This should be fun. Masamoto KS Coming Soon

[Kit Craft]

Edit: I am adapting to my HD2 quite nicely, btw. It is going to take a lot for the KS to overcome that! However, I feel they will be used for different things. The HD2 is very nimble for its size and I just cored, peeled and diced two dozen tomatoes with it! I can not wait until canning season as this will be my tomato knife. I didn't do so well in the garden last season so I ran out of canned tomatoes this year, sadly. But I am getting off point here!

We shall see.

I think this is on-point, at least relative to my previous post. This is where the KS excels, in my opinion. Konos are great here, too, as they tend to have decent tips (especially the Funayuki-Gyuto design of old), but I think the KS tip may offer an even more versatile "core" application. I don't know, I'd have to compare!

Unlike the KS, however, the Kono will probably hold an edge better though many tomatoes...it helps to not be as reactive!

I can not get this Kono to react at all! It starts to stain a little but when I wash it after, nothing...It is actually irritating in a way, for someone who loves patina. But that makes it a very care free knife which will be great this harvest season when beers are being had while preparing things for canning, drying etc and less care is taken with knives.

As for the edge retention and tomatoes specifically, trust me, I know! I just did two dozen tomatoes today to make homemade soup and not hesitation on coring, pealing or dicing! Now, this is after about #30 of potatoes, #10 of carrots and celery, odd amounts of pepper and garlic plus some odds and ends. That is just since putting my own edge on it about a week and a half ago. This thing stays "tomato sharp" very much longer than all of my white #2 and "virgin" carbon knives.

I will let you know how I feel the KS compares in terms of being nimble and feeling like a smaller knife.

[Lepus]

If I ever need to cut a few hundred feet of rope into chunks I will give more thought to the various rope cutting tests, but until then I will not give them too much weight. I have seen more than a few of them, mostly from the pocket knife community that tries so hard to differentiate between the various newer steels out there, and they are a laudable attempt to codify edge retention. But cutting one specific thing at length does not offer a nuanced understanding of retention, particularly when what the knives being tested should be cutting is much softer than rope. One of the most important parts of an experiment is making certain it is measuring what needs to be measured and I have seen knives do well in this test despite doing poorly in practice and vice verse, so I can only conclude rope tests poorly measure general retention.

Fuethermore, the steel in the KS is very similar to numerous nearly pure steels that have been heavily explored in the past that do not do well on most such cutting tests. There are other factors in doing well on a rope cutting test, but steel is a big one. Seeing white #2 outperform PM steels so drastically, refuting the data we already have from other tests regardless of their merit, leaves me feeling distrustful. I would need to give it some more consideration but my initial thought is that this test does not sufficiently control its variables.

To be fair, this is just a YouTube video so holding it to much scientific scrutiny is ridiculous, but if it can't hold up to scrutiny it basically means nothing. If someone wants to scientifically explore retention I would love to see a proper experiment set up. Send out all those lovely KSes to working chefs, have them log their sharpening routine and time spent with the knife, and then have them log time spent with say a Tojiro R2.

At least one of you is in academia. Let's find a grant and get this ball rolling.

[Kit Craft]

I might be able to get you a grant to study abroad but not sure about sending a dozen KS's out to chefs.

I agree with everything you said above though.

I am more into the arts than the sciences but yea, my gut does not go with this one. I chop and G&G a lot more than I slice and basic carbon does not seem to hold up to impact near as well as alloyed steel, in my kitchen. Not even close. Even something simple like my new HD2 holds an edge much better than all of my White steel knives, without question. At least what I like to call a "tomato edge", which is simply an edge that will slice AND chop a tomato without hesitation or slippage. It has been my experience that white steel loses that sort of edge very, very quickly and remains utility sharp for a fairly long time. Maybe I am splitting hairs on what sharpness is or what it means to me, idk.

[alanhuth]

I think you guys are over-intellectualizing this. Sure, hemp rope isn't what you usually cut in the kitchen, but it's got a lot to say for it. It's consistent, it's cheap, it's easy to test to failure, and it is a form of vegetable material. And, yes, there are differences in OOTB grind and sharpness, all sorts of variables that could throw the results off. Nonetheless, a highly regarded new Miyabi SG2 birchwood cut a rope about 150 times while the KS cut the same rope over 300 times. That's a huge difference. Not 10% or 25%. We're talking over 100%. You could wait for some university study in a uniform environment with all variables carefully controlled and then decide or you could look at this rope test and say, well, it's going to take a mega-ton of nuance to reverse these results. Sometimes "the perfect is the enemy of the good".

[Kit Craft]

You are right, it is a huge difference and it contradicts about every other source I have ever seen in regards to the edge retention of this particular knife. That is what I find weird. Not saying it is wrong but that I am skeptical. I will see how mine reacts in about a week...

[salemj]

Did I miss something in this thread about what the actual plan is going to be in selling this round of arrivals by CKTG?

[gladius]

Did I miss something in this thread about what the actual plan is going to be in selling this round of arrivals by CKTG?

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Here: viewtopic.php?p=36007#p36007

[salemj]

Thanks Gladius. Saw most of that but thought parts may have changed that I missed. I see now that things will be updated here once they arrive, and it also seems like Mark is going ahead this this general plan despite a few challenges.

[Lepus]

I don't think it's too much of a stretch to extrapolate these results to the KS video. Looks to me like the KS won fair and square, by such a huge margin that any testing irregularities cannot be significant to the general result.

The KS won a test that was evaluating elements other than just the knife and that doesn't directly correlate with edge retention. The claim of superiority I quoted (and likewise the claim in the video title, which is "Masamoto KS Chef Knife Completely Destroys Everything") is exactly why the whole thing doesn't sit well with me. I am trying to hold the Burrfection rope test to a fairly unreasonable standard because I think those extrapolations go way, way too far based on the evidence given, particularly when we already have an incredible wealth of data not borne out by the test. If we want to say the knife is great based on a pretty lax experiment, this small data set has to carry more weight than the sea of data with similarly or even less lax standards. As is I can either assume that all that thousands of hours of data (including my own use of the knife) is incorrect or that the test may be flawed.

That the KS did well cutting rope is interesting, but it doesn't positively color my impression of the knife. In fact I think it probably aggrandizes an already overhyped knife. If you googled the Masamoto KS and you saw that video, then read all the well deserved positive comments on the grind and profile in various forums, you would think Masamoto employs a wizard to make these knives. In reality it's just a great knife that found a wonderful niche; I think it's absolutely fantastic. We don't need to pretend that the KS offers better retention than everything else on the market because it already does plenty of things well, just like some PM steel knives offer exceptional retention. Trying to make the knife more than it is hurts the hobby, not least because it keeps out people on the outside who decide they want a KS and that nothing else will do. That sort of thinking prevents worthwhile discussion.

Just between us, this aura of quality has obliterated Konosuke's catalogue, so seeing this cult building up around the KS does bother me a lot. I would have liked a few more Fujiyamas rather than a bunch more HD2s that are go to people who think they're getting the objectively perfect knife. And in a few months I would like to be able to tell people who I think would really enjoy a KS to go buy one rather than something else, but at this point that obviously isn't happening.

As for over-intellectualizing it, approaching something analytically has never left me worse for the consideration. I watched as much of the video as I could and I would say Ryky could benefit a lot from intellectualizing that video up. His implication of correlating HRC so directly to retention is... really, really simplistic, almost insultingly so. 8,600 people have watched it in the day it's been up and they're worse informed if they took any of that to heart.

[raleighcook15]

I've been looking with one with more of a robust grind that has an aggressive taper. The matsubara might be the ticket.

I will let you in know on Friday:)

Any updates, curious about the Matsubara.

[Kalaeb]

I've been looking with one with more of a robust grind that has an aggressive taper. The matsubara might be the ticket.

I will let you in know on Friday:)

Any updates, curious about the Matsubara.

It's a really disappointing knife. I will leave it at that for now. I had high hopes based off the tall nakiri I have from them which I love. This blue "ks" clone is possibly the worst knife I have purchased in a long time.

[Chefspence]

I will let you in know on Friday:)

Any updates, curious about the Matsubara.

It's a really disappointing knife. I will leave it at that for now. I had high hopes based off the tall nakiri I have from them which I love. This blue "ks" clone is possibly the worst knife I have purchased in a long time.

Yikes.

[gladius]

It's a really disappointing knife. I will leave it at that for now. I had high hopes based off the tall nakiri I have from them which I love. This blue "ks" clone is possibly the worst knife I have purchased in a long time.

——
It looks like it would wedge.

[Cutuu]

I will let you in know on Friday:)

Any updates, curious about the Matsubara.

It's a really disappointing knife. I will leave it at that for now. I had high hopes based off the tall nakiri I have from them which I love. This blue "ks" clone is possibly the worst knife I have purchased in a long time.

Wow, would love to hear a review or atleast some more details of your opinion.

[Cutuu]

The grinds to me looked different on the ks blue and the ks ginsan matsuburas. Honestly, i was a little suspicious of the blue and really intrigued by the ginsan. I am curious about the intricasies of the two.

[ChefKnivesToGo]

Did I miss something in this thread about what the actual plan is going to be in selling this round of arrivals by CKTG?

I'll start a new thread when I get them so guys don't have to read through all of this to get to the offer. I'm still going to offer them based on what I wrote earlier.

[RonAZ]

Looking forward to it, I have several of the "clones" and would like to use the original.
Ron

[Andreu]

Thanks in advance, Mark. I thought I would have to dig through all these stuff just to make sure I didn’t miss your post. Lol

A lot of useful information on this thread though.

[alanhuth]

Seems like Masamoto is ramping up production. Mark has ##? coming, Ryky got 10 recently, and Bluewayjapan just sold 5. I wonder if it is the same craftsmen, just back from a little hiatus or whether it's a new crew - and what that might mean for new vs old versions.

[delmar]

I will let you in know on Friday:)

Any updates, curious about the Matsubara.

It's a really disappointing knife. I will leave it at that for now. I had high hopes based off the tall nakiri I have from them which I love. This blue "ks" clone is possibly the worst knife I have purchased in a long time.

Mine (ginsan) was rather rough. There was a divot in the cladding, about 1-2mm x 15mm, where the cladding closed on itself and was missing a layer. It was also pretty scratched up vertically. These things are crazy thick at the handle and above the heel. I think mine was 4.7mm or thereabouts. And it didn't taper down nearly as much as I had hoped...I didn't measure, but I'd guess it was around 2.5-3mm about 2" back from tip. Way, way too thick for a knife that is supposed to mirror a blade that has a very consistent distal taper to rather thin tip.

At that price point, I'd expect much more.

As always, Mark was very understanding and no questions asked on the return.