Kanehiro AS Gyuto 240mm

See what's happening with current or completed "Pass Arounds". Forum members occasionally send knives or sharpening stones around to a hand selected group of participants for short term use and feedback/reviews.
SolidSnake03
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Joined: Thu Jan 26, 2017 9:22 pm

Re: Kanehiro AS Gyuto 240mm

Post by SolidSnake03 »

Knives have been sharpened, will give them a healthy work out today. Review/impressions will be written tomorrow :)
SolidSnake03
Posts: 489
Joined: Thu Jan 26, 2017 9:22 pm

Re: Kanehiro AS Gyuto 240mm

Post by SolidSnake03 »

Hi Everyone!

Finally getting around to posting my impressions now that I have shipped the knives out. First of all, thanks to Nick for an awesome pass around with some really neat knives, the Gihei was a pleasant surprise! Secondly, please excuse any spelling mistakes or grammatical issues, it's my day off and I've been sitting in the sun enjoying cold one's most of the afternoon. The knives arrived with me in good shape albeit the edges needed a touch up. They weren't dull by any mean but a few of my little paper cutting tests showed the edge was a little rough. I sharpened both in a JKI 1k stone and a King 6k. Stropped gently on some newspaper after. Both sharpened very easily and deburred fast. Granted the JKI 1k is a very fast cutting stone so no steel really take too long. The King is more for refining and it did that well. If I had to pick one I enjoyed the feel of the Kanehiro a little more on the stones but this is just personal preference.


With that stuff out of the way I can get to the knives themselves now. I'm not going to go through and do a breakdown of the exact height, length, size etc.. since that can all be found on the website but I will give some more qualitative assessments on their geometry and sizing/weight. Both knives felt like a very solid 240mm gyuto especially the Gihei which was an all around monster in weight and heft in hand. Think the opposite of a Konosuke (light and undersized for a given size) where 240's tending to be more like 230's for example. These knives positively assert their size and you can tell just from holding them. The Kanehiro to me strikes a great balance of being a bit nimble but yet feels sturdy in use and solid. I didn't notice any particular flex or unsteadiness when cutting larger and thicker stuff like football sized sweet potato's or softball sized apples. The knife just felt solid and confident throughout use where you had to give it a little input and it went right to it. The Gihei was another story, this thing was a beast in every sense of the word. From the handle to the spine to the weight it was huge, hefty, big, burly, stout etc... I mean I could go on and on with descriptions but suffice to say this thing is a battle axe in feel. For softer and smaller stuff you just had to give it a little nudge and let it go, the blades mass did an astonishing amount of the cutting for you. Both knives had enjoyable and functional profiles with the Gihei being the flatter of the two, neither had much of a belly which was great.

The cutting performance of both of these knives is obviously the reason you guys are here and was the thing I paid most attention to in my time with them. The Kanehiro was a wonderful all arounder doing nothing excellently but everything well. The knife felt well balanced in hand and went wherever you pointed it. It tackled meats, fruits and veggies very well with a bit of struggle with thick stuff (sweet potato). When I say struggle however, I'm more referring to that it took a little more force to get through the cut but I never experienced that sudden jerking stop when a knife truly gets stuck in something. It handled thinner and softer veggies with grace and was a knife I felt comfortable speeding through a bell pepper or dicing and onion. I think the best I can say about the Kanehiro was that it really just got out of the way and did it's job. I never really thought about it too much when using it and instead just tore through the task at hand which to me is a huge compliment and a big positive for a knife. I felt at home with it immediately and enjoyed mindlessly going to work. This would and could be an excellent "one gyuto" for a household or kitchen in that I never found a downside that made me reach for another knife or stop my work.

The Gihei on the other hand was entirely different. This is a bazooka, a sniper rifle, a mortar, it's a specialized weapon that works well for certain situations and for certain stuff but has some real downsides outside of it's main element. The balance of this knife is very blade forward and you get the feeling you are more coaxing the beast to do what you want versus being in total control. I was more suggesting it do some particular tasks and it generally did what I wanted but again it gave me a feeling of shouting an order and holding on for the ride. The mass and heft of the knife made it feel a bit unwieldy to me, I had to consciously slow down a bit because the weight and balance resulted in the knife not having that nimble and extension of my arm feel that the Kanehiro had. Fine dicing an onion was easy done but was admittedly slower than with the Kanehiro or one of my lasers because the knife just never felt natural to me. That said, that weight was excellent in gliding the knife through lighter and smaller stuff. A fine dice on a pepper required such a minimal amount of force, a gentle nudge forward and the knife fell through the pieces. Same thing with fine dicing an apple or carrots. Further, cutting up a steak was incredibly rewarding because the weight just plowed through the crust and sliced it cleanly. However, my dislikes and qualms came from the initial cuts on the apple or carrots mentioned previously. Splitting an apple in half gave me more push back than I wanted and carrots were louder than I'm used to. Sweet potato again gave the knife a little more pause than I liked and definitely more than the Kanehiro. It's not that you couldn't cut these things, it just seemed a little harder than I would have liked. This combined with the weight made it a knife I wouldn't really want to use every day and for every task. It has stuff it absolutely excels at and some stuff that it does just ok at. This knife and a laser would be a wonderful combo but if you're looking for only one knife, this wouldn't be my first choice.

Alrighty so that all said, these are both really nice knives. I would be happy to own either for different reasons. The Kanehiro for all around and the Gihei as a great second knife to something else thinner and lighter. That said, you could of course use the Gihei for an all arounder and it would do fine, it just wouldn't be one for me.

Thanks again for this great opportunity, greatly appreciate it and hope my review is helpful, informative and fun (somewhat) to read.
caerolle
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Re: Kanehiro AS Gyuto 240mm

Post by caerolle »

Ugh, I hate zombie threads, and here I am creating one...

I just had to post on this, though, as what SolidSnake said resonated so much with my experience. I had a Kanehiro 210 Ginsan, and it was one of my fave knives ever. It really was the first knife I got that just blew me away and showed me what a Japanese knife could be. As SS says above, it just handled everything I cut so well. Plus, it had probably about the only octagonal handles I have ever liked. It got really sharp, and was a joy to use.

Sadly, I got some knives I liked better, and never really used it, so I sold it. I regret that fairly often. In fact, I just bought a knife for tasks that the Ginsan would have been great for, lol.

Another interesting thing is that this copy sounds pretty flat. When I decided to move to 240s, I seriously considered a Kanehiro 240 AS. However, the one in the review video had a lot of belly, and the user reviews I read seemed to indicate that the 240s were pretty curvy. Otherwise, I probably would have bought one. It's awesome to see this one get such a great review!
slobound
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Re: Kanehiro AS Gyuto 240mm

Post by slobound »

caerolle wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 11:34 am Sadly, I got some knives I liked better, and never really used it, so I sold it. I regret that fairly often. In fact, I just bought a knife for tasks that the Ginsan would have been great for, lol.
I know who has this knife!
-- Garrick
caerolle
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Re: Kanehiro AS Gyuto 240mm

Post by caerolle »

slobound wrote: Mon Dec 18, 2017 12:02 pm I know who has this knife!
:)
keithmarder
Posts: 419
Joined: Thu Nov 30, 2017 3:52 pm

Re: Kanehiro AS Gyuto 240mm

Post by keithmarder »

caerolle wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 11:34 am Ugh, I hate zombie threads, and here I am creating one...

I just had to post on this, though, as what SolidSnake said resonated so much with my experience. I had a Kanehiro 210 Ginsan, and it was one of my fave knives ever. It really was the first knife I got that just blew me away and showed me what a Japanese knife could be. As SS says above, it just handled everything I cut so well. Plus, it had probably about the only octagonal handles I have ever liked. It got really sharp, and was a joy to use.

Sadly, I got some knives I liked better, and never really used it, so I sold it. I regret that fairly often. In fact, I just bought a knife for tasks that the Ginsan would have been great for, lol.

Another interesting thing is that this copy sounds pretty flat. When I decided to move to 240s, I seriously considered a Kanehiro 240 AS. However, the one in the review video had a lot of belly, and the user reviews I read seemed to indicate that the 240s were pretty curvy. Otherwise, I probably would have bought one. It's awesome to see this one get such a great review!
I just got the Kanehiro Bunka a couple of days ago and know exactly what you are talking about. Everything about the knife just feels right.
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