# Halcyon Forge Gyuto 235mm



## valgard (Feb 18, 2018)

*The short version of the review*: One of my top 3 favourite knives at the moment when I take into account all factors from performance, to aesthetics, to how much fun it is to polish and use.

Now for the *lengthy review*:

Description
Well, the knife just looks incredible, fits my aesthetic inclinations perfectly. Great lines, nice brut de forge finish, cladding is an incredibly figured wrought iron with Blue #2 core and a Nickel layer in between. Handle is a very nicely executed western hidden tang with nice palm swell in a gorgeous piece of ironwood and oasis for the ferrule. Bevels are very tall and the coolest thing on to polish on earth lol. Joe was great to work with, I let him do his thing for the most part but specified length, handle style and ferrule material. Choosing the main handle block was exhausting but fun and well worth it and I ended up reserving another block for a future project lol. 

Some specs
Weight: 205g
Heel to Tip Length- 235mm
Blade Height at Heel- 55mm 
Width of Spine at Handle-3.6 mm
Width of Spine Above Heel-3.5mm
Width of Spine at Middle- 2.6mm
Width of Spine 1cm from the tip- 1.1mm

Fit and Finish

Finish on the handle is fantastic, very nice satin look and texture is great, tang fit is tight xD. Spine and choil are rounded and polished. Joe goes above and beyond by finishing the bevels on his wide bevel gyuto completely on bench stones, from flattening the bevels on ATOMA all the way to a progression of Jnats. Bevels are consequently the most stone ready bevels Ive ever seen out of the box, not perfect but WAY ahead of the field. Theres a couple shallow low spots remaining with corresponding ATOMA scratches around the shinogi but thats nothing compared to what you get from even the highest end knives normally.

Steel, sharpening, and edge retention.

Steel is Blue #2, sharpens pretty damn well and easy (the fact that its super thin at the edge helps ease of sharpening I guess but super easy so far. I cant judge edge retention too much especially on this one because I polish it about 2 times a week and touch up the edge frequently while Im at it but its definitely at least decent to good, when I left it without sharpening for almost 3 weeks it did very well. The cladding gets the wildest patina from any and all sorts of food, even onion patina is purple but beef patina is just insane, so much blue, purple and red!

Performance

Balance is right at my pinch grip making it feel very nimble, its lighter than many of my other knives but feels great in hand. The grind emphasizes easy of cutting and easy of maintenance over food release. Particularly theres a trade off between easy of maintenance and food release with making the bevels nearly flat for stone work and Joe has chosen ease of maintenance which makes sense in the case of knives that are so nice to polish. That said the food release is definitely not one of the strong point of this knife but not terrible by any means. In pure ease of cutting the knife does really well as you would expect from a knife that is so thin at the edge and behind the edge, did I mention the grind is super thin? Almost no cracking whatsoever cutting big chunks of thick carrots. Ive seen him do a couple more robust grinds but this is his most typical one I think. The tip is just sweet, even better at gliding through onions than any of my Katos tips and those are already very good.

The only point of the knife that doesnt entirely work for me is the profile, the pronounced angle between the handle and the cutting edges long flat spot looks extremely sexy and appealing but just doesnt work very well for my cutting technique and the height of my cutting surface with respect to my elbow resulting in some slight clunkiness when cutting because I dont do straight down cutting at precisely the right angle. For my next gyuto from him I will try to have him make the edge from heel to middle much closer to parallel to the handle and maybe a super gentle curve like my Kato standard instead of a true very long flat spot. In fact, I have had several conversations with Joe about this topic and I have also seen his profiles evolve since this knife. 

In any case, my overall evaluation is that this is a fantastic knife, great performer, awesome fit and finish and the aesthetics are perfect for me.

Now for some pics (most pics (the ones with good light xD) are courtesy of Joe Schrum from Halcyon Forge)









View attachment 38559


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## chinacats (Feb 18, 2018)

Very nice review Carlos, thanks! Is there maker's mark on this?


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## valgard (Feb 18, 2018)

chinacats said:


> Very nice review Carlos, thanks! Is there maker's mark on this?



Thanks Jim, yes HF is the maker's mark. Not so easy to see since he stamps it before the heat treatment I think.


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## Wdestate (Feb 18, 2018)

love reading reviews. good stuff.


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## Marek07 (Feb 19, 2018)

Accidental post - sorry.


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