Kengata • 160 mm • SG2 • Ironwood Handle • For Both Left- and Right-Handed Use

The handle is made from ironwood, a durable and extremely hard type of hardwood. It feels solid in the hand and is highly wear-resistant. Thanks to its dense structure, the wood is well protected against damage, temperature fluctuations, and humid conditions. An excellent choice for intensive use in the kitchen.

The core of the blade is made from SG2 steel, also known as powdered metallurgical steel, supplied by Takefu Steel in Fukui. After forging, the SG2 steel is hardened in a salt bath, resulting in an ideal combination of hardness and toughness. This makes it not only easy to sharpen to a very fine edge, but also ensures it retains its sharpness for a long time.

Elwin de Veld about the knives of Sakai Takayuki

We usually start our trips to Japan in Osaka, from where we take a Shinkansen ( a bullet train) to Seki, in Gifu prefecture. We start in Sakai, in south of Osaka, where we always recieve a warm friendly welcome from Aoki san and Ogawa san from Sakai Takayuki. In recent years the customers in our shop have been asking for special Japanese traditionally forged knives: Yanagiba, Sakimura, Kengata: all the names of models which are used in Japanese kitchens for preparing various sorts of fish. Sakai Takayuki is my key which opens the door to the world of traditional Japanese knives and to top it all, their product range is targeted for the western market. For making of the traditional Japanese knives Sakai Takayuki employs the best of the best: Itsuo Doi and Kenji Togashi, among others. The blacksmith Yamatsuke san, with his stable hand on the Kaiten Toshi (Japanese water stone), is a guarantor of an exceptionally sharp finish. Sakai Takayuki buys lots of their steel from the Aichi steel (their headquarters are situated close to Nagoya) and works among other with carbon steel shirogami white and aogami blue. A nice detail: the colours in the names of the steel have nothing to do with the colour of the steel itself- it's just the colour of the packing in which the raw steel is being stored in the factory. The western models are manually finished at the company's quarters in Osaka (sharpening), but largely manufactured in Seki, in Gifu prefecture. The finish and the quality is sublime- just what we can expect from Takayuki.