Four shapes, made repeatedly
Everything we know, on four blades.
Every shape below has been made at least forty times. That is the whole list — not a range, not a starting point. We would rather make four things properly than fourteen things approximately, and a shape only joins this page once the fortieth one is better than the first.
210 mm 26C3 · monosteel
Gyuto
The knife that gets used every day, and the reason most people write to us. Flat through the middle third so it push-cuts cleanly on a board, with just enough belly at the tip to rock through herbs without the handle hitting your knuckles.
26C3 is the cleanest of the three steels and the one that gives the brightest line — a hard, busy hamon with the clay's fingers visible reaching toward the edge. It will rust if you leave it wet. Everybody who has one learns that in the first week and then never again.
- Edge length
- 210 mm
- Height at heel
- 48 mm
- Spine at heel
- 2.9 mm
- Behind the edge
- 0.24 mm
- Weight
- 168 g
- Hardness
- 63–64 HRC
- Grind
- Full flat, distal taper
- Handle
- Oak octagon, horn ferrule
- Finish
- Kasumi, etched
- Guide price
- £520
135 mm W2 · monosteel
Petty
Small, light and the blade where the line is most active. There is no room on a 135 to hide anything: the hamon runs the whole visible length of the steel and any flatness in it is obvious from across a kitchen.
W2 carries a little vanadium, which throws bright flecks above the boundary — the activity people mean when they say a hamon is alive. It is also the least forgiving steel in the shop, and the one we crack most often in the tank.
- Edge length
- 135 mm
- Height at heel
- 28 mm
- Spine at heel
- 2.2 mm
- Behind the edge
- 0.18 mm
- Weight
- 78 g
- Hardness
- 63 HRC
- Grind
- Full flat, distal taper
- Handle
- Walnut octagon
- Finish
- Kasumi, etched
- Guide price
- £340
175 mm San mai · 26C3 core
Bunka
A hard core forge-welded between two soft mild-steel jackets. The jacket takes the knocks, resists rust and keeps the blade from snapping if it is levered; the core stays at full hardness where it matters.
The jacket also hides the hamon. You get the boundary between core and jacket instead, which is a straight weld line, not a temper line. If the line is what you came for, this is the wrong blade — and we would rather say that here than in week nineteen.
- Edge length
- 175 mm
- Height at heel
- 45 mm
- Spine at heel
- 3.1 mm
- Behind the edge
- 0.26 mm
- Weight
- 152 g
- Hardness
- 62 HRC at the core
- Grind
- Convex, k-tip
- Handle
- Bog oak octagon
- Finish
- Jacket left off the stones
- Guide price
- £610
270 mm 1084 · monosteel
Sujihiki
Long, thin and made for single passes through a roast or a side of fish. Thin enough that the food does not tear behind the edge; long enough that a slice comes off in one movement instead of three.
It is made in 1084, the toughest of the three, because a blade this long is going to be levered eventually no matter what we write on this page. The trade is the line: 1084 will take a hamon, but a quiet one. Say now if that matters and we will make it in W2 instead, and tell you to be gentler with it.
- Edge length
- 270 mm
- Height at heel
- 38 mm
- Spine at heel
- 2.6 mm
- Behind the edge
- 0.22 mm
- Weight
- 176 g
- Hardness
- 60 HRC
- Grind
- Full flat, distal taper
- Handle
- Ash octagon
- Finish
- Kasumi, etched
- Guide price
- £590
Off the list
What we will not make.
Stainless, because it hardens all the way through and there would be no line. Folding knives, because the lock is a different trade and we are not good at it. Anything over 300 mm. Anything with a name or a date on the blade — the only mark that goes on our steel is the stamp on the tang.
Resharpening, however, we do for anything we made, for as long as we are here, for the cost of the postage back.