Nakagawa 210mm Gyuto Aogami 1 Damascus Dark Etch Ebony Handle

Nakagawa-san's knives are characterized by excellent heat control during forging and a very thorough heat treatment creating knives that have superb edge formation and edge life with good toughness. His carbon steels are usually easy to sharpen across most steel types. Nakagawa-san reputation as one of a few blacksmiths in Sakai to forge Ginsanko and VG10 stainless steels that results in excellent edge life and toughness is well earned, his ginsanko is one of the best we have used and sharpened, really superb edge life, toughness and edge formation.

Super fine convex grinding by Myojin Naohito. Naohito-san became known to us here from his fabulous grinds and finishes on the Konosuke Fujiyama FM knives. We have been consistently impressed with how nicely these fine blades cut and at the quality of his finish work. It is exciting to get more knives finished by this very talented sharpener and now blacksmith as Naohito-san has begun to forge some of his own knives. 

These have a solid feel with little overall flex but the edge is super thin and ‘nail-going’; it can be temporarily bent with pressure against a fingernail, an old style test for proper thinness on a fine ground blade. While not the thinnest in our stock at the spine behind the edge they are quite possibly the thinnest. They will cut very very smoothly but can be easy to damage if any twisting, lateral pressure or scraping is applied. These are best suited for those already using thin edged Japanese knives and maybe not the best first Japanese knife for someone used to forgiving tougher knives. 

Do not leave wet. Hand wash & dry, no dishwasher. Hardwood-end grain or softwood long grain cutting boards are preferred; avoid bamboo and plastic cutting boards.