Find my knifebetaBlade tips
Knife types
Three jobs, one knife
Home-size, not show-size
A safer, rounded tip
Two kinds of “all-purpose”
“Beef knife,” chef’s knife
Longer, if you mean it
The West’s everyday knife
A small all-purpose helper
The old double-bevel standby
Built at a sharp angle for vegetables
Square in the east, sickle in the west
The katsuramuki specialist
Willow, or iris?
Please, not the bones
The square-tipped Tokyo cousin
The knife for tessa
Left-handed blades exist
Thickness is the point
One knife to break down a fish
For sinew, and for slices
A wide blade for Chinese cooking
Let the weight do the work
Eel, four ways
For pressed sushi, not sashimi
A knife just for hamo bones
Also known as a yokan cutter
Square in the east, round in the west
The three knives of washoku
Sakai’s all-rounder
History
A borrow from two kitchens
Single bevel, many knives
It started with tobacco
A blade town before it was famous
Regions
The shogunate’s “Sakai-goku” mark
National craft, 1982
Three crafts, one knife
Twenty-four makers, one hall
A swordsmith who made sickles
Lacquer workers as traveling salesmen
First in the trade, in 1979
A year of 807,000 sickles
The two-at-a-time forge
399 smiths, already
Designated in 1998
Kochi has just two
The three S’s of cutlery
800 years from Motoshige
Unbroken, unbent, sharp
Seki’s Magoroku
About half of Japan’s exports
Japan’s first pocketknife, 1888
Good-blade day: 11/8
It began with nails
Sickles, saws, then knives
Echigo Sanjo, 2009
More than 95% of the spoons
Four centuries with metal
After nails, the fork
After the castle fell
Tools that left town, and came back as fame
Five tools on the official list
An eagle of 3,300 tools
Kenshin’s retainers, and a forge
Chisel, plane, axe, adze
A contest in thin shavings
Chiba’s craft tools
Scissors from ranch country
Island shears, island knives
Japan’s first scissors?
Steel
Honyaki gets a coat of clay
Carbon steel, and a wooden handle
VG10: sharp, and less rusty
If it only looks like VG10
White 2, also for thick blades
White, blue and yellow paper
Whetstones
A 250-million-year finish
No two stones feel the same
Fewer mountains still give stone
A seam only three kilometres long
A certificate of origin
Tokyo
About 800 metres, north to south
Rain capes, or kappa?
Kihachi and the river imps
A few dealers, in 1912
October 9 is Tool Day
A tram once ran over the river
Shops
A sharpening shop, after the quake
More than 800 kinds, always
Kiya, since 1792
Ubukeya, since 1783
Sharp enough for vellus hair
Kitchen knives, 1866
Kanto’s first honyaki kitchen knives
From Nihonbashi to Tsukiji, and Toyosu
Morning drop-off, 30 to 60 minutes
It began with pots
A shop in Paris, 2018
Tojiro, from Tsubame-Sanjo
Stones no longer mined
Tosa knives under the bridge
Jikko, Sakai, 1900
From sword work to Chinese cleavers
