# Review: DaoVua 240mm Gyuto



## drink more water (Dec 17, 2020)

I bought this piece completely on a whim from cktg because I was ordering a new stone after dropping my old 5k grit stone and cracking it into many unfortunate pieces. This gyuto is Vietnamese made in an extremely unique hybridized western/japanese style. the handle is made from unknown materials or at least unknown to me and is sort of a mish mash of a western, octaganol, and d shaped handle. The steel is 5160 recycled leaf spring steel, it is a monosteel construction with KU finish. the blade shape is very similar to the old sabatier knives with a pointy triangle shaped tip with a french style belly and is advertised as a gyuto. let me start off with some of the features that many reviews I have seen have gotten caught up on. My fit and finish was far from perfect, The handle was actually constructed much better than I had anticipated however there was epoxy drip from the tang junction, the epoxy was not sanded even with the top of the handle, I had a small bump on the spine, a pock mark near the logo and my grind was a bit wavy. Out of the box sharpness was probably a 2 or 2.5. This isn't a knife that you take out of the metaphorical box (as it actually didn't come shipped in a box), clean and take it against onions. Now on to the positives. This knife was $65 USD. I had 220 and 600 grit sandpaper and other than a few scratches on my KU finish all the other fit and finish issues were basically taken care of within 10 minutes. I took out a 400 grit stone and really worked on reshaping that edge, then took it up on my other stones to 6k and stropped it and it is shaving thin. Its a bit of a rough and tumble knife it wont have that mirror polish or flawless F&F that a more expensive piece will have but realistically after half an hour of love this knife looks as nice as something like my moderately cheap yamashin santoku that was twice the price. I took it to onions carrots celery even some chicken and its edge held up and am bringing it to work today to handle all of my prep and service just to put it through the wringer. If you're someone who is looking for an interesting style of knife, a bargain, or a knife to learn how to sharpen carbon knives with or even a knife you want to refinish this is a great value for the price. If you're someone who doesn't want to worry about the gamble of what will be wrong with this knife or not someone who likes fixing imperfect things when they are brand new then its probably an easy skip. For me it was a fun project for a night and I ended up with a knife I feel like performs as well as others twice its price so I'm pretty happy with it. I would guess on mine hrc is about 61 or 62 but I haven't tested it but my heat treat seems pretty consistent all the way through. Apologies for the lengthy review but I wanted to be thorough with my analysis as this is a highly debated knife in other reviews. Thank you all for your time.


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## Dull_Apex (Dec 17, 2020)

Thanks for taking the time to review the knife and describe what you had to do with it. 

Did you happen to take before and after pictures?


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## Qapla' (Dec 17, 2020)

Paragraphs, please?


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## drink more water (Dec 18, 2020)

Qapla' said:


> Paragraphs, please?


yeah that was my bad. was typing on my phone at work and it ended up being a rambler


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## drink more water (Dec 18, 2020)

Dull_Apex said:


> Thanks for taking the time to review the knife and describe what you had to do with it.
> 
> Did you happen to take before and after pictures?


In my haste to get it cleaned up I didn't take before pictures but I'll happily send after pictures when I get home


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## mcwcdn (Jan 3, 2021)

Do you think this would be a good knife to practice thinning on?


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## Bensbites (Jan 3, 2021)

Thanks for the review. I had one, I thinned it out and it cut really well. I ended up selling it to support my knife habit. I kinda regret that one, but I have steel in the shop and plan on making my own version.


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## stereo.pete (Jan 4, 2021)

Is there something wrong with my browser, I don’t see any pictures?


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## CommandoCobraRamboKnife (Jan 25, 2021)

Through my recent adventures I have acquired two knives from the DaoVua masters. I found the DaoVua Leaf Spring Tall Petty while scaling the Fanispan mountain during the rescue of a duchess kidnapped by the one eyed evil mastermind Sotu. The other, pipeline steel steak knife, given to me by the direct descendants of the Nguyễn dynasty for guarding their children at day care. I can tell you these knives, as beautiful as they are, do suffer flaws and are not worthy of my quiver. While preparing foods for my beautiful harem, I've found that the black stain on these knifes release onto my perfectly harvested onions dug from the soil of volcanoes of ancient lands of the gods. This is a no-go at this station! Barkeepers helper wiped them clean and they now serve as a back up to my much more worthy steel. However, they can be used for a shiv to mark your enemies hearts with the black stain to match their souls.


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## DavidPF (Feb 5, 2021)

CommandoCobraRamboKnife said:


> I can tell you these knives, as beautiful as they are, do suffer flaws and are not worthy of my quiver.


So stop quivering already! Quiver, quiver, quiver - what do you think this is, the Shaky-Shakes Quivering Society?


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## JASinIL2006 (May 27, 2021)

I recently purchased one of these leaf-spring gyutos, not so much to add to my quiver, but to use as a practice blade for sharpening. I think the original review is spot on. It's certainly not refined, but for $65, it's an interesting knife.


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## tomsch (Oct 12, 2021)

I also just ordered one of these to practice my thinning and sharpening. The goal is to determine if a need a new stone between my 120 flattening, 800, and 3000 grit stones. I can always take it to my Gen3 Wicked Edge but the goal is to improve on my hand sharpening.


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## LostHighway (Oct 12, 2021)

I have the Dao Vua leaf spring bunka which I also bought as a practice sharpening mule. The price has gone up since I bought mine and at current prices I think their value is a little marginal. QC is definitely not a strong point on the examples I've seen. I would be surprised if the HRC of mine is above 60. For a bunka my example has a crazy amount of belly. I don't regret the purchase but prospective buyers really need to understand that these fall into the project or practice knife category. For those than can afford the price step I think the Tosa made knives are a better investment.
Apparently these are crazy cheap directly out of Viet Nam but they don't ship orders for one or two, however, they don't, or at least didn't, require a purchase of hundreds either so a small group purchase might be an option.


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## tomsch (Oct 13, 2021)

Well said. I will be surprised if the quality is anything above a project knife.


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## tomsch (Oct 15, 2021)

My 240mm arrived today and I'm surprised that the blade is straight, decent grind, and overall the construction is very good for a $65 project knife. It certainly will benefit from a touch-up on the stones but overall I'm happy. I'll see how the edge lasts but it will serve the purpose as a sharpening practice knife.


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## stringer (Oct 15, 2021)

drink more water said:


> I bought this piece completely on a whim from cktg because I was ordering a new stone after dropping my old 5k grit stone and cracking it into many unfortunate pieces. This gyuto is Vietnamese made in an extremely unique hybridized western/japanese style. the handle is made from unknown materials or at least unknown to me and is sort of a mish mash of a western, octaganol, and d shaped handle. The steel is 5160 recycled leaf spring steel, it is a monosteel construction with KU finish. the blade shape is very similar to the old sabatier knives with a pointy triangle shaped tip with a french style belly and is advertised as a gyuto. let me start off with some of the features that many reviews I have seen have gotten caught up on. My fit and finish was far from perfect, The handle was actually constructed much better than I had anticipated however there was epoxy drip from the tang junction, the epoxy was not sanded even with the top of the handle, I had a small bump on the spine, a pock mark near the logo and my grind was a bit wavy. Out of the box sharpness was probably a 2 or 2.5. This isn't a knife that you take out of the metaphorical box (as it actually didn't come shipped in a box), clean and take it against onions. Now on to the positives. This knife was $65 USD. I had 220 and 600 grit sandpaper and other than a few scratches on my KU finish all the other fit and finish issues were basically taken care of within 10 minutes. I took out a 400 grit stone and really worked on reshaping that edge, then took it up on my other stones to 6k and stropped it and it is shaving thin. Its a bit of a rough and tumble knife it wont have that mirror polish or flawless F&F that a more expensive piece will have but realistically after half an hour of love this knife looks as nice as something like my moderately cheap yamashin santoku that was twice the price. I took it to onions carrots celery even some chicken and its edge held up and am bringing it to work today to handle all of my prep and service just to put it through the wringer. If you're someone who is looking for an interesting style of knife, a bargain, or a knife to learn how to sharpen carbon knives with or even a knife you want to refinish this is a great value for the price. If you're someone who doesn't want to worry about the gamble of what will be wrong with this knife or not someone who likes fixing imperfect things when they are brand new then its probably an easy skip. For me it was a fun project for a night and I ended up with a knife I feel like performs as well as others twice its price so I'm pretty happy with it. I would guess on mine hrc is about 61 or 62 but I haven't tested it but my heat treat seems pretty consistent all the way through. Apologies for the lengthy review but I wanted to be thorough with my analysis as this is a highly debated knife in other reviews. Thank you all for your time.



Nice review. Thanks for sharing


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## adam_Cullen (Oct 20, 2021)

solid review! I have seen them on ck2g and sharp so i was wondering if they were really worth being in the same line-up. would love to see some before/after pics to really see what all you've done and had to do.. might be a good Christmas idea for the less "knife lovers" in the family? maybe?


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## tomsch (Dec 5, 2021)

Finally spent some time to correct the rather erratic grind. It can use more work but I went through a 800/3000 grit to at least straighten up the edge followed by a loaded strop. Still can use some work but at least it has a working sharp edge. I'm going to use it for dinner prep tonight to see how it actually cuts.


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## tomsch (Dec 6, 2021)

Oh and yes I am clearly still working to improve my sharpening  Used the 240 for dinner prep and it worked fine but I still think it can benefit from some thinning. That will be my next sharpening learning/project.


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## tomsch (Jan 25, 2022)

Just a quick update. I did spend some time practicing my thinning skills using a #140 stone. Went from there to my #800 and #3000 grit followed by a loaded strop. Now it's crazy sharp. Even testing it I think I cut off my thumb fingerprint  Not sure how long the edge will last but it's been a fun journey. Next stop is my vintage Forgecraft.


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## KingShapton (Jan 25, 2022)

tomsch said:


> Just a quick update. I did spend some time practicing my thinning skills using a #140 stone. Went from there to my #800 and #3000 grit followed by a loaded strop. Now it's crazy sharp. Even testing it I think I cut off my thumb fingerprint  Not sure how long the edge will last but it's been a fun journey. Next stop is my vintage Forgecraft.


That sounds very good, can you show us some recent pictures?


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## JASinIL2006 (Jan 25, 2022)

Very interesting. I just got my Norton Crystolon coarse stone to correct the bad grinds on my DaoVua. Despite the crazy grind, I still have been able to get a pretty good edge on mine, but it is quite wedgy.

Haven't tried my Norton stone yet, but I hope to this evening if the planets align...


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## tomsch (Jan 25, 2022)

I'll take some pictures tomorrow and send them out. I agree that before the thinning it was very wedgy. I'm ordering Greek doordash tonight so won't be cooking since I'm in meetings until 7pm but hopefully tomorrow


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