VG10 · Tsuchime damascus · 150 g
In stock · Ships from Prague
Every blade on this site gets its own trading card - tier-colored, kamon-stamped, and built around the seven specs that actually predict how the knife behaves on the line. Steel. Hardness. Edge. Length. Handle. Finish. Origin.
“Vegetable, fish, meat — santoku for all three. Hammered damascus, hard core.”
“Vegetable, fish, meat — santoku for all three. Hammered damascus, hard core.”
Three virtues - fish, meat, vegetable. A shorter, flatter blade than the gyuto, with a sheep-foot tip that protects the cutting hand.
Push-cut friendly. Easier to handle than a gyuto in a home-sized kitchen. The Japanese answer to the Western chef knife.
Gyuto vs santoku - which oneEight flat sides give the blade vertical alignment in your grip. The dominant Japanese kitchen handle - the one professional chefs reach for first.
Ambidextrous. Comfortable in any grip style - pinch, hammer, or finger-tip. The geometry tells your hand where the edge is pointing without looking down.
Where this blade earns its keep - and where it's the wrong tool.
Warm water + a soft sponge. No dishwasher, ever - the heat warps the handle and the detergent eats the edge.
Wipe to bone-dry the moment it leaves the sink. Standing water is the enemy - even on stainless.
Stainless doesn't need daily oiling. If you're putting it away for more than a month, a thin pass of camellia oil keeps the steel happy.
Daily use: dry and rack. No oil required.
A 1000-grit waterstone every few weeks. Stropping between for a longer life on the edge.
A saya for storage. A stone for the edge. An oil for the steel.
1000-grit waterstone. The workhorse grit for kitchen edges.
Camellia (tsubaki) oil. Food-safe. A thin pass keeps the steel quiet.
“Kokushin Santoku 180mm is the three-virtues home blade - flat enough for push-cuts, short enough to clear a domestic board. VG-10 holds the edge like carbon but forgives the morning sink, running at HRC 60-61. In the kitchen, that means it asks less of your wrist than a gyuto and still does everything a non-professional kitchen needs. It sits in our catalog because it earns its keep on a working line, the geometry is honest, and the steel is what the maker said it is. We've held it. That's what gets a knife on this site. ”
- Ethan
Yes - the chromium content in the steel passes a thin oxide layer over the surface that resists rust under normal kitchen use. You still hand-wash and dry it like any good knife (no dishwasher, no soaking), but you don't need the daily oil-wipe routine a carbon blade needs.
No knife you care about should go in a dishwasher. The heat warps the handle, the detergent dulls the edge, and clattering against other dishes chips the bevel. Hand-wash with warm water and a soft sponge, then dry immediately.
HRC stands for "Rockwell Hardness, scale C" - a measurement of how hard the steel is. Higher numbers mean the steel holds an edge longer but is also more brittle. This knife is 60-61 HRC, which is the working sweet spot for Japanese kitchen blades.
Use a Japanese waterstone. 1000-grit for regular sharpening, 5000-grit for finishing. Soak the stone if it needs soaking (most modern Shapton-style stones are splash-and-go), hold the blade at around a 15-degree angle to the stone (a folded coin makes a decent gauge), grind one bevel until you raise a burr along the entire edge, flip and do the other side. Finish with light alternating strokes to remove the burr. Steer clear of pull-through sharpeners - they tear the edge.
We ship from our EU warehouse in Prague. Free across the EU on orders over €80, ~3-5 business days. Outside EU: standard rates apply, customs handled at destination. Tracking on every order.
30 days, no questions asked. Ship it back, we refund. Damage from misuse (hitting bone, frozen food, dropping) isn't covered - but normal 'this isn't right for me' is. Email office@smartsushichef.com to start.
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