Santoku knife, Aogami Super with stainless steel cladding, Western style Maple wood handle, Kurouchi finish - Kato

The Knives are made by Yoshimi Kato the now owner of Kanehiro Hamono who’s father trained him and Yu Kurosaki.

SHAPE: Santoku. Named after the three best things to do with this knife - slicing, dicing and mincing. It is the classic veg prep knife with both good breadth and width.

STEEL: Aogami (blue paper) super steel. This is very similar to white paper steel but with tungsten and chromium added to it which helps with edge retention and slows down rusting. It differs from the other blue paper steels with the addition of Vanadium and Molybdenum.The super part indicates the highest amount of carbon steel at up to 1.5% out of the blue series steels. This has then been hardened to around 65 rockwell making it very hard and capable of retaining an edge for a very long time. Due to the non stainless nature of this steel care must be taken to dry the knives properly after use. It is worth noting that this knife has been clad in stainless steel meaning only the exposed core edge will discolour making maintenance a lot easier.

FINISH: Kurouchi Damascus. Kurouchi is a traditional, rustic finish achieved by leaving the furnace scale from the forging process on the blade rather than polishing it off. It has the advantage of reducing the reactivity of the surface of the knife and gives the blade a stylish, matt black finish.

Damascus or suminagashi. This type of finish is made by creating a Kitaeji; which is produced by repeatedly folding/stacking then compressing two different steels until they create a laminated pattern. This can then be manipulated in various ways to produce the maker’s desired pattern effect. This material is then clad around the core metal of the blade as an elaborate protective layer for the core steel - thus giving the knife a beautiful and striking appearance.

HANDLE: Western style Maple wood handle

LENGTH: 180mm in length.

MAKER: Yoshimi Kato - Takefu, Echizen, Japan