# Takeda Classic yanagiba vs. Ashi Hamono Ginga sujihiki



## mark76 (Oct 8, 2016)

*Takeda Classic yanagiba vs. Ashi Hamono Ginga sujihiki*

Some time ago I got a Takeda Classic 270 mm yanagiba. At least, Takeda calls it a yanagiba. It is a double beveled knife, so technically it is a sujihiki. The knife was supposed to have a wide bevel, but unfortunately it didnt. I was too late to send it back to the shop I got it from, so I sent an email to Takeda. I quickly got a response and Takeda (call me Shosui) invited me to send the knife back to him for a regrind.







I did, but now I was without a sujihiki. I decided to get an Ashi Hamono Ginga sujihiki, since I already had a Ginga gyuto by Ashi Hamono which I liked a lot. Delivery was fast: within a week I had a new knife straight from Japan. A few weeks later I got my Takeda back, so then I had two sujihikis straight from Japan.






*Looks*

The Takeda is a gorgeous knife. I have never seen a more beautiful kurouchi on any knife. Below the kurouchi is the soft cladding (jigane) with a hazy look (kasumi), followed by the shiny carbon core. This core would pick up a blue-ish patina soon after use, but this doesnt affect the cladding, which is not very reactive.

The knife has an attractive octagonal rosewood handle with a buffalo horn ferrule. Unfortunately, a tad too much epoxy was used to attach the handle to the blade. The spine and the choil have not been rounded, but there are no sharp edges either. The knife weighs 135 grams and the balance point is about five centimeters in front of the choil. This makes the knife pretty blade-heavy.






The Ashi Hamono knife has perhaps an even better fit and finish than the Takeda, but it looks a bit more bland. The blade is well polished and the spine and choil have been rounded, making it very comfortable to hold. The handle is made of ho wood with a buffalo horn ferrule. It fits the blade immaculately. However, since I wanted this knife to look a little more exciting, I had it rehandled by Greg Gola. He made a nice handle of Amboyna burl with muskox horn and cow horn spacers. With the old handle the knife weighed only 101 grams and the balance point was one centimeter in front of the choil.






*Blades*

The core steel of the Takeda is made of Aogami Supersteel, This has a higher wear resistance than Shirogami steel, but a lower edge retention than Aogami steel.






The Takeda has a wide-bevel grind that is slightly asymmetrical. About 1.5 cm from the edge the blade starts to taper down like in a full flat grind (v-grind). This means it is not very thin above the edge, but as will appear, this doesnt much affect its performance as a sujihiki.
The spine of the Takeda has hardly any tapering and consequently it has a pretty thick tip. One centimeter from the tip the spine is 1.4 mm wide and this makes the tip the thickest of all of the knives I own.






The Takeda has a pretty flat profile with a curve towards the tip and a slight curve towards the heel as well.






The Ashi Hamono is made of Swedish stainless steel, which is rumored to be AEB-L or its equivalent, 13C26. It is a true laser: the spine is 2.3 mm wide above the heel and tapers to a nice 0.8 mm at one centimeter from the tip.











The blade of the Ashi Hamono is convex on one side only, just as that of my https://japaneseknifereviews.wordpress.com/2015/05/22/suisin-inox-honyaki-versus-ashi-hamono-ginga/]Ashi Hamono gyuto[/url].

The knife has a pretty flat profile as well.






*Use*

I didnt have to sharpen the knives. The Ashi Hamono was quite sharp out of the box and the Takeda had just been sharpened by the master himself.

I first tested the knives on potatoes. Potatoes? Yes, potatoes. Some time ago I posted an article called https://japaneseknifereviews.wordpress.com/2015/03/15/is-food-release-overrated/]]Is food release overrated?[/url] based on my bad experiences with food release even on thicker knives. Someone gave me the tip to try a sujihiki.

And he was right. The Takeda, with its somewhat thicker spine and wide bevel, released potato slices quite easily. The slices also stuck less to the Ashi Hamono sujihiki than to my laser gyutos. This should not be that surprising, since a sujihiki has less blade height than a gyuto, so there is simply less blade to stick to.

Then I tested the knives on what they are made for: proteins. I started by slicing a roast. The Takeda cut this meat much easier than the Ashi Hamono. This latter knife had a tendency to stick to the meat, which increased the cutting resistance.






When filleting a piece of salmon I liked, perhaps not unexpectedly, the Ashi Hamono better. This knife is really thin. You just need to place it flat on a piece of fish and then twist it slightly, so the edge catches the fish meat. In this way you can make very thin slices. In addition the Ashi Hamono has quite a bit of flex, which also eases filleting. The knife did pretty well on dry-cured ham, too.






When cutting pieces of fish for sashimi, I liked the Takeda better again. This knife has little flex, so it seems to offer more precision than the Ashi Hamono. I write seems, since I think this is largely psychological: the amount of lateral force that is applied when cutting pieces of fish is pretty minimal; it is so little it will not cause the Ashi Hamono to actually flex. On raw meat as well I preferred the feel of the Takeda, which is also more blade-heavy, but the results are the same.

Some chefs use a long petty or a small sujihiki as a line knife. I am a home cook and even though I liked the food release of the Takeda, I am unlikely to use a sujihiki as an alternative to my gyutos. But just for the fun of it I tried cutting up onions, carrots and tomatoes. Both knives did well on the tomatoes, but the Ashi Hamono did notably better on the carrots and onions. Here it showed that the Takeda is pretty thick behind the edge and that it has a thick tip. The knife almost refused to make horizontal cuts in onions and it made carrots say crack. Where the Ashi Hamono can be used as an all-round knife, the Takeda is primarily a protein cutter.

*Conclusions*

Even though they are both sujihikis, the Takeda and the Ashi Hamono are quite different knives. The Takeda is a somewhat thicker knife with wide bevels and little flex that excels in cutting cooked meat. The Ashi Hamono is a laser with quite a bit of flex that excels at filleting. They both cut raw fish and raw meat fine, but I prefer the Takeda for this, since it has a bit more heft and less flex.






If I had to use a shorter version of either of these knives as an all-round knife, I would pick the Ashi Hamono. This knife is thin behind the edge and it has a thin tip. The Takeda is too thick behind the edge and has too little distal taper to make it useful as a general purpose knife.


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## aboynamedsuita (Oct 9, 2016)

Great write up, that Takeda regrind looks pretty good! It seems like you got a nicer one too, my Takeda has a lopsided stamp. Yours also has an appropriately sized handle I've seen a lot that are too small IMO

One thing I'm a bit confused by is the following quote:


> The core steel of the Takeda is made of Aogami Supersteel, This has a higher wear resistance than Shirogami steel, but a lower edge retention than Aogami steel.



It's late and I'm tired, but isn't AS regarded for higher edge retention, and don't edge retention and wear resistance often go hand in hand?


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## mark76 (Oct 9, 2016)

You're right. It is very late here, too . I've adapted it on my site.


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## mark76 (Oct 9, 2016)

I had forgotten the factsheets...


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## sergeysus (Oct 10, 2016)

Really good points on the difference between two knives. The regrind is looks like the old style Takeda and if you get tired of it let me know. Seriously.


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