Moritaka Hamono - Japanese custom knife shop

[buzzard767]

Hello! Anybody home? I see the previous post in this forum was September 2007. This is my first post and hope it won't be my last, but, where is everybody?

I'm a home cook with strong interests in both knives and knife sharpening. My kitchen includes a wide variety of knives, most of which are purpose specific. I did a search for Moritaka and the result was zero hits. Moritaka began in 1293 and has been in continuous business ever since. They are now into the 27th or 28th generation. Their cutting edges are made of Hitachi steel, either blue #2 or Aogami Super Steel, your choice. They will make anything you want, any size or shape, and prices are very reasonable for high quality work. I have three of their knives, a 180mm Deba used for filleting grouper, redfish, and snook here in Florida, a 165mm Nakiri for smaller vegetable work, and a 220x110mm Chukabocho for other vegetables.

Anybody interested in a discussion about these knives or other knives or steel or sharpening?

Buzz

[Dustin_m]

I wish i could afford a nice knife. My Good Grips is pretty nice though for the 20 bucks i paid for it. the edge held up for a few years, but its getting dull.

As far as sharpening goes, what does it usually cost on average?

[buzzard767]

Originally Posted by Dustin_m

I wish i could afford a nice knife. My Good Grips is pretty nice though for the 20 bucks i paid for it. the edge held up for a few years, but its getting dull.

As far as sharpening goes, what does it usually cost on average?

Dustin - For a knife like yours just about any readily available sharpening device will do. Because of its steel, probably what is called 440A stainless or something close to that, there is a limit to how sharp it is capable of becoming because of limitations in the abilities of the steel itself. If you can find a used Chef's Choice electric sharpener on ebay the price might be right. That's all you need, at most.

Japanese knives like I'm addicted to need to be hand sharpened because their edge geometry is drastically different to German, American, or for the lack of better terminology, department store knives. In fact, almost every Japanese company sharpens their edges a little bit different from everyone else - they have their reasons. These blades can be reprofiled but it is far easier just to keep the factory dimensions. Anyway, this takes a lot of practise with good stones.

Buzz

[jeff]

Originally Posted by Dustin_m

I wish i could afford a nice knife. My Good Grips is pretty nice though for the 20 bucks i paid for it. the edge held up for a few years, but its getting dull.

As far as sharpening goes, what does it usually cost on average?

You can pick up a single chef knife like my Henkles for around 70-80 bucks.
in fact bed bath and beyond has them for $79.99 throw a 20% off coupon at it (you get them in the mail, in my case almost weekly) and you have an awesome knife for pretty cheap, I use my chef knife for most everything I do.

For the sharpener, since you have a pretty cheap knife, I would use this product, it works wonders on cheap knives, it eats the blade down pretty fast but it does do the job! I use on our cheap kitchen knives at work. $12 knives might I add.


AccuSharp Knife Sharpener (Science; Sharpening Stones) - (ASIN: B00004VWKQ)

Cheap, and does the job. I'd NEVER use it on a good knife! but for cheap knives, it doesn't get much better.

[Jared]

My brother has a couple of whetstones that I use. They have a coarse and fine side, and are about 2" wide, 1" tall and 8" long. It takes some practice to learn to use them, but the real trick is to keep the knife at an even angle to the stone; otherwise you just round off the edge. But you can get a very good edge that stays sharp.

[buzzard767]

Originally Posted by Jared

My brother has a couple of whetstones that I use. They have a coarse and fine side, and are about 2" wide, 1" tall and 8" long. It takes some practice to learn to use them, but the real trick is to keep the knife at an even angle to the stone; otherwise you just round off the edge. But you can get a very good edge that stays sharp.

You got that right Jared. Maintaining edge angle is the entire secret to freehand sharpening. The ability to do that comes with lots and lots of practice. I love freehanding. It's a zen thing. It's relaxing. It's an art requiring a large dose of concentration. It is satisfying. Probably good for the soul as well. The imperfections of the edges created freehand are a reflection of our own imperfections, but we keep trying to get better.

As I said, I love freehanding, but, for perfect, or at least, close to perfect edges, I use an EdgePro.