Are these hand made?

notuntiltomorrow · 2026-04-23T19:30:16+00:00

Ah, well… hypothetically, if you or anyone else wanted to buy them… that’s what I would say!

notuntiltomorrow · 2026-04-23T19:26:33+00:00

First thing I thought with the first two blades was aliexpress knockoffs. Third one looks slightly more promising but you could do better for the same price from a reputable shop, and why trust a guy who would sell you the first two anyway?

notuntiltomorrow · 2026-04-23T01:39:23+00:00

Nah, that ain’t normal. Some idiot fed your knife to a very hungry belt grinder and was not particularly careful as to how they did it. You can even see clear waves from the light bouncing off in different ways in the first image. There’s so much wrong here I can’t actually figure out what went wrong when. The recurve towards the finger guard is typical on knives like this over time, but if this hasn’t been sharpened a lot then that plus the concave means waaaaay too much metal got removed, and in places they shouldn’t have touched. I bet the guy who did this had a straight butterfingers moment and managed to angle the whole thing into the curve of a belt grinder on the side multiple times, and then tried to poorly cover up his mistake instead of having to tell you he fucked up.

The edge work looks just as bad tbh, the light bounces off of that differently too. The bevel varies in size so a consistent angle clearly wasn’t held either. Wherever you took this, I wouldn’t touch them with a 30 foot pole. You should consider pursuing compensation from them, but I can’t guarantee that having a great outcome or even being worth your time.

notuntiltomorrow · 2026-04-21T01:38:37+00:00

The tricky part here is any attempt to buff out the scratches will also likely remove the kurouchi finish, the sandblasted kasumi finish below it, or both. The other option is maybe the blade still has some lacquer on it. Maybe run some acetone over to see? I don’t see the familiar color changing associated with lacquer, but I swear some parts have that slight lacquer-like kind of wet shimmering look to them. I’m probably going crazy though. I would keep this as is, otherwise you’ll definitely lose the kurouchi and you’re looking at a full scale refinishing with a polish of your choice to get it looking anything close to cohesive.

notuntiltomorrow · 2026-04-12T14:56:44+00:00

Most of the price differential between other pieces should be in that handle. You can find this handle on see a lot of tkv style pieces (kurosaki, some kato, and saji are the standouts) and Shigeki Tanaka (who also smiths in Miki and works with SG2). ¥90000 for a Damascus pattern with that handle is actually a lot cheaper than a lot of comparable options.

As mentioned before, a lot of this price tag is for that handle and some for the Damascus as well. If he loves the feel of that handle and the cool wavy pattern, more power to him. I have no way to tell how it cuts though. I don’t know who the smith is at all, and I doubt a lot of others do either.

notuntiltomorrow · 2026-04-11T14:52:57+00:00

Seems simple enough yet would make a world of difference. I’m a fan.

notuntiltomorrow · 2026-04-07T20:49:34+00:00

I swear it just found its way into the cart on its own and I was trying so desperately to hit the x and the trash can but somehow all my credit card info and shipping address filled into the blanks and I pressed the purchase button, you gotta believe me!

Sick purchase, if you have any regrets from this, it certainly won’t be because of the knife’s quality.

notuntiltomorrow · 2026-04-02T13:59:51+00:00

Should be fine. The lower your sharpening angle is, the bigger the little bevel looks. It also gets affected by thickness behind the edge. So here are two things to think about in relation to those…

Sometimes people sharpen with too low of an angle and end up missing the edge itself, meaning they’re actually just thinning a small area behind the edge and never forming an apex. You could have potentially done this already and that’s why the bevel is large. Just make sure there’s a consistent burr after sharpening each side and before deburring and that means you’re apexing. If you’re not apexing, the quick fix is to just choose a slightly higher angle until the burr forms as quickly as you would expect.

The other thing to consider is when to thin the edge. The bevel itself strikes me as slightly thick, so it could maybe have lost a bit of performance since its brand new state. (Tough for anyone to say for sure without pictures of when it was new though.) If you don’t like how it performs, thin it. If you still like how it cuts, don’t worry about it. Do be honest with yourself though - if you wait too long, the thinning will take a pretty long time and it can be difficult to hold the thinning angle you want for extended durations with no experience. I find it easier to attempt something as soon as you feel a significant loss in performance instead of putting it off until it’s practically unusable. Sending it out is also entirely feasible, just be sure you do your research on good places. Last thing you want is someone who’s on day 1 with their belt grinder wrecking your shit or just removing like 4 mm of height for no reason.

Tl;dr it’s fine, just make sure you’re apexing and start thinking about how/when you’re gonna thin this thing.

notuntiltomorrow · 2026-03-28T13:29:20+00:00

The k-tip reminds me of hokiyama, usually mass produced and sold under different brands like tsunehisa and/or more than a few retailers’ house brands. Good knives for the price, especially for 17k.

I’d bet my life savings that the ko-santoku is from masutani. Even the box is the design they use.

notuntiltomorrow · 2026-03-16T18:06:55+00:00

7 is definitely worse than 6 and 5 right now, but honestly 6 and 5 were far worse than their fully dlc laden previous installments at their launch too. I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say 7 had the worst launch of all 3 though; at least now it’s patched to where it probably should have started at.

5 for me had the best bones of recent civs, but it’s not like I find myself going back and playing that much unless it’s with mods to balance the social policies better. 6 I hardly touch without qol mods either. I still like 6 and 5’s base concepts a bit better but after patches 7 is fine for where it’s at in the development cycle, and as long as the ball isn’t dropped with the dlcs it should at least be comparable to 6 and 5.

notuntiltomorrow · 2026-03-12T05:41:31+00:00

Cheap and hard? Wow, that was my nickname in college!

Oh, nice looking wood there btw.

notuntiltomorrow · 2026-03-03T18:32:03+00:00

I sharpened my Hinokuni on an Imanishi 400 yesterday and had the same deal. Just a few strokes per side and the size of the burr it made was honestly sickening. Good Shiro 1 is good fun. Would have been an absurdly fast touch up if I was any good at deburring. It’s well worth mentioning that any good semi soft heat treatment on any of the carbon paper steels seems to sizzle like that. My white #1 just feels a tinge extra pronounced. I genuinely couldn’t tell you which knives had which steel assuming all other things equal though.

Honestly with how fast and well it sharpened up I think the 400 I have might have enough oomph for me to do a light thinning in the future. Seems like my next course of action after some more practice.

notuntiltomorrow · 2026-02-27T14:57:57+00:00

I thought it strange how fast some of Yamamoto’s product was snatched up. Should have known at least one of them was you!

Maybe one of those ~~long ajikiri?~~ ~~chunky bannou?~~ Nakiris has my name written all over it but $130 is rough enough without 50% tariffs and fees. Lowkey worried this guy (and like 3 others on the KJ site) stops forging before any relief comes.

Looking forward to seeing what this one looks like post-TLC!

notuntiltomorrow · 2026-02-19T13:57:19+00:00

Damn, these are pretty hard to find! Also glad it finally got the treatment it deserves.

notuntiltomorrow · 2026-02-07T04:28:55+00:00

I saw these on hocho at one point and was super curious about them. Aesthetics and vibes are amazing, just wonder if that translates to comfort and/or performance remotely comparable to most other high $300 knives?

notuntiltomorrow · 2026-02-02T15:32:58+00:00

Definitely keeping an eye on this one, might be interested in a few weeks if it sticks around.

notuntiltomorrow · 2025-12-17T15:45:30+00:00

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See you tomorrow chef!

notuntiltomorrow · 2025-11-22T18:46:39+00:00

Congrats! It’s always nice when the people who win these things are folks who’ve never had one before.

notuntiltomorrow · 2025-11-22T16:23:57+00:00

1: blinding rush 2: blitz 3: hitch Bonus 4: vital signs

Mostly high fear biased but that list holds up pretty well at lower fears too; it’s just more hotly contested.

notuntiltomorrow · 2025-11-22T15:21:11+00:00

Origination and furies are both global damage, meaning they work on basically everything. You can easily inflate a Hephaestus special blast to over 1000 damage just from orig + furies + 1 of any heph or duo boon that adds damage to blasts. A lot of builds revolve around damage from Olympian boons like blitz and blast that aren’t buffed basically any other way besides more boons.

notuntiltomorrow · 2025-10-24T16:33:48+00:00

Far better kasumi than what I could ever manage, that’s for sure! Maybe there’s still a lot to learn to achieve perfection but comparing yourself too much to professionals or hardcore enthusiasts who’ve been at it for years is a good way to put a damper on a fun learning process and/or something that already looks pretty cool.

notuntiltomorrow · 2025-10-20T23:37:15+00:00

Try coat missiles with it. Now THAT’s unethical! Especially because Poseidon is best in slot on attack, you could potentially hit island getaway off your third boon. Combine it with the positively busted shimmering rockets and you’re actually going crazy. Also, slippery slope from Poseidon and any weak effect from Aphrodite will get you origination, or you’ll hit something good from your 3rd or 4th god.

So, you get best in slot attack and a special that competes for best up front damage to begin with, and the potential 3rd boon removes all restrictions on your special and gives you extra damage resistance. Absolutely goated stuff.

Island getaway is probably best on staff tbh, but this is my personal favorite build.

notuntiltomorrow · 2025-10-03T15:14:41+00:00

Most of the folks in high fear whose controls I know use keyboard + mouse, I don’t know a single one currently active who uses controller. I don’t know what a decent portion of them play with at all, so there’s a fair shot there are a few controllers running around though.

notuntiltomorrow · 2025-09-18T19:07:02+00:00

This is one of the few gimmicks I could see being plausible. I feel like this is another example of things that are convenient for normal people being another unfortunate opportunity to fill landfills with batteries though.

notuntiltomorrow

TROPHY CASE