-Japan? In the post you replied to I was talking about the Echizen-Japan Gyuto, but now I get the feeling that you are referring to an Itou knife instead? No printing on those, of course...



Sorry, lost track of which knives you were talking about...


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## a.lber.to (Mar 21, 2012)

Don Nguyen said:


> In that picture the gyuto doesn't look nearly as slender as yours.



That's because the knife was sitting almost flat on the table, and I was taking pictures of it at an angle to get through the opening of the light tent (basically the perspective is distorting the shape of the knife). The picture on their web site is of course the accurate one, since it is taken head-on.


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## a.lber.to (Mar 21, 2012)

sw2geeks said:


> Sorry, lost track of which knives you were talking about...



No worries! :biggrin: I would still love to see pictures of your Itou...


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## sw2geeks (Mar 21, 2012)

a.lber.to said:


> No worries! :biggrin: I would still love to see pictures of your Itou...



Here you go!


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## a.lber.to (Mar 21, 2012)

Beautiful, thanks! The turquoise handles are probably among the most typical/well known versions of his knives, together with the abalone. How do you like using it?


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## sw2geeks (Mar 21, 2012)

a.lber.to said:


> Beautiful, thanks! The turquoise handles are probably among the most typical/well known versions of his knives, together with the abalone. How do you like using it?



I like it a lot, I always keep it in my rotation. That being said, it has been a few weeks since I used it. It is not really a "corned beef" kind of knife.


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## sel1k1 (Mar 22, 2012)

Ahhoohhhh woahhhhh <3 those look great, sir. Thank you very much for sharing.


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## Lucretia (Mar 22, 2012)

Beautiful knives!


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