Types of Finishes for Japanese knives. Kurouchi, Migaki, Damascus, Nashiji, Tsuchime.

hey everybody gage here from sharp thanks so much for tuning in it's a pleasure to have you with me in the shop today we're gonna talk a little bit about different styles of finishes for Japanese knives today so your core Ichi Damascus Nishiki Maga key we're gonna talk about them all how they are achieved how it affects the performance of the knife and lastly how it affects the cost of the knife so stay tuned and we're gonna get right to it so what we're gonna do here is just move through the different finishes from most rustic and least refined to least rustic and most refined cool so first finish we're gonna look at is the Kuro hg finish which directly translates to first block the Kuro meaning block and Ichi meaning first it's also known as the blacksmith's finish it is like I said the least refined of the five finishes we're going to going to look at what I'm holding right now is a 240 millimeter Giotto by Mori taka kimono so the way that this finish is achieved is by leaving this black part here you see as would we Forge steel during the forging process it's going to turn this black color all that's happening with these knives is when the knife is ground and the bevels put in here the rest of the blade is not polished at all this definitely gets the cost down on this type of finish so generally speaking you're going to see more affordable price tags on Kuro Ichi knives and they have varying degrees of resiliency so what I found with her witchy knives over the course of my career in the kitchen is they do tend to wipe off so especially with the morning Takas if you're using one of those green scrubs to clean your knife at the end of the day you will definitely scrub this part off and you'll end up with a blade that looks very rustic develops a lot of character so if you're into that style of knife something that's going to not look at all like it is when it's brand new over the years curvy Chi is a great way to go I really love this finish it's one of my favorites I do really enjoy the way the knife kind of changes and develops character over time I do I do try to keep the curvy G on there as best I can so what I tend to do is just make sure that I'm wiping the knife down with something non abrasive as frequently as I can so that it never really requires future much scrubbing the other two knives I've got here are the Yoshimitsu 180 millimeter Giotto and this guy here is by Tosi Ichi 210 millimeter Giotto so courage he finished the most rustic generally speaking the most affordable so moving on to the nassif inish and the shi-jiiy finishes meant to emulate the skin of an Asian pear so it's got this really cool sort of textured feel some would argue that this textured feel is going to help food release from the blade with more ease than with some of the other finishes I've noticed a very slight difference I wouldn't say that it's too drastic and I wouldn't base your knife purchase purchasing decision on that sole factor I would say that the technique that you're using who is going to contribute to the stickiness of the blade more so than the finish itself with that said I know a lot of people who claim that the the rough finish really helps food fall off the blade so who am I to say we all have different experiences then if she gee finish is achieved by polishing off this kuru Ichi finish here and but not polishing to the point where we're we're getting into like a Maga ki finish here where it's very refined so again these guys are typically a little bit more on the affordable side I again really love this in a CG finish I think it looks super super cool again every maker is going to have their own sort of interpretation of the finish so this is why you see three of each of the five finishes here because I just wanted to give you a sense of the variance from maker to maker for each of these styles here we have a go kimono Nishiki finish bunka here we have a Miki kimono santoku and finally we have a Fujimoto santoku all again with that cheeky finish really beautiful finish again highly recommend picking up a knife with this finish they are really nice to look at and relatively easy to take care of they don't really show many of the marks too too much that may arise from general kitchen use so Nishiki finish another great one okay moving on to the sushi me finish sashimi just translates to hand hammered so again there's gonna be a large degree of variance in the finish from a maker to maker with this style what I'm holding in my hand right now is the you Kurosaki Shizuku sashimi line this is the bunka shape one of my favorite shapes he uses a very small hammerhead to get these marks in his knives this is a nakiri made by a caliber son you can see very very different still it's actually finished but obviously a different hammer was used different polishing technique so a good degree of variance there and then finally we've got the sushi me finished knife from Costa Ichi this is a hundred and eighty millimeter Giotto do as I've alluded to the sushi me finishes is achieved by hammering the knife after the forging process and putting in these dimples and marks a really cool feature about this finish and all of the finishes for that matter is that they're all going to be slightly different even even you know Kurosaki Suns bunka if you if you lined up eight next to each other they would all be completely unique so that's really cool you can kind of think about the gentlemen hammering the knife out in the in the shop when you're chopping away your vegetables so the sashimi finish is one of my favorites I think it's really really beautiful again that that sort of story that goes along with every knife is really cool and again a lot of people would argue that the roughness of this finish is going to help food release from the blade easier again I don't know how much I subscribe to that I think it's more due to your technique than anything but again I'll say once more everyone has different experiences so that's why I really love youtube I think that if we could get a little dialogue going down in the comment section about people's favorite types of finishes and and their experiences with them that would be super super cool I would love to see that so sashimi finish or hand hammered next we're gonna move on to Damascus so Damascus is a one that I find has a lot of misconceptions surrounding it the Damascus finish is achieved by first layering typically two different types of Steel together then taking that sort of chunk of steel heating it up and hammering it out and and welding all of those layers together once all those layers are welded together the steel is then folded over pound it out again and weld it together until and and of course every every time we make a fold our the the amount of layers is growing exponentially so what a lot of us and again this is kind of due to the marketing that's gone into Damascus knives people are led to believe that the Damascus finish is going to contribute to better performance with the knife and that is simply not true Damascus finishes do not contribute anything in terms of performance that is simply an aesthetic thing as are most of the finishes I would argue like we said some of them some people would argue that these rougher finishes help food release from the blade and there are other sort of advantages and disadvantages that people will talk about with all the finishes but in my experience they are mostly aesthetic with the exception of some of the maintenance that goes into like a curly she finish over like a sushi knee or or in Megrahi or something like that so with that said Damascus knife or any knife that's really really beautiful is going to be more attractive to the user and make you want to get in the kitchen and use it more often I think I know me personally I'm happy to spend the extra money on a knife that's super super beautiful and these three knives I have here are the Yamamoto 165 millimeter nakiri in the middle here we have the 180 millimeter Giotto from shigeki Tanaka and then finally we've got a 170 millimeter nakiri from Kato sod these two on the right here you'll notice our quite dark both these makers used black ins nickel and they're layering of steel and that's why you're seeing this this black part here and black on here and it really gives a cool contrast with the with the steel and the black and nickel I really love the Damascus finish I think it looks super super cool if I've got the money handy and I got a little extra cash burning a hole in my pocket I'm going after a Damascus knife for sure so lastly we're going to talk about the me gawky finish or polished so this again is one that has a lot of variants in it from maker to maker some people will take that polished finish further than others getting to the point of almost a mirror finish like you'll see on this kyoto 210 millimeter from Yoshida home oh no you can see the camera there and the reflection like I said they're all gonna be a little bit different I have these arranged in their reflective NISS so most reflective - least reflective this guy here is a su qunari 210 millimeter Giotto and then finally a tack amaura Giotto here as well the takamura has a bit more of like a sort of like a cloudy polished finish to it still very beautiful finish but definitely not as reflective as this finish here from Yoshida Hummel now the more polished your knife is the more scratches are gonna show up on it so I would argue that if you want a knife that's going to remain the same aesthetically for a longer amount of time go with like an ax she G or a sashimi finish or even a Damascus finish they tend to hide sort of the scuffs and scratches a little bit better career vici finish like we talked about can wear off and and and show marks a little bit easier if it's not maintained properly and again with the Maga key if if you get any like little scratches on these knives they tend to show a lot more than on some of the more textured finishes so in terms of performance we've briefly talked about that already I would argue that in terms of performance all of these finishes are gonna have very slight differences but but again I would say technique is more more contributing factor in the in the performance of the knife and and more more so the the geometry of the edge is gonna have a bigger impact on on the performance of the knife so you know you can find really really thin knives with an edgy finish but you can also find really really thick knives with a Nishiki finish a thick behind the edge I mean so the thicker the knife is behind the edge the generally speaking the the less desirable cutting feel it's going to have so again I would say the geometry of the knife plays a bigger role in the performance than the finish typically speaking the finishes are aesthetic so pick something that looks cool to you but if I had to rank these finishes I would say whoo sashimi is gonna be my favorite followed by Damascus followed by Kuro Ichi followed by Nishiki followed by Maga so let me know down below what your ranking would be number one to number five which is your favorite which is your least favorite and again if we could get a little dialog going in the comment section that would be super cool share your experiences with which finishes you prefer and the advantages and disadvantages if you disagree with me in terms of performance and yea that's it for me so thank you so much for watching this video I hope it gave you some good insight on to the finishes available here at sharp and how it may affect the decision you make when purchasing a knife thanks again for watching please leave a like if you like this video as I said leave a comment down below and subscribe to my channel for more knife related content till the next video have a good one

Channel: Sharp Knife Shop

Views: 66,569

Keywords: Japanese knife, japanese knives, kuroichi, damascus, nashiji, migaki, tsuchime, gyuto, santoku, nakiri, chef knife, chef's knife, kitchen knife, knife

Id: EyLsgw6c5Ek

Length: 14min 58sec (898 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 29 2019