Harukaze Aogami Super 240mm First Look

[Lepus]

This is a knife I have wanted to test for a long time. In a way I bought it because of this forum, but it was also for personal exposure. This knife is an interesting example of what can be done on a budget.

The Harukaze presents a neat package. It is a full sized gyuto made from aogami super with a stainless steel jacket, real kanji, and a Japanese hardwood handle for well under $200. That is daring, and the $150 210mm and $130 180mm are maybe even more so. I will spend some time on the knife but it seems pretty great so far.

The Harukaze comes in a pretty standard box with the blade wrapped in a Tosa newspaper. Inside the paper is a plastic sleeve encased knife. The plastic sleeve was tight on mine and where it had stuck to the knife it did leave some marks, not great. They came off with a polishing cloth. I will not be using the sleeve in the future.

The handle on this knife is lighter than I expected. Between the weight and fairly smooth finish, it feels inorganic and to my surprise cheap, something I did not expect out of rosewood. I compared it to my Kashima handle, which is also rosewood with a pakka ferrule, and the weight and balances of the knife are very close. I think I may sand and refinish the handle to see if I can give it a little life.

The finish on the knife is extremely nice. It is more highly polished than usual, not a mirror but not far off. The cladding line catches light easily and looks like it should be recessed, but it is as far as my fingers can tell the transition is perfectly smooth. It might be a trick of some layered metal separating the core and cladding steel, but the line doesn’t have the haze I usually associate with nickel. Maybe it’s particularly thin. The kanji tops it off nicely. On one side it is stamped, on the other it is tightly chiseled in.

The spine is average, not fully relieved but not sharp. The choil is really weird. It has been relieved at a shallow angle that leaves a three or four centimeter plane on either side of the choil. Where they meet is thin, almost to the point of being sharp, but I think it’s quite comfortable. I like the overall effect a lot. It brings to mind plunge lines.

The profile is neutral, for better and worse. It has maybe 60mm of flat spot at the heel with the faintest hint of back belly, little enough as to go unnoticed in use. The rest of the length curves constantly to meet the tip. The spine does swell up a bit at the tip, which having used it with the Kohetsus I still don’t really get or like, but it is much more modest than with a Kohetsu.

The grind on the Harukaze is extremely thin at the edge. It rises from the edge pretty flat with a little concavity for about a third of the knife’s height, then hits a convexed shoulder that lasts another third, then flattens out again back to the spine. It lacks the subtle lower convexing of a Shibata or an Ashi laser, but I think that shoulder might give it the little bit of muscle gladius has mentioned his 210mm having. I have not cut much yet, but I expect ingredients will stick unless they are pretty tall. I can’t imagine this knife wedging, the grind is just too tall.

This knife came surprisingly sharp. I use cheap puzzle books as my sharpness testing medium these days and it push or draw cuts thin, cheap paper quite cleanly. It is not sharp enough to pass the hanging hair test, but it does catch the hair. The Takamura this shipped with is sharper, but only a little bit.

[LostHighway]

Thanks for the review. I've been looking at this line with some interest, it certainly appears to offer excellent value. Is the transition to the convexed shoulder fairly abrupt or more gradual? I look forward to further comments when you've used it more and have better sense of the quality of the heat treatment and edge retention.

[salemj]

"The Takamura this shipped with..." Hmm...

Looking forward to a follow-up! To be honest, I think it is loads of fun to try knives in the 100-300 range. This review reminds me of what I wrote a couple weeks ago suggesting Mark bring a few batches of competitive knives in these ranks (including his own offerings) to Chicago for all of us to get re-acquainted with rather than focusing on more rare and one-off, expensive offerings, even though most of the people heading to Chicago are probably the same people interested in the more unique and expensive stuff. It is fun and usually gratifying to see just how much knife you can get for under 200, and I also think it helps to put 400+ knives back in their place as functional art that is not necessarily all that more functional than cheaper options.

Anyways, back to my opening: I'll be very curious to hear about how these two knives compare across the spectrum. I know others like it, but I dislike the handle on the Takamura, and I also found it to feel very flexible at the neck and toward the tip, especially for a Western. I'm curious how you'd compare these to the Kono SS, too, which I suspect is a little more flexy than an HD in that length and has less retention, but perhaps makes up for it with ease of sharpening/touch up and resiliance...and perhaps has the most comfortable handle of the bunch? Or not? It is a higher price bracket while being a much more mundane package...

[Lepus]

The Harukaze shoulder transition is fairly gradual since that shoulder is well convexed and large, at least 15mm. I have never seen anything like this grind before, but I’ve only really started to look at grinds with the aid of a straight edge somewhat recently.

The Chromax won’t see much use since it is a gift. It’s similar to the Migaki, though, so I can make comparisons. I think I like it as much as the Migaki, too, just on the basis of cost. Of course the Migaki’s retention will probably won out, but Chromax steel should hold a decent edge for a while based on experience with the santoku.

The Konosuke Swedish is a more put together knife and has I suspect the best grind of the three for food release while not struggling at all with cutting ability or thickness behind the edge. For my purposes I think I would favor a 240mm or 270mm yo Konosuke over either of these knives. I don’t mind the retention on that line and I love their grind and feel in hand. That is to say nothing of the wa versions, but with a Konosuke HD running over $300 now it is harder to recommend them. Of the two... at first look I would suggest whichever the user’s needs for length matched. The Harukaze is not only a 240, it is an oversized 240mm. I was surprised how big it felt in hand out of the box, it is large as a result of that taller tip despite the weight. Time with the Harukaze’s AS will give me more insight.

[Lepus]

I just gave the handle a light sanding with 320 grit paper and oiled it. I do think there was some sort of finish on there that I partially took off, but it may have just been dry and waxed. It feels much warmer now. I’ll rescuff and wax it with a bees wax mineral oil mixture tomorrow.

[salemj]

The Harukaze shoulder transition is fairly gradual since that shoulder is well convexed and large, at least 15mm. I have never seen anything like this grind before, but I’ve only really started to look at grinds with the aid of a straight edge somewhat recently.

The Chromax won’t see much use since it is a gift. It’s similar to the Migaki, though, so I can make comparisons. I think I like it as much as the Migaki, too, just on the basis of cost. Of course the Migaki’s retention will probably won out, but Chromax steel should hold a decent edge for a while based on experience with the santoku.

The Konosuke Swedish is a more put together knife and has I suspect the best grind of the three for food release while not struggling at all with cutting ability or thickness behind the edge. For my purposes I think I would favor a 240mm or 270mm yo Konosuke over either of these knives. I don’t mind the retention on that line and I love their grind and feel in hand. That is to say nothing of the wa versions, but with a Konosuke HD running over $300 now it is harder to recommend them. Of the two... at first look I would suggest whichever the user’s needs for length matched. The Harukaze is not only a 240, it is an oversized 240mm. I was surprised how big it felt in hand out of the box, it is large as a result of that taller tip despite the weight. Time with the Harukaze’s AS will give me more insight.

Thanks for the initial thoughts. In reading the review I lost track of the fact that the Harukaze was a 240!! I was thinking it was a 210, even though you obviously reference the length in the title, etc. This makes the comparison to the Takamura a little less obvious—my bad!

[Lepus]

The comparisons are valid. They’re tight in price and the grinds are in the same ballpark. Initially I would say I like the Takamura a bit better as a knife, but the Harukaze’s length would make it my choice in use.

[Jeff B]

Enjoyed the read Rob. Mark sent this knife out to several of us when he first stocked them. I remember being very impressed with its performance at it's price point. Most definitely one of the best values on the site.

[Chefspence]

Profile aside, it seems like a killer knife for the price. I look at it almost every time I waste my life staring at knives I don't own.