210mm Nitro V Funayuki pass around?

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Jeff B
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Re: 210mm Nitro V Funayuki pass around?

Post by Jeff B »

taz575 wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 3:31 am ...The "bubble gum" handle is fabric and epoxy....It still feels like fabric, not a plastic....
That was one of the things I liked about that handle was the "softer" feel and that it didn't feel like a hard plastic that would get slick.
One of the things that just came to mind was my surprise at the food release of these knives with such thin grinds. I was expecting these knives to be a little aggravating with food sticking really bad to the blades but the food release was excellent for what they are! Luckily I never reached the point where I wanted to through them across the room. :shock: :twisted:
If God wanted me to be a vegetarian he wouldn't have made animals taste so good.
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Re: 210mm Nitro V Funayuki pass around?

Post by taz575 »

I am glad you didn't! When I started playing with the fabric handles, they reminded me of the Ho Wa handles where the fibers stand up a bit and give a nice grip and have a soft feel to them. Normal micarta is similar, but harder feeling and G10 is even harder still, which is why I don't care for a G10 handle, unless it is the SureTouch rubberized handle material. I wasn't sure if the carbon fiber would be too slick, but it seems to work well. It has a harder feel to it, which is fine for a kitchen knife, but still gives good grip when wet. I did a bigger camp knife with it and need to try to see how it feels with chopping use. I was surprised at how light the carbon fiber was; I was expecting it to be heavier.

I was pretty happy with the food release. I tried to get as much convexing as possible on the 180 with the blade being that thin. Sometimes acid etching the blade can make it stickier due to the slightly rougher surface, but doing a shorter etch seemed to negate that feeling.
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Re: 210mm Nitro V Funayuki pass around?

Post by jmcnelly85 »

Knives arrived safe n sound, I’ll report back with more board time under my belt.
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Re: 210mm Nitro V Funayuki pass around?

Post by Jeff B »

Priority Mail just ain't what it used to be, I'm going to stop paying for it.
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Re: 210mm Nitro V Funayuki pass around?

Post by jmcnelly85 »

I’ve spent some shifts with the 210 and feel I have a good sense of it. Starting with the handle, I feel that the material may be one of the most utilitarian materials I’ve had my hands on. Wet or fish slimed, the gummy material kept its grip, please experiment more with the material, you have a winning thing going. On a personal level, the handle color and shape didn’t really fit my aesthetic or grip, I have an over exaggerated pinch grip choking up for as much control as possible, my right ring finger would hold the widest part of the coke bottle design with my go to grip, leading to a boxy, cumbersome feel. I didn’t mind the girth, it just kept feeling like someone else’s shoes. I did try moving my hand to be more in line with the ergonomics of the handle but lost some of the tactile feel of the blade and felt it was less precise in its more comfortable position. The blade did have a decent lively feel to it and the rounding of the spine and choil was one of the most comfortable I’ve had hands on. The core steel took a tremendous edge and held it respectably, in a pro setting I’d say the retention is somewhere just underneath moritakas AS steel and harukaze’s srs-15 on edge holding, well above any white steel and some blues I’ve used, probably on par with kurosaki’s AS. The initial edge I received, although fantastic, was a tad steep for the poly board pro environment it was used in and got some minor microchipping, but a full progression at a more conservative angle proved to be less delicate. The grind on the knife nailed the Goldilocks tip toe, effortless penetration without without being frail or beefy. I prefer a little more meat on the bones but this really worked against anything thrown at it. The profile is an interesting one, it’s subtle enough to be versatile, but quirky. I’m a big fan of some dead flat stuff for pushing and sharp heels to help operate with a locked wrist to rely on mostly arm movement instead of wrist movement; however, the best method I found to use “big muscles” instead of wrist movement was using pull cuts to utilize the near flat tip to perfectly complete cuts. Pushing worked, but worked with a little flick to follow the flow of the profile, rocking and chopping were also easy, but not as easy as tip chops or pulls. The knife itself is very precise and moves through product accurately and cleanly. If your cutting game is on point, it’ll brunoise with the best of them, and if you need a hammer, it can speed chop like nobodies business. Overall, I think this is a really kickass knife and a perfect knife for someone out there, but I don’t think I’m that person, everything about it is positive, I feel every negative thing I have to say about it is directly tied to my preferences and decades of volume processing muscle memory. I’m really thankful for the opportunity to test drive this awesome tool, I feel bad I’ve literally spent zero time with its little brother outside of looking at it and saying “damn that’s thin, she’s not going on the line”.

On a personal note, I’ve been a long time admirer of your work and I’m so happy you came back to the knife game, you really have a remarkable talent and I’m exited to see where you go with the handle material, as well as drooling over more choil shots of things you’ve ground. I really am grateful I’ve had a chance to play with new things you’ve done.
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Re: 210mm Nitro V Funayuki pass around?

Post by Jeff B »

Good post, enjoyed the read!
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Re: 210mm Nitro V Funayuki pass around?

Post by taz575 »

Yeah, I picked up a few jelly rolls of fabrics in blues, aquas and purples to make opal colors for handles to try to attract women to the knives. I can do them in any color fabric, including burlap, denim, duck cloth, canvas, etc. I can do straight stacks of solid colors, alternating colors/layers or camo type swirl patterns as well. I got some more epoxy in, so I will be doing more soon as the weather gets warmer again! The lighter colors tend to look more dirty/grungy because the Tung Oil finish I use is an amber color and the epoxy itself has a slight hue to it, so darker colors generally look cleaner. The fabric often takes on a different color when it is fully wetted out; some stay pretty true to color, others darken significantly and others go almost translucent! It's pretty fun to play with and experiment!

Regular Micarta has a much smoother feel and look to it, but the home made micarta is a good bit more grippy/fabricy feeling, especially when wet and nasty. I noticed how much it reminded me of nice Ho wood where the fibers stand out a bit when wet! G10 SureTouch is another great handle material for grip, but is rubber and fiberglass layered up, so it has a somewhat squishy feel to it, but it tends to lock the hand in place more. It's harder to make the subtle changes to your grip with SureTouch. Great for Fillet or Hunting knives, but not sure how it would be in the kitchen since the hand doesn't slide/shift as well on it IMHO?

So that brings the question up. What colors do you guys want to see?? Do you want a basic black, brown, tan, denim jean material, red, blue, green, etc? I know black, very light tan wood and reddish wood are the more common colors on production knives. I can also do some really funky colors like the pink and purple ones and the purple, orange and black ones, so the sky is the limit!

The comment about the handle and the blade profile is exactly what I am looking for!

As a home cook only and not spending hours cutting and prepping, I was hoping for this type of feed back. I hate accordion cuts, so I went with a very long flat spot at the heel and not a lot of curve to the edge. I do a lot of veggies at home (cauliflower, broccoli, peppers, onions, mushrooms, rutabaga, turnips, tomatoes and zucchini), so I wanted to combine a nakiri flat spot with a pointy tip area but didn't look like a santoku. I am going to copy my Tanaka Sekiso 240mm and Richmond/Makoto AS Laser edge profile on some of my upcoming blades since those seem to be a more universal profile.

I think I figured out the handle issue. With a Wa handle, they have a bit of a neck with the tang exposed. With a western, you usually have a bolster as your neck or if no bolster, the handle starts pretty much right at the choil. The ones I have done have the wa tang, but western handle, and have a neck to them like I would do on a Wa handle. I think I need to move the front end of the handle up much closer to the choil like is usually found on a western blade. That would bring the handle ergonomics up to meet the blade so you have that connection to the blade in the pinch grip and the handle falls into your hand better. I think that would look better aesthetically, too. I want to tweak the overall shape of the handle a bit more once I get the tang shape figured out for the westerns. I am still going between narrow tang neck and wider tang neck, too. I think narrower would be easier to sneak the western handle up closer to the choil as well.

I don't have callouses from cooking, so the spine and choil is kinda a personal quirk of mine. I even do it on hunting and EDC blades unless they ask for a sharp spine for ferro rod useage. I like them round and soft, like my hands!!

I am glad that you like the overall grind on it! I have been looking for the general use grind for a while that people would like as an all arounder. I know the steel will take and hold a thin fine edge pretty well, but I wanted to leave some heft in the blade. It started out as 3/32" stock, but the convexing narrows the spine down a bit. It seemed to be a good weight, but I prefer using 240mm blades myself or taller 210mm's, which bring a bit more heft to the table.

The steel is Nitro V, which is similar to AEB-L in that the recipe is very "balanced" alloy wise and has very fine grain structure. It doesn't have a very hard carbide percentage, but it is very well dispersed and very fine carbides, which makes sharpening easy. It is supposed to be a little better in edge holding and corrosion resistance than AEB-L, but take a little less fine of an edge and may not be quite as tough as AEB-L. I have used both and have a slight preference for Nitro V after using some blades in the steel for a while. If I want something stainless with max toughness, or finest edge taking, AEB-L gets the nod. For everything else basic stainless, Nitro V gets the nod. AEB-L is likened to a stainless O-1 or 52100 in terms of edge taking, holding, fine grain and toughness, but is stainless. I like Blue and AS steel in Japanese knives as my favorite carbons (R2 in stainless), so I am very pleased that this seems to be on par edge holding to those as well in a pro environment! It's hard to judge the edge holding as a home cook because it doesn't see a lot of useage for extended time periods.

“damn that’s thin" was my thought on the little one as well! LOL. I did a 210mm that was just as thin, but the guy who bought it got it for his brother and I never heard any feedback from either :( If you like some heft to your blades, the little one is too light! Its a nice nimble blade for quick cuts, but for me personally, feels too light. I gotta grind out the other 180mm and 210mm of these eventually and will try to keep some meat on them towards the spine or I will use my radius platen to get follow the slight hollow on the blanks. I went with the full grind to remove the KU finish they had from forging/heat treating, but with the hollow, had to remove a lot of meat. The radius platen will allow me to clean up the steel in that hollow without removing as much steel I hope!

Thank you so much for your feedback!!!
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Re: 210mm Nitro V Funayuki pass around?

Post by Ut_ron »

Received the knives today in good shape. Will start using them. Touch and feel just so far but like what I see.
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Re: 210mm Nitro V Funayuki pass around?

Post by Ut_ron »

First impressions

Found the western style handle in the 210 interesting. Liked the texture feel. Didn’t get slippery as I expected it to. Due to very large hands really do not care for western handles. I did find by using a higher pinch grip it was ok.

Using the three finger gauge, they seemed to be pretty sharp so just started using them.

It was hamburgers and french fry night. So had eight mid size russet potatoes. Did four each of the knives. Started with the smaller knife. Did a great job on them. As expected the starchy potatoes ride up the blade but was easy to dislodge.

I did not have the same experience with the 210. There was more pressure needed to start the cuts on the whole potatoes. I also found that I had more incomplete cuts, mainly at the top. Needed to adjust how I used the knife.

After the first potato I took them to a diamond impregnated leather strop. After a about 2 minutes it made a huge difference in how it cut.

Both knives had no problems with large carrots and of course flew through soft produce. I did continue to struggle with according cuts with the 210. I guess I can’t change my cutting style easily 😆.

It was quite the chopper on the back part of the knife. Draw cuts were easy. Push cuts also but not as smooth.

Biggest surprise was how much I enjoyed the 180. I prefer larger and heavier knives normally. But was enjoying using this knife more then I did the larger and heavier brother.

My wife and daughter are both quilters and they were impressed that you could do that with cloth for creating a knife handle. They also loved how the colors came out.

Got side tracked so didn’t make it to the post office today. It will go out Monday to cutuu.

Thanks Tim for allowing me to play with your creations.
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Re: 210mm Nitro V Funayuki pass around?

Post by aporigine »

Is this one still open? Ive wondered about Nitro-V.
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Re: 210mm Nitro V Funayuki pass around?

Post by taz575 »

Thanks for the feedback Ron! I hoping to make more handle material soon with the weather finally getting a bit warmer, I think it will be pretty nice for kitchen knives!

As others have found, the profile is a bit different and takes some getting used to!

I glad people are liking the 180mm, I was worried it was too ligt and thin, but it seems to perform well for all!

Aporigine, send me a PM with your shipping info and I can get you on the list!
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Re: 210mm Nitro V Funayuki pass around?

Post by Ut_ron »

Tim,

It was not fragile at all. Didn’t seem thinner than my Takamura. Both are stiff so that helps with the thinness. Had to pry it from my daughters hand to use it. She loved it.

Did not take the knives to any stones so don’t know how hard nitro is to sharpen.
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Re: 210mm Nitro V Funayuki pass around?

Post by taz575 »

Nitro V is pretty easy to sharpen, similar to aebl steel. A touch harder to sharpen than blue or aogami super steel, but easier than vg-10, r2, etc. I think it is close to ginsan sharpening wise.
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Re: 210mm Nitro V Funayuki pass around?

Post by Bob Z »

Looks like they disappeared!
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Re: 210mm Nitro V Funayuki pass around?

Post by taz575 »

Cutuu just got your address a couple of days ago. I know his work schedule has been pretty hectic lately, which is the reason for the delay.
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Re: 210mm Nitro V Funayuki pass around?

Post by Cutuu »

Bob Z wrote: Sat May 21, 2022 9:30 pm Looks like they disappeared!
Sorry Bob, they are on their way to you. I message you the tracking.
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Re: 210mm Nitro V Funayuki pass around?

Post by Bob Z »

Knives appeared at my house this week after a fedex holiday delay. love the denim handle. So far my wife likes cutting with the Funayuki. More to come soon.
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Re: 210mm Nitro V Funayuki pass around?

Post by Bob Z »

Got to test out the Nitro V and I gotta say, the handle is growing on me even though Im into Wa handles these days. Did a great job on thin planks of carrot.
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Re: 210mm Nitro V Funayuki pass around?

Post by aporigine »

I’ve been keeping an eye on the mailbox, and it never showed. My one real worry is that the knife got lost on its way to me. From the above, can I conclude that I didn’t drop the ball? That would be a relief.
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Re: 210mm Nitro V Funayuki pass around?

Post by taz575 »

No, I got the knives back to me. I didnt see you post much after you signed up, so I wasnt sure if you were still interested.
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