Sakai Takayuki

SAK-07399

Sakai Takayuki 33-Layer Damascus Kengata Santoku, 160mm / 6.3" - #7399

14 items left

A great variation on a standard santoku shape, giving you the great santoku blade shape, but with a more standards chef-knife style tip/point. A perfect all-around kitchen knife, especially for those who prefer a smaller knife but still like the idea of a blade with a larger surface area and without too much curve, making it easy to chop and slice and dice everything from vegetables to common items like boneless chicken breasts. This makes a great alternative to a small chef knife. Many people who try a santoku never go back to their old chef knife. The VG10 cutting core and 33-layer stainless Damascus steel makes for a high performance, durable, affordable and good-looking knife.

These knives really are very sharp, with excellent construction quality and they just look spectacular with the layered steel, hammered finish and gorgeous wood-grain handle.

The handle is made of Spanish mahogany pakkawood, which has that nice wooden feel and look, but it is impregnated with resin/epoxy so it's very strong and is very water resistant to avoid absorbing water or warping or cracking -- an excellent material! If you like the damascus layered steel look but don't like the artificially high prices by domestic knives and kitchen stores, this is a truly excellent choice. You get a super sharp and long-lasting VG-10 steel cutting core (this is a very hard and high quality knife steel, with a Rockwell hardness of approximately 60), with a 33-layer hammered stainless steel surface and a beautifully finished handle.

I'd recommend the fine ceramic hone (see below) for regular/daily maintenance of the edge. As with any knife, use the hone regularly and you'll keep the edge in good shape for quite a while before you need to think about doing any serious re-sharpening or real grinding and refinishing of the edge.

NOTE: This knife is sharpened 50/50 (equally on the right and left side), so it's easy to maintain and fine for right or left hand use. If you look carefully at the edge, you'll see a slight right-side bias, this is just because the final edge is so tiny and because of the way they finish the edge; it has NO bearing on right- or left-hand use, sharpening or maintenance and can be ignored, so you should treat the edge just like any standard 50/50 edge.

Customer Reviews

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I
Ion Bostioca
Not disappointed

I don't consider myself a knives connoisseur however being fortunate enough to be exposed to the Japanese culture after numerous trip to the Land of the Rising Sun, I developed a great admiration for their workmanship for everything they do, including or especially sharp blades of any kinds (swords, knives, straight razors) I own a mix of Japanese and European knives of various quality levels from your average Canadian Tire products to entry level Japanese Damascus sets (Shun Premier). Wanted to use more the Shun chef knife but found it too big for majority of the daily tasks. A friend of mine recommended a Santoku. After some research I ran in to Paul's website and started to learn more about the Sakai Takayuki products. This Kengata Santoku knife appealed to me from a visual perspective and, also, found a few positive video reviews that convinced me to give it a try. The purchasing experience was a super positive one. Placed the order on the weekend and the knife was already at the post office on Monday afternoon. The knife was well packaged and arrived in perfect shape. A lot of reviewers did not like the "factory micro bevel" however I found it as sharp as all my other knives. Perfect fit and finish rivaling the Shun set I own and with a good balance due to the shorter blade, this knife started to climb the "go to" scale to the point where it became the most used knife in the house. Thank you Paul for bringing such great quality products to the Canadian market.

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