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Stevie H5 people found this review helpful
First let me preface by stating that prior to purchasing this 240mm NAS stainless clad Takeda gyuto, I already owned an all-carbon steel clad 240mm Takeda gyuto and I love that carbon clad version. It's about as perfect a gyuto as any that I have ever used. So encouraged by the stellar performance of that all-carbon steel Takeda gyuto, I decided to also get a stainless version. Big mistake.
The NAS stainless clad version performs nothing like the all-carbon steel version. The main problem with the NAS version is that it is chippy beyond comparison. I've never had a Japanese gyuto as chippy as this NAS Takeda. I used it brand new out of the box in one light cutting session to cut some soft vegetables to prepare for a vegetable soup and after less than an hour of light-duty cutting, multiple microscopic chips formed on the edge. And, thus, a few days later I attempted to remove the microscopic chips by honing it on a fine grit (equivalent to about 1000-grit) diamond hone. I very carefully matched the shallow factory bevel angle. It's all single bevel on both sides. There is no secondary bevel on Takeda knives. However, the more I honed the bevel and the edge, the more microscopic chips formed on the edge. I finally gave up using the 1000-grit diamond hone and switched to a course 500-grit ceramic waterstone to repair the edge. The 500-grit ceramic waterstone did better than the diamond hone in that it did not result in as many microscopic chips as the 1000-grit diamond hone, but some tiny chips still formed during the honing process. After more than an hour of honing on the 500-grit water stone, I still had 3 tiny micro chips. Basically as I removed the chips, additional chips would form during the honing process. I finally accepted the final three micro chips as the best that I could achieve because every time I was close to removing all the chips, a couple of new chips would form. It was exasperating. Then I finished the polishing of the edge with 1000-grit water stone, 1200-grit water stone, and finally a 8000-grit water stone to give the bevel and edge a mirror finish. I followed the factory bevel the entire time.
So, now, back to the cutting board. I tested the knife again by cutting potatoes. It was razor sharp and cut beautifully. But, alas, as soon as I did any very light chopping (like Mark does on his numerous demo videos, nothing abusive to the blade, just very light duty chopping motion) INNUMERABLE microscopic chips would form on the edge again. Keep in mind that I followed the factory shallow single bevel on both sides when I sharpened it. It'd exceedingly frustrating.
Conclusion: This 240mm NAS stainless steel clad Takeda gyuto that I have is just unacceptably chippy. I don't know if this is due to bad heat treatment or maybe I just have a bad sample, but whatever is the cause, I just can't use this knife. The amount of micro chipping is just totally un acceptable. This amount of micro chipping is much worse than any knife I've ever used. $400 down the drain. I wish I could return it and get another all-carbon version like the one I bought several years ago and still love.
Another complaint about my stainless NAS gyuto is that the blade is a lot bigger than 240mm. It actually measures a full 10 which is about 254mm long and it's also very tall. It's so tall that it won't fit in any of the slots in my knife block. I do not recommend this NAS stainless version. I recommend buying the all-carbon version instead.
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