Custom Limited Edition, Sukenari Honyaki XEOS Series HX-3 Kiritsuke Yanagiba 300mm (11.8 Inch, Single Bevel Edge)

This one-of-a-kind “Custom Limited Edition Sukenari Honyaki XEOS Series Single Bevel Edge Kiritsuke Yanagiba Knife” is the result of Sukenari’s extensive hammer forging experience and their innovative use of a newly developed stainless steel.

The Japanese Traditional Forge Smith and Knife Maker “Sukenari” has over 80 years of forging and knife making experience. As we have said in the past, Sukenari has built an excellent brand name and reputation due to their business style, passion and proactive spirit.

For many years, Sukenari has produced knives with great cutting performance and practicality for professional users, who depend on their knives for their daily work and their living. In Japan, Sukenari has a direct relationship with many professional chefs, who buy and use their knives. The requests and feedback from these professionals has always been high level; They notice small details and differences and they have high standards, especially with respect to cutting performance and quality.

Sukenari has always done their best to meet the needs of these professional knife users and always uses their feedback to focus and further improve their experience, knowledge, skills and products.

For Sukenari and professional chefs, Sharpness and Cutting Performance are always the top priority. Over the past few decades, Sukenari has also noted that ease of maintenance, particularly rust resistance, has become very important to many professional users.

Sukenari has become famous for their Honyaki knives, particularly the legendary Sukenari Honyaki White Steel No.1 Series knives, which are prized by serious knife users and collectors. Unfortunately, Carbon Steel Honyaki Knives can be hard to care for and they can easily rust or discolor, which spoils their original, beautiful appearance. Accordingly, we usually only recommend Honyaki Carbon Steel knives to experienced knife users or careful, serious users.

3^rd generation smith Master Hanaki, the President of Sukenari, is constantly researching and testing whether knives made from other steel alloys can offer the same level of cutting performance as their famous Honyaki White Steel No.1 Series knives. For over 30 years, Sukenari has been making traditional single bevel edge knives with other special Japanese steels, including Super X and ZDP-4.

In order to satisfy the needs and demands of their professional customers, Sukenari continues to challenge themselves to obtain the best possible cutting performance and practicality from these special steels.

Over the past 5 years, Sukenari has spent a great deal of time and energy researching, testing and making Honyaki SG-II single bevel edge knives. Sukenari’s recent hard work and experience with forging Stainless Steel Honyaki knives has only added to their existing extensive experience in Hammer Forging Carbon Steel Honyaki knives. Their expertise with this time-consuming process, which requires great concentration and very consistent, precise hammer blows, has now enabled them to produce some remarkable VG XEOS Special Steel Honyaki blades.

VG XEOS is newly developed high-grade stainless steel from Takefu Steel Company. While the Chemical Composition of this new mysterious steel is currently a confidential trade-secret of the company, they have disclosed that, compared to other steels in their VG series, VG XEOS was specially engineered to offer improved High Hardness, Strength, Wear Resistance and Corrosion Resistance. Furthermore, VG XEOS can offer this desirable balance of improved characteristics at HRc. 63.

Sukenari wanted to make something new and special, something that offered the high cutting performance of traditional carbon-steel Honyaki knives AND the corrosion resistance offered by high-tech stainless steels. Through Sukenari’s vision, proactivity, passion and positive energy, they have created these ‘next-generation’ Honyaki XEOS Special Steel Knives. This is a very limited edition run of premium steel knives: At this moment, Sukenari does not plan to make any more VG XEOS Mono-Steel Traditional Hammer Forged Single Bevel Edge knives in the future.

With a beautiful Mirror Polish and excellent fit and finish, the VG XEOS Honyaki blade is engraved with the Sukenari “祐成　XEOS” brand logo on the face side and is engraved with the Kanji “無垢鍛” (Hammer Forged Mono Steel) on the back side.

We decided to fit this new, futuristic generation of high-end Honyaki blades with Handmade, Custom Octagonal Handle (Strawberry-Milk Colored Resin body, collar and endcap, Ocean Blue Colored Composite Stone ferrule with Brass and Red Liner spacers). For safekeeping, this knife comes with a matching Black Lacquered Wood Saya (Sheath) with a black pakkawood Saya pin.

We hope you can feel Sukenari’s passion and can appreciate what a great achievement these Sukenari VG XEOS Honyaki Knives are. We love Sukenari’s spirit, passion and desire to challenge themselves, they continue to innovate and create ‘next-level’ traditional forged knives.

The Kirisuke Yanagiba has a very similar blade profile to the ‘regular’ Yanagiba, but it has what is commonly known as a ‘reverse tanto’ tip, or ‘clipped point’, which is very useful for precision cutting. Apart from this difference, the Kirisuke Yanagiba functions in the same way as the ‘plain’ Yanagiba or the Takohiki.

Specification

Knife Model: Custom Limited Edition, Sukenari Honyaki XEOS Series HX-3 Kiritsuke Yanagiba 300mm (Single Bevel Edge)

Blade Material: Hammer Forged Honyaki Solid XEOS Steel

Rockwell Hardness (HRc): 63

Blade Grind and Edge Shape: Single Bevel Edge

Handle Material: Custom Handmade Octagonal Handle (Strawberry-Milk Colored Resin body, collar and endcap, Ocean Blue Colored Composite Stone ferrule with Brass and Red Liner spacers)

Saya Included: Yes.