# Konosuke Swedish stainless petty



## mark76 (Nov 9, 2015)

It is said that in your kitchen you really need only two knives: a gyuto and a paring knife. I agree. Some people would throw in a bread knife, but thats about it. For most home cooks the gyuto will be 21 to 24 centimeters and the paring knife will be 9 to 10 centimeters.

Nevertheless I found the gap between 9 cm and 21 cm rather large, so I thought there must be a use for a 15 cm knife, a petty. I got one, but I initially didnt find much use for it. I still did nearly all the cutting with my gyuto and I grabbed my paring knife for paring and the occasional delicate work on a vegetable. I know quite a few chefs use an 18 cm or so petty as a line knife, but I am not a professional chef. Only now, a couple of years later, I find I instinctively grab my petty for a number of tasks.

So what do I use it for? Probably most for slicing sandwiches and buns. This is much cleaner than with a serrated knife and the petty has got the perfect length for it. I also use it as a small sujihiki. I usually make sushi and sashimi from small cuts of fish and a petty is perfect for that. The same goes for small cuts of meat. There are also some specialized tasks I use my petty for, like trimming silverskin. Or deboning a chicken, since I don't have a boning knife. And because Ive grown to like the knife, I sometimes use it to cut smaller vegetables, like tomatoes, as an alternative to a gyuto.

I recently got a 14 cm Konosuke Swedish stainless petty.

*First impression*

The fit and finish of this knife is very good. The blade is well polished: the grinding scratches are barely visible. Both the spine and the choil have been rounded. And the knife has a ho wood handle with a buffalo horn ferrule that fits the knife perfectly. Even though the handle is very ergonomic, I found it a bit bland. So I replaced it with a beautiful maple burl and bog oak handle by Anton Kudris.







One reason I got this knife is that it is very thin. The choil shot may not tell you that much, since it doesnt tell the dimensions, but halfway the knife is 1.6 mm thick at the spine and it measures only 0.5 mm at half a centimeter from the edge. This makes it the thinnest knife in my house. The blade is slightly convexed on both sides.






The knife also has a very nice distal taper, from 1.8 cm above the heel to 0.6 cm one centimeter from the tip.






*Use*

Before use I sharpened the knife on my Shapton Pro stones, finishing at 16K. I then set out to slice some tomatoes. Who said a tomato needs a toothy edge?

https://wordpress.com/post/90231485/492

I love the edge this steel can take! Even though Konosuke does not disclose the type of steel, I am almost certain it is 13C26 or its Uddeholm equivalent, AEB-L.






Due to its thinness the knife also performed wonderfully on onions. Well, the knife performed wonderfully on everything I threw at it. The knife has some flex, but surprisingly little, considering its thinness. I hardly notice it in practice. I sometimes make sashimi just to have an excuse to grab my Konosuke again.

[IMG}https://japaneseknifereviews.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/board.jpg[/IMG]

*Conclusion*

I love this knife. Everything about it is perfect. That is not to say this knife is without competition. I already reviewed laser-type stainless knives by Suisin and Ashi Hamono, and they did a great job as well. But this Konosuke is going to stay in my house.






*Factsheet*

Click on the factsheet to view a larger version.


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## mark76 (Nov 9, 2015)

Sorry for the large pictures. The video is visible, but you need to click on the link. I you can help me to embed it in the post, please let me know.


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## icanhaschzbrgr (Nov 9, 2015)

[video=vimeo;139127846]https://vimeo.com/139127846[/video]


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## mark76 (Nov 9, 2015)

Thanks Anton! Unfortunately I cannot edit the post anymore. But for the next time, I'll keep you tip in mind.

The video shows fine on my blog, by the way,


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## spoiledbroth (Nov 9, 2015)

Nice review. Also really great handle.


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## SousVideLoca (Nov 9, 2015)

Can we get a kickstarter or something going for Mark, so he can do this with every knife ever made?


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## mark76 (Nov 9, 2015)

That sounds a like a geat idea! :biggrin: I have a few knives , by the way, which I have not reviewed yet (both bought and loaned). But if there are knife makers or dealers who'd like to have their kives reviewed, I'm happy to do so. I promise to be careful with them.


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## spoiledbroth (Nov 9, 2015)

People do get free stuff for writing review blogs. Thing is, it's best if you can give a number of readers (unique visitors to your blog per day perhaps) and let them know you post on the big knife forums (at least I feel like I've seen your reviews on another site, could be wrong).


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## mark76 (Nov 9, 2015)

Do you mean I should post on the bigger forums, like Bladeforums? The advantage of Kitchenknifeforums is that it's almostely solely geared to kitchen knife lovers. The same applied to Kitchenknifefora. It's a bit smaller, but there are a lot of custum knife makers on it and a lot of young makers. And the advantage of posting on my blog is that the reviews will be easy to find a year later as well. (Plus the formatting is much better.)

Or did you have any other ideas?


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## spoiledbroth (Nov 9, 2015)

No, no. I think its good to stick to the forums that focus on kitchen knives.


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