A Yanagiba slips through food effortlessly and its incredible sharpness means you never struggle. The yanagiba is a gateway knife for people wanting to get into single bevels and learn some new tricks. When slicing meat or fish, this blade will naturally want to pull to the left on a right-handed knife. (the opposite is true for a lefty.) As the driver of the blade, you must take control and tell it where to go. That may sound tricky, but you will get the hang of it after a few slices. Still, it can take years to master this knife.

Honyaki is another answer to the deformation of a knife that can occur over time. Instead of forge-welding different hardness of steels, it is forged by a single piece of steel. Instead of hardening it the same way throughout the entire area of the blade, (which would make it so fragile that it would break in half if dropped on a hard surface) they use a technique called differential heat quenching to give it different hardnesses throughout the blade. 

The blacksmith prepares the blade before quenching by coating it in clay. A thin layer of clay is applied to the bottom of the blade along the edge. A very thick layer of clay is applied to the spine. By doing this, the spine will not get as hot and not cool down as fast when quenched in water so it does not harden at the same rate as the edge side. This extreme differential heat treatment can only be done in those steel that has low quenchability. It is true that some Honyaki knives are made with blue carbon steel or even stainless steel, but real, true Honyaki is usually made with white #1 or #2 and water quenched.

Weight: 237g

Handle Material: Buffalo Horn and Ebony with Nickel Ring

Handle Length: 150mm (5.9")

Blade Length: 290mm (11.4")

Blade Depth: 36mm

Thickness at spine: 3.4mm

Thickness at tip: 0.2mm

Cutting Edge: Single bevel

Blade Material: White 3

Hardness (Rockwell scale): 62 - 63

Layers: 3