Shun Kaji 8" Chefs Knife

T

thombrogan

Joined
Nov 16, 2002
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I'm not an 8" chef, but this is one heck of a knife:

8" blade (8.2" from end of bolster to tip)
Damascus-clad SG-2 powdersteel blade that's 0.006" at shoulder (Darksider approved)
Steel bolster and buttcap flawlessly fitted with ebony pakkawood scales
Point of balance is right in front of the bolster for all of you pinch-grippers out there

shun_kaji.jpg


Look at the damascus pattern. This is not the first knife to have pattern welded sides laminated to a harder steel core. It is the first I've seen that doesn't require etching to make the pattern reveal itself.

Here it is pictured beside a Nenox S1 240mm gyuto (lent to me by Fred "knifeoutlet" Whitlock):

kaji_nenox.jpg


Proof positive that 210mm < 240mm and that Fred likes great knives. Here's a pic of Fred's favorite:

yosh3.jpg

Well, this Yoshikane 240mm gyuto is mine and it's wonderful and it performs an awful lot like the Shun Kaji 8" Chefs Knife.

The knife arrived with the same factory-fresh edge as my Shun Elite knives - it scored a "100" on my Razr Edge Systems Edge-Tester. It sales through meats, fruits, and vegetables with great ease and stows away well with just a wash and a wipe. On very thick apples and potatoes, I experienced a little binding, but I had to go out of my way to look for it and it was much less than I've experienced dicing onions with a thicker chefs knife (and most chefs knives are much thicker).

Like the Shun Elite I had before this (well, still have, I'm addicted to high quality chefs knives), this knife inspires the inner cook. More home-cooked meals and then more lunacy "My daughter shouldn't have to bite her apple! Chewing is where the fun is! (chop chop chop);" "You know, this family needs to have sliced plums!" Stuff like that. There will be fruit and cottage cheese salad and the grapes will all be quartered.

Thanks, Kershaw/Kai/Shun/Keeblers/whomever the heck you are!
 
Quick, efficient vegetation annihiliation? You betcha!

Pwn'd pineapples, plums, nectarines, and grapes in short order for fruit salad:

kaji_slice1.jpg


These were pineapple slices cut up the way my wifey likes them. She wasn't in the mood for pineapple slices so they'll find their way into my tummy.

kaji_slice2.jpg


There's the fruit salad. Pretty good, especially with a dallop of cottage cheese, but I won't use unripe plums and nectarines next time. They're tart.

kaji_slice3.jpg


What type of psychotic bastid slices up grapes? Give a Shun Kaji 8" Chef Knife to the psychotic bastid in your life and find out! (if actually psychotic, please disregard previous advice - not my best idea)

Still need to break this bubby in with oxenfleisch, but fruits and veggies hold the dual distinction of being more demanding and less demanding of a knife's sharpness and overall width than meats.
 
Nice review, Thom. That knife is a real beauty! If I weren't so lazy in the kitchen, or even if I could get the girlfried interested....
 
That's the thing about a good chef knife, Dog of War - you'll find yourself cooking extra just to use it more often.
 
the point seems a lot higher then a lot of knives I've used how do you find that affects how you use it.

Also do you think that with adamacus clad steel it might work better with a pure steel with polished sides. I've never used a damacus steel kitchen knife so don't know if that's just a myth
 
Andy_L said:
the point seems a lot higher then a lot of knives I've used how do you find that affects how you use it.
Click to expand...

Most of the time, the heel of the knife and some of the belly gets used, but I place my index finger on the blade's spine and the tip obeys my every command. Tried doing that with more traditional chef knives (Takeda, Yoshikane) and it was a lot less instinctual.

Andy_L said:
Also do you think that with adamacus clad steel it might work better with a pure steel with polished sides. I've never used a damacus steel kitchen knife so don't know if that's just a myth
Click to expand...

The damascus pattern on this particular knife is definitely wavey and will trap air-pockets like a granton edge might, but they don't seem to make it cut better than some flat-sided knives. The thinness of the blade and edge and comfort of the handle seem more important than the damscus pattern for cutting. The pattern's main benefit seems to be make the knife look as good as it cuts.

Tis the season of squash. The Shun Kaji 8" Chefs Knife glided through a butternut-looking squash with ease and only slowed on the thickest part (didn't feel like wedging; which it was; as the cut still slid through) and even that was barely noticeable. The only problem was that the squash we bought was awful. Apparently, even the cleanest cuts can't stop bad squash from tasting bad.
 
Andy_L said:
the point seems a lot higher then a lot of knives I've used how do you find that affects how you use it.
Click to expand...

thombrogan said:
Most of the time, the heel of the knife and some of the belly gets used, but I place my index finger on the blade's spine and the tip obeys my every command. Tried doing that with more traditional chef knives (Takeda, Yoshikane) and it was a lot less instinctual.
Click to expand...

I agree that the point does look higher on this and other Shun Chef's knives.

But there might be another consideration - although we see the handle straight/in-line with the back of the knife - the angle of the handle to the cutting edge is more important - I only just thought of this while looking at the Shun Alton's 10deg Angle series.

To illustrate this I deliberately tilted the images of the chef knives so that the majority of the cutting edge was more or less horizontal (allowing for some margin of eye/human error) and pasted them together next to each other so one could see the effect - I included the more "radical" knives like the Alton's 10deg Angle 6" chef (which I resized so that the blade approx the same size as the rest of the 8" chefs) and the Ken Onion 8" chef, as well as a well known conventional Victorinox Fibrox 8" Chef.
ChefHandleAngle.jpg



There is obviously a tilt to the handles when the cutting edge is horizontal - even on the "straight" Shun Classic, Shun Steel, and the Victorinox 8" Chefs -
the Alton's Angle is very obvious -
the surprise was the Ken Onion 8" Chef - which seems straighter/in-line - however, if one looks at the handle angle nearer the blade/bolster - one sees the tilt upward - approx at the same angle as the straight knives.

This angle is what I think makes these knives handle and feel good.

Looking at the knives this way (kind of ignoring the handles) one sees then the point/tip does not look that high - relative to the rest of the blade.....

What do you guys think?

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Great looking knife Thom! And, a nice review as always! Where's a good place to buy?
 
Williams Sonoma has these puppies for a year before other places get them.

You might want to check into the Shun Elite series as well. The handle is different and the blade doesn't look damascusy, but the performance is right there. Plus, they're now available at several, competing online and brick-and-mortar stores.
 
Thanks Thom. I did a quick search, and found out that Williams-Sonoma is the only ones selling the Kaji knives.

You've got a great photo there of what's going to be my next two purchases! The Kaji and Nenox. Beautiful knives!!

I bought two of the Shun Elite knives. (a 10" chef & 3.5 paring) Like you, I'm addicted to kitchen knives. My job as a meat cutter doesn't help things either! Not that I take my Shuns to work though...

Funny how I've always been passionate about knives (hunting and outdoor knives that is) but only in the last year have I changed my focus to kitchen knives. Funny because it's the kitchen knives that get used the most.

Right now I'm playing around with a Shun Pro 2 Yanagiba. Fun, Fun, Fun!

-Erik
 
You right-handers and your off-the-rack yanagibas! :p

You're going to love both the Kaji and the Nenox. Which Nenox are you getting? S1? SD? Bone? G-series?
 
thombrogan,

Just wondering how the Kaji's compare to the Elites, since both use the same SG2 steel. BTW: I saw Williams-Sonoma's Kaji prices. Ouch!!!

I recently bought the Shun Elite 7" Santoku (SG-0403), and put my own custom edge on it ... 15 degree terminal bevel with a full convex blend into the body of the blade ... final strop using 1/4 micron diamond paste. The thing easily chops the ends off very fine 1" hanging hairs. As long as you don't try to saw or pound your cutter board, it keeps even that sharp an edge a loooong time. Bread crusts are a problem, though.

I just placed Shun's SG-0404B Elite 8" Chef's knife on order, expecting to give its edge the same treatment.

Should I be having buyer's remorse?

Ray
 
Absolutely no need for buyer's remorse on the Shun Elite 8" Chefs Knife!

The Shun Kaji has a different shaped handle, different adornment above the edge, and a tighter fit and finish on the handle (didn't think that was possible), but the performance is identical as both have the same profile, same geometry, and same blade steel. Kind of like comparing a Toyota Avalon (Elite) to a similarly sized Lexus (Kaji): both knives offer high performance with a lot of comfort, but one was slightly more expensive to assemble (the damascus on the Kaji ain't like standard damascus).

Very thin knife edges and crusty bread don't go together like peas and carrots which is surprising as it's just bread. The KnifeOutlet guy uses his Shun Classic 10" Chefs Knife as a dedicated bread knife, but most folks seem to use serrated bread knives for that task with Gude being the high-end choice. My wife uses a Mundial serrated 6" utility knife and I use a Spyderco KX06SE utility knife for bread.
 
Thanks, Thom.

Nice to know I'm not a complete idiot. Maybe when my rich uncle gets out of the poorhouse, I'll spring for some Kaji's. Meanwhile, for crusty bread I'm using a cheap Chicago Insignia2 serrated 7" bread knife. One of these days I may even figure out how to sharpen it.

You wouldn't happen to know what kind of steel Nenox uses on their knives, would you? I'd guess 1095 or 52100. Carefully heat treated, those simple old carbon steels really do perform. Nenox's pricing gave me real sticker shock, though.

Regards,
Ray

PS: It only took me 30 years to figure out that kitchen knives get the most use ... guess I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer!
 
I don't know what Nenox uses, but the rumor is it's carefully heat-treated VG-1 and they'll be switching over to VG-10 with a super-special heat-treat, too (just like the Hattori FH knives which look quite similar, cost less, and have linen micarta scales). That's the rumor, anyways.
 
thombrogan said:
You right-handers and your off-the-rack yanagibas! :p

You're going to love both the Kaji and the Nenox. Which Nenox are you getting? S1? SD? Bone? G-series?
Click to expand...

Thom, I'll probably end up with the G-series. I really like Micarta for my knife handles!
 
That's a sweet looking knife (picturing G-series 240mm gyuto). If you can wait until January, Korin will have a 15% off sale on non-Shun must-haves such as Nenox, Masamoto, and Misono.
 
Since first posting this review, I found that my Shun Kaji had somehow bent just a wee bit. Straightening it out a wee bit turned it into a cutter that drifts through food (as the 0.006" thick at bevel edge would suggest).

Also, I gained a new appreciation for high-carbide high-hardness steel tonight. Low-carbide high-hardness steel is my favorite (as most readers are painfully aware. sorry. :( ), but sometimes that rapid drop from 99% sharp to 50% sharp low-carbide steels can have can't be remedied in a desired manner whereas the drop from 99% sharp to a very prolonged 85-90% sharp gets the job done.

In this case, I was comparing a Mora of Sweden brand chef in 12C20-something (27 or 27M) at about RC58 (not too hard, but hard for 12C27) to the Shun Kaji's SG-2 at somewhere over RC60 (64? :confused: ). The Mora chef knife pwns the Forschner it resembles in edge-retention and even in laying in a knifeblock without an inch of sharpened edge sticking out. It's one sweet knife and it's over 2" wide at the heel. :cool: It held its "fresh off the stones" edge for a long time, too. What I was expecting, though, was for it to dull sort of fast after losing its edge of razor goodness. Instead, it went from razor to dull in a finger snap.

The Shun Kaji, though, at less-than-fresh sharpness is still extremely sharp and will stay in a state of suspended-awesomation for a long time before needing resharpening. I like this over most high-carbide steels that have the same RC test results as the Mora. The tendency; when such a steel is softer than the SG-2 as heat-treated by KAI/Shun; is for the knife to stay just below razor sharp for a long time. With KAI/Shun's treatment of SG-2 and Ryusen's treatment of SG-1, though, you get an edge that'll shave arm hair (please wash blade before using on food!) that lasts for a long time and that's a more-than-fair trade-off for losing it's hair-whittling ability quicker than blade made from 12C27, 13C26, or 14C28N.

But enough about those steels - the Shun Kaji is just completely awesome and I'm pleased with its performance.
 
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I always enjoy reading your reviews, thanks Thom! Now I'm off to the kitchen to find something to cut up and eat!!!
 
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