gastro gnome wrote: ↑Sun Sep 30, 2018 9:35 pm
Brief digression OP, as I will not directly address your question (and for that, I apologize).
After reading up on some makes/makers yesterday, it just clicked for me that these smiths all trained under the same guy - Hiroshi Kato and all seem to have cut their chops and/or set up shop in and around Echizen (whether as a part of Takefu Village or not). I've heard of folks comparing the Kurosaki bros. works to each other and to the elder Kato. Kato's son may well also resemble his father's work. Anryu trained with him as well. I've also heard of people make comments that they like but don't love any of the Takefu knives (and while preference is certainly subjective, what I took from that is that they are at least similar enough to lump together for some).
So, while totally recognizing that each iteration of these knife models likely vary a bit from blade to blade, I wonder if there is a kind of similarity between Takefu profiles and just how different any of these feel from one another (be it grind, blade geometry, etc).
Apologies if I've mis-stated the facts or am confusing myself. I only just realized that there is a common link between all these smiths (and others in Takefu as well, I imagine). That's not to say that they are putting out the same blades. I can't speak from experience because I've only handled the Makoto in a 240 and Anryu B#2 santoku (which is certainly not apples to apples). I'm hoping (as you likely are CacahuateSommelier), that some more knowledgeable folks can set me straight and/or share their experience with more of these specific knives and how they might be similar or different from one another.
End digression.
I wouldn't call this much of a digression. In fact, I think it is right at the centre of the OP.
The profile part is easy: Mark has mentioned in the past that the "village" often shares the dies for the gyuto profiles. Remember that "hand-made" knives do not mean that machines are not used—in many cases, the profile of a gyuto is still stamped by a die after forging. This aspect of the knife – and the fact that the village shares different duties and helps each other out in a Sakai-type management of tasks from time to time – explains some profile similarities among their products.
The heat treatment is also included in this: differences exist, but these people not only trained a lot together under one of two masters (Kato and Anryu), but they also trained a lot on the same ovens under the same lighting conditions and still share some of it from time to time, I imagine. Obviously, certain variations exist now and those are nearly impossible for us to track. For example, Yu Kurosaki has his own shop next door now because demand is so high, and I think T. Ikeda is also out of the shop but is still related to these guys (he forges virtually all of Shibata's knives, for example, and apprenticed with Anryu).
Grinds are harder to figure out. Now that Makoto is doing his own knives, there is a very, very strong indication that he had been mostly grinding for years—his signature style can be seen in some of Yu Kurosaki's earlier work, and Yu has openly mentioned that they shared work on earlier orders from his shop, such as for the Richmond AS line. Further to this, the whole village has an "issue" with grinds due to the strong preference for hammered finishes. In general, most of the KU or hammered finishes have featured lower grinds (for obvious reasons), even in early renditions—this is part of why the Shimo was such an odd duckling early on, because it had the plainest finish and also some of the best performing, taller, and straighter grinds. But more recently, Yu's knives have pushed for higher grinds on overall thinner blades, too, and Makoto knives have higher grinds; T. Ikeda's knives have also always featured non-hammered finishes and taller, flatter grinds. Since then, I've also noticed more recent choil shots for some of Anryu's knives have straighter, taller grinds as well, regardless of finish. And there were reports that that Koishi grinds changed dramatically when Kato's son took over more of his orders. (Just to be clear: when the finish is not hammered or KU, the transition from the edge to the spine has no aesthetic considerations, to it is easier to have a taller, thinner grind without having to worry about the cosmetic effect on the upper finish being consistent from heel to tip.)
I wouldn't doubt for a second that Echizen is simply too unique a model to sort out definitively. It mixes elements of Sakai culture (found in the village and in the Masakage knives) with a more recent trend in "branding by name" (Yu and Makoto, Shibata, T. Ikeda), but all of this is made more complicated by the fact that the smiths we know are also so tightly related by a single apprentice tree and generally work in both systems simultaneously.
My feeling is that this is both a strength and a weakness: if you love Masakage knives, you have infinite variety within a particular set of style ranges, and each knife will likely feel unique and hand-made, too, with lots of subtle variation, and this speaks directly to the OP.
The negative is that, if you are NOT a huge fan of these knives, it can be very intimidating to choose just one or two as "representative" of their best work, and the only way to really know whether or not you are getting a particular weight, balance, and grind style is not by the brand or label, but by inspecting one in person, which also speaks to the OP but for someone like me who would be trying to choose just one of these knives to try as representative of Echizen more generally. It also means that it is really, really, really difficult to know just who (all) made your knife if you bought it before 2016 or so...but if you like it, does it really matter? Haha.
Currently, I only own one petty and one gyuto from this region, but when I think of the future, I imagine I will own several knives from this region because it is one of the youngest, most innovative, and most dynamic, which I think is fun and interesting. I also think they are slowly shifting from lower grinds and cosmetic finishes to more of what I like: plain knives with thinner, taller grinds, such as most of Makoto, Shibata, and Ikeda's recent offerings. It is a moving target, and that is what is fun.
. I would love to settle on maybe 1 petty, 1-210, 2-3 240s, 1-Suji 1-2 nakiri from the region. I think the best I can do is make smart buys based on data collected from other peeps here & end up buying 2-3times the amount of knives I want and sell the ones who don’t make my “cut” lol. I notice a lot of people do 