# Glestain gyuto passaround... Lefties only



## K-Fed

I don't really use this one much these days. This knife has been used and sharpened quite a bit but still cuts well and works as the guys at glestain intended as for as food release. Anyone interested? Usual passaround rules apply.


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## Zwiefel

Definitely interested!


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## Mrmnms

I'd be interested , thanks K-Fed


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## Mike9

Very cool K-Fed - I'm game to test drive it.


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## Igasho

I'd be interested on my Wife's behalf, she is a lefty


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## Notaskinnychef

If i had more dexterity in my off hand I'd love to try, sadly I'd likely lose a finger in or two in the process.


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## K-Fed

I'm going to give this a couple more days to see if anyone else is interested. I'd like to add the "flat Stanley" rule thought not a requirement for participation. I just think it would be cool if we could get a picture of the user and the knife in its natural environment as it makes its rounds


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## Zwiefel

K-Fed said:


> I'm going to give this a couple more days to see if anyone else is interested. I'd like to add the "flat Stanley" rule thought not a requirement for participation. I just think it would be cool if we could get a picture of the user and the knife in its natural environment as it makes its rounds



Cool idea...Happy to oblige, but any regrets you may have for casting your gaze towards me will not be received sympathetically!


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## Mike9

Ooops - didn't catch the lefties only part - I'm out.


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## K-Fed

Ok... the short list is

Zwiefel
Mrmnms
Igasho
Notaskinnychef

Ziefel if you could pm me your addy I'll get this thing rolling. I'll sharpen it up and get it out tomorrow if I can. Feel free to keep it for longer than a week though no longer than a month since there are so few of you on the list. This knife has been my "beater" for the last couple years so don't be a nancy about using it either ;x.


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## Zwiefel

K-Fed said:


> Ok... the short list is
> 
> Zwiefel
> Mrmnms
> Igasho
> Notaskinnychef
> 
> Ziefel if you could pm me your addy I'll get this thing rolling. I'll sharpen it up and get it out tomorrow if I can. Feel free to keep it for longer than a week though no longer than a month since there are so few of you on the list. This knife has been my "beater" for the last couple years so don't be a nancy about using it either ;x.



Your inbox is full :eyebrow::biggrin:


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## K-Fed

Cleared out sorry about that.


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## Igasho

I will have the wife beat it a bit for ya >


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## K-Fed

Zwiefel, sharpened and shipped it out today. Should be there monday. There are still a couple of remnants of chips in the edge from the last time it got seriously beat on. Just wanted to give you a heads up so you didn't think you did it. Feel free to sharpen it if it needs it and if you give it a good go round it probably will. I put a micro bevel at around 20 degrees on the left side and finish on the back side at around 15 or so, so it's easy to touch up a'la suisin IH per mr. jon broida.


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## Zwiefel

Awesome! looking forward to putting it to work.


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## labor of love

kfed, if its not too late could i be included? if not, its all good.


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## K-Fed

labor of love said:


> kfed, if its not too late could i be included? if not, its all good.



Of course you can. Just to confirm. Are you a lefty?


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## labor of love

Yes, im a lefty!


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## K-Fed

labor of love said:


> Yes, im a lefty!



Sweet. You're in!


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## labor of love

Is the gyuto a 240mm?


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## K-Fed

labor of love said:


> Is the gyuto a 240mm?



Yup


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## Zwiefel

It was dropped off a few minutes ago. Opened to have a quick look at condition...everything looks fine. I'll do something useful with it probably weds/thurs.

2 immediate observations though: 1) considerably heavier than what I'm used to; 2) I've never seen scales protrude above the bolster like that. Did you have it re-handled for larger hands?


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## K-Fed

Zwiefel said:


> It was dropped off a few minutes ago. Opened to have a quick look at condition...everything looks fine. I'll do something useful with it probably weds/thurs.
> 
> 2 immediate observations though: 1) considerably heavier than what I'm used to; 2) I've never seen scales protrude above the bolster like that. Did you have it re-handled for larger hands?


That is the factory handle.


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## ayeung74

I'd certainly be interested if you are still going to do the passaround. Always looking for lefty specific knives to try. Thanks! What sort of edge do you have on it?


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## tk59

Nice idea! I'll be interested to see what y'all think. It's definitely a heavier knife. The butt of the handle can be ground down. IIRC, I ground off 20+ g of metal on mine.


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## labor of love

im definitely going to test it out on a two 50 lb cases of potatoes when i get it.


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## K-Fed

These are some older pics that I took to illustrate the food release on the glestain. It's not the best cutter of the bunch and it steers a bit but I couldn't get stuff to stick to the right side of it if I tried.


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## Zwiefel

I was sick most of the week so I didn't get to use it much....but I did get to spend an hour with it on Saturday, with some potatoes, turnips, spinach, garlic, a couple of onions, and a pile of fruit for a salad. 

Was a good cutter, but I was really impressed by the lack of sticking...particularly with the potatoes. I had to go get another knife out of the drawer to convince myself I wasn't wrong. It does have a bit of sticktion on the right hand side, due to how flat it is...but that went away once I got used to how handle-heavy it is and got my motion going smoothly.

I did notice some steering when cutting through a cantaloupe, but not through a pineapple.

I really enjoyed it....and wish I had been well enough to spend more time with it. I'll put it in the post tomorrow for Mrmnms.


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## Zwiefel

K-Fed, Just realized I totally forgot about taking any photos...apologies. I'll get it right next time!


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## Mrmnms

Received it today. Reminds me of my old Wustof and Henkel knives in weight. When I first saw this years ago, I thought it was "the bomb " . Still very cool. Zweifel left it nice. Played with a little tonight, we'll serious this weekend.


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## Mrmnms

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I was very pleasantly surprised. Felt like the weight of an 8 in German Chef knife. I tried a few different things and compared it to a pretty diverse group of knives. Not the sharpest knife but virtually nothing sticks. Nothing like it. No wedging anywhere near the tip, just off the heel. After I removed a few micro chips and touched up the edge as per K-Fed's suggestion, the knife took on a whole new personality. I don't know how long the edge will hold up, but it's very sharp.


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## Mrmnms

Knife is en route to Igasho (Josh) in British Columbia. Very nice.


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## Zwiefel

nice shots...and dinner! Is that a Gengetsu above the Glestain in the carving pic?


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## Mrmnms

That's a Yoshikane. I pulled out a bunch of knives to compare the edges ,release and wedging before and after sharpening. The scimitars are project knives to re handle. My kids love pot roast. The briskets were supposed to be for some pastrami to cure but I got out voted. Maybe this weekend we'll start again.


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## Igasho

I will be contacting Canada Customs, they are trying to charge me over $87 in customs fee's, worst case scenario they will be marked return to sender and will be coming back your way. I have never been hit with customs for something like this before I will be calling them tomorrow on my lunch break.

Sorry guys I just can't afford $87 in customs and then shipping costs to next person to just try out a super awesome knife, might be different if I was buying it and I got a really good price on it. Even then I have hard time paying customs fee's to the greedy government. 


*edit* 
Oh when I saw the package it had been ripped open by customs and had yellow customs tape ALL over it, I hope those heavy handed bastards didn't damage the blade.

This is the proper place for this post


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## Mrmnms

It appears this knife is held up at Customs according to Igasho. It may be coming back to me. Hopefully, Igasho can resolve it. FYI K-Fed, I fully insured it. Over $40 to ship to Igasho from NY. So sorry.


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## K-Fed

Mrmnms said:


> It appears this knife is held up at Customs according to Igasho. It may be coming back to me. Hopefully, Igasho can resolve it. FYI K-Fed, I fully insured it. Over $40 to ship to Igasho from NY. So sorry.



No worries. I've got a feeling the knife I sent back to Pierre to get fixed is probably hung up in customs as well.


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## Mrmnms

I'll pull the shipping paperwork on Monday in case we don't hear anything.


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## Igasho

OK here is the story. Customs has it and wants $84.84, they will not budge on it. So I will have it returned to sender. However moving forward they have given me the loophole for shipping things to Canada duty free. Insure it however you want up to or above the full value, but on the customs form put no more than $59.99 as the value and always *only* mark the gift box. if any other boxes are marked they will search it. I am sorry I ruined this pass around for a couple weeks.


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## Mrmnms

I was told by my local post office that it was a problem insuring it for one value and declaring another value on the customs form. Curious if anyone has a different experience.


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## Igasho

I have had one passaround come up to me that was insured for full amount and customs form was much less, I purchased one knife from japan and it came same way. I however dont know if its an issue if anything happens to the knife, but I imagine it shouldnt matter so long as the insurance is high enough to cover the value of the knife.


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## Igasho

I really apologize again guys, this is definately pie in my eye :/


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## Zwiefel

heh...that made me think of this...
[video=youtube;69O4PXzAQ5Y]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69O4PXzAQ5Y[/video]

perhaps not quite the emotion you have for Canadian Customs right now though


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## Igasho

I really shouldn't be surprised Can I blame customs for this too? :spiteful: I will anyways :nunchucks:


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## Mrmnms

Oh , that kind of pie. World class pizza in Ct.


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## Zwiefel

Igasho said:


> I really shouldn't be surprised Can I blame customs for this too? :spiteful: I will anyways :nunchucks:




The irony of that is kinda painful. It was supposed to be Dean Martin's Amore.


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## Mrmnms

Any news on where this is?


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## Mrmnms

Should arrive at next stop on Monday.


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## labor of love

Just received the knife. first OOTB impressions are positive. This knife is much lighter than I figured it would be. Its also a little shorter at the heel than i imagined. It has a great edge already, and I'm impressed with the lefty thinning job. Can't wait to use it at work tomorrow.


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## K-Fed

labor of love said:


> Just received the knife. first OOTB impressions are positive. This knife is much lighter than I figured it would be. Its also a little shorter at the heel than i imagined. It has a great edge already, and I'm impressed with the lefty thinning job. Can't wait to use it at work tomorrow.



I've thinned/ sharpened it quite a bit over the last few years as it was my go to for a long time. I'm sure it was at least a couple mm taller when it was new.


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## Mrmnms

The way you set it up, it was super easy to sharpen. I thought this knife was so much more than the steel it was made from. I can understand how it was your everyday user. What do you use now?


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## K-Fed

I don't know that I really have a go to. It kind of rotates between my dt itk, suisin IH, martell rehandled misono and a kikuichi tkc depending on what mood I'm in.


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## labor of love

i shipped the knife off friday...i believe the arrival time for the next person in line is tuesday.


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## labor of love

I used the Glestain this week at work for prep mainly and it saw a little action on the line too. first off, it was a much smaller and lighter knife than i imagined it would be. according to JCKs website the 240 weighs around 270 grams...it certainly didnt feel that heavy to me, but ive been using alot of cleavers lately so maybe im getting more comfortable with bulkier blades...in any event it didnt feel bulky at all, it was quite nimble all around. JCKs site also says the height at the heel is 49 out of the factory, KFED already ackowledged that he probably lost a couple mm off the heel and since im used to much taller gyutos(55-53mm tall 270mm lengths) i had to go through an adjustment period with the glestain, basically a full shift of work before i really became comfortable with it. let me just say first of all, that im a 100% percent carbon guy with exception of a couple of minor forschners and a petty knife. ive become quite used to touching up my edges daily so with this knife considering its smaller size and its stainless steel and its bolster were all things i dont usually prefer. thanks to KFEDs lefty thinning job and the edge retention of the blade itself, i have new found interest in stainless. i used this knife for 4-5 days or about 8 shifts at work and i didnt need to touch it up once. to put that into perspective the edge retention was around 5 times better atleast than several of the hitachi steels, vintage sab steel and a few other carbons i use regularly....not only that but the edge it held was very keen.
The second thing that really impressed me was the food release. as the blade fell through food, the food would lay motionless on the cutting board as if the knife had never touched it in the first place. this might not sound like a big deal but when youre doing very repetitive tasks like cutting gallons of stirfry veggies(peppers, onions, mushrooms) the excellent food release helps you finish the job quicker because youre not constantly cleaning food off your blade and the food isnt really moving on the board so much as you cut, which allows you to focus more on making consistent cuts.
Im not too crazy about the end cap or whatever and i think overall the knife is a little too stylized for my tastes. But that didnt bother much of the shun crowd that i work with to take notice. usually i work with something that has a ho wood or sab handle and this glestain impressed them visually much more lol. Unfortunately, aesthetics are pretty important to me(i suppose im more of a traditionalist) and i just couldnt get over the handle end cap, the blocky bolster and the dimples. So i guess that makes me a vain person, but atleast im honest right? 
The bottom line is that the knife was a treat to use, and my only regret is not sharpening it once because it didnt require it. thanks again kfed.


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## labor of love

BTW this knife is the reason i put a feeler out for a DT ITK in BST. i miss edge retention.


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## Lefty

Dammit...now I'm interested in Glestains again.


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## tk59

LOL. It's about time Glestain gets some love around here.


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## Mrmnms

It would get a lot of use in my kitchen . The whole is more than the sum of the parts.


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## labor of love

if it isnt too off topic, im curious if anybody has experience with a glestain suji? i can only imagine how great food release would effect large roast and other cooked meats.


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## ayeung74

Used it for about a week now and I have to say that the food release never ceases to amaze me. I was cutting tons of fruit to make a big batch of sangria this past weekend and everything I cut just stayed right on the cutting board -- i just love that. It wasn't super sharp when I received it, and I didn't want to sharpen it for fear of messing it up, so I just put it to my leather strop a few licks and surprisingly it was almost back to full sharpiness. I'm curious to how the knife would feel in it's original condition, before the thinning, but I did think the blade thinness was very nice. The one ding I have is the look and feel of the handle -- as is common with Glestains -- just felt too chunky with all the hard lines and angles and a tad on the heavy side. This made the knife feel out of balance to me, which might have been compounded slightly by the thinning job. Anyway, just my personal thoughts...

Thanks for the opportunity to try this knife!!!


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## K-Fed

Got the glestain back today. Thanks guys for taking good care of her. I stropped on a very hard unidentified j-nat and 3 micron diamond paste on leather and she's back to shaving sharp. Nice sharpening job too btw. Very nice clean bevels.


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## Mrmnms

Just curious. How much did you change it from the original profile. The steel was easy to work.


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## K-Fed

The profile of the knife is the same as it was new pretty much. Just a little shorter. And I've tried to maintain as much of the original geometry as possible over time.


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## labor of love

How much extra was the left version? I miss using it. Wasn't to down with the aesthetics though. It's like the knife version of a "but her face"


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## Mrmnms

Knife definitely deserves more respect regardless of the steel.


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## K-Fed

Mrmnms said:


> Knife definitely deserves more respect regardless of the steel.



Agreed. It was the first knife that I got that I don't think I would ever sell. 
@ Lol - I don't remember what I paid for it. I got it through Korin almost four years ago. It is more than the righty version and I do believe that they have gone up in price a bit since I bought mine.


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## labor of love

Man, a lefty 270mm is $383 at Korin. Ouch.


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## chuck239

The 210 was one of my first real Japanese knife purchases (Lefty!) It still sits in my kitchen every day at home. Don't think I could ever sell it. Although I don't love the steel on it, I love the knife and don't think I could ever get rid of it.

-Chuck


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## adam92

Hi Lefties, I'm lefty sushi chef From New Zealand.

May I ask some questions before I pull the trigger? I always using laser chef knife for most of the work or single bevel knife for my sushi job. My previous restaurant chef using the Glestain knife, I only had one time experience to hold the knife, but didn't try any ingredients. first impression is quite heavy.

I don't cut a lot of onion & potato, Only cut some sweet potato once or twice a week for about 3kg.

I cut many of sushi, capsicum, cucumber, carrot, ginger with precious cut. make it thin like hair.

Is it better to stick with laser profile knife? or Glestain is good to do these job as well?


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## WiriWiri

Welcome to 2021 chap, That’s a hell of a bump. Been anywhere nice?

More seriously I suspect there’s still a bit of residual love for Glestains in professional settings, but I’d like to think that there may be better left handed options commonly available now. 

Perhaps some wrong-handers may jump in with more practical help here, or it might be worth filling in that ‘what knife’ questionnaire thing,


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## juice

WiriWiri said:


> Welcome to 2021 chap, That’s a hell of a bump. Been anywhere nice?


It's still 2013 in New Zealand. Even for correct-handed folk.


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## adam92

juice said:


> It's still 2013 in New Zealand. Even for correct-handed folk.


I think I'm might be the only one lefty from New Zealand in this forum.


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## 9fingeredknife

I'll attempt to help. I am a professional cook, who also happens to be left handed and have a 240 Glestain in my knife roll. Quite often its my go to knife, and sees many hours of regular action. I don't think it will thrive in your application though. It will work, but if you're making Katsuramuki and other fine knife work I think you'd work carbon. The knife is fairly heavy, but thats a draw for me. Mine clocks in at 252g, so while not a wusthof, it will feel heavy compared to most knives of a similar length.


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