What size steel for a honesuki?

A honesuki is short but tall at the heel, and the height sets the width of the bar. The preset is a 5 3/4 in blade (about 146 mm), 1.55 in tall at the heel, with a 1/8 in (0.125 in) spine and a 5 in full tang for a Western handle. Add 1/8 in for clean-up and you need 1.675 in. For 1084 the calculator lists no width between 1 1/2 and 2 in, so it rounds up to 2 in. That makes it 2 × 1/8 in flat bar, forged or ground. A honesuki up to 1 3/8 in tall comes from 1 1/2 in bar.

The matching KraftyDesign blank (the "Draw this blank" link) is a triangle. The spine runs straight out to the point, the heel is deep, and the edge rises fairly straight to meet the spine at the tip. The handle is straight. KraftyDesign starts Japanese patterns at 3/32 in, but most shop honesukis are thicker than that at the spine, so the preset uses 1/8 in.

Spec listings from seven knife shops in the US, Canada, the UK and Australia cover 17 honesukis sold as 145 to 160 mm. Their spines run from 1.9 to 4.4 mm. The bar has to be at least as thick as the finished spine, so only six of them (2.3 mm or less) could come from 3/32 in (2.4 mm) bar. Eight, at 2.5 to 3.1 mm, need 1/8 in (3.2 mm) bar, and three need thicker. A 1/8 in finished spine is on the thick side, but 1/8 in bar covers 14 of the 17. Of the 16 that list a height, 15 are 37 to 43 mm (about 1.46 to 1.69 in), around the preset's 1.55 in, and all of those need 2 in bar.

By stock removal at 1/8 in, every steel on the calculator's list gives the same 2 × 1/8 in bar with no flags, except 5160. For 5160 the calculator warns that 1/8 in is under the 0.156 in usually considered practical, and that 1/8 in isn't a thickness 5160 is commonly listed in. Of the 17 shop knives, 16 are made from steels the calculator doesn't list, such as white #2, SK carbon and AUS-8. The odd one out is a 1084 honesuki sold by a shop in Maine.

The calculator starts on stock removal for this one. It takes the whole 10 3/4 in profile plus clean-up: 11 in of bar per blade. That is about 12 1/2 oz of bar for a blade that finishes around 7 oz. The 12 and 18 in bars give one blade each, and 24, 36 and 48 in give two, three and four. All but the 18 in bar cost the same per blade. The shops list them at 88 to 198 g (about 3 to 7 oz), and only one says its figure is the weight of the whole knife. The calculator's steel-only estimate is heavier than all of them, so it may run heavy. Weigh your first one and adjust the fill factors under Calibration.

Forged, the steel is drawn out (the calculator shows a 1.36:1 draw), and about 8 1/4 in of the same bar (about 9 oz) is enough. The blade finishes near 6 oz. A 12 in bar gives one, the 18 and 24 in bars give two each, 36 in gives four and 48 in gives five. The 18 and 36 in bars tie for the lowest cost per blade. To start thicker and forge down, set "Forged thickness" to "One size up". That starts you at 2 × 5/32 in, and it only applies in forged mode. The calculator won't forge AEB-L, CPM-154, 14C28N, MagnaCut or A2. Pick any of them and it works out the bar as stock removal, even with Forged selected.

What a honesuki is for

A honesuki is a Japanese boning knife for poultry. Korin, a Japanese knife shop in New York, says it is used to separate the meat from the bones. Wikipedia calls it a small triangular knife used to debone chicken, and gives the usual size as 12 to 18 cm (about 5 to 7 in). The shape does the work. Wikipedia says most have an angled tip to slip between tendons and cut them. Japanese Chefs Knife (JCK), an online Japanese knife retailer, says the blade is narrow enough to turn quickly when cutting around and along the bone. Knifewear, a Canadian knife shop, says the heel is fairly thick for scraping meat from bones and the tip thinner for precise cuts. Cutting Edge Knives, an online knife shop based in Holmfirth in the UK, lists spatchcocking a chicken, taking the crown off a duck and working thighs off the bone. It is stiff, but it is not a cleaver. JCK says not to use it to split poultry or cut through the bones, and Knifewear says not to force it through bone, though it is fine on cartilage and tendons. Cooks don't all agree on backbones. In a thread on the Chef Knives To Go forum about breaking down a chicken, one poster takes backbones out with an AEB-L honesuki, working with the thicker rear of the blade. Another says a honesuki is not meant to cut through bone, and suggests a yo-deba (a deba with a Western handle) for backbones.

Wikipedia lists the honesuki with the single-bevel knives, but most of the shop knives above are double bevel with an uneven split. Of the 17, only one is listed as single bevel. Ten are uneven double bevels from 70/30 to 90/10 and three are an even 50/50. One is listed only as double bevel, and two don't say. In a BladeForums thread on making a honesuki, one reply describes a flat back with a slightly convex front and an 80/20 edge. A later reply says you'll find both 50/50 and 80/20 edges and that they all work well. That poster prefers 80/20, and would pick whichever you are comfortable sharpening. Another BladeForums poster chisel ground a 52100 honesuki, right-handed, with the back hollow ground on a 14 in wheel. That maker left the edge thick, unsure of the style and thinking it should not be thin and flimsy like a vegetable knife. Shops sell two tip shapes. Bernal Cutlery, a knife shop in San Francisco, sells the kaku, with an angular tip, and the maru, with a rounder one. Strata, a knife shop in Portland, Maine, lists one maker's maru at 27 mm tall against 37 mm for the kaku, both on a 145 mm edge. At 27 mm (1.06 in) the calculator puts the maru in 1 1/4 in bar. The honesuki's big brother is the garasuki. Wikipedia calls it a thicker version of the honesuki that can cut through chicken bones, and Korin says the honesuki is lighter and thinner. Korin adds that the garasuki is often used to break down whole chickens, and that its thickness and weight suit other heavy work with a short blade.

The rest of this is unconfirmed. It comes from knife sellers who cite no sources, so treat it as shop talk, not history. None of them gives a date for the honesuki or names who first made one. Knifewear says it was originally designed for poultry and small animals like rabbit. Cutting Edge Knives says it came out of professional Japanese kitchens, where butchery and prep were treated as disciplines in their own right. Korin says the garasuki started out in specialty chicken restaurants. Bernal Cutlery calls the kaku the Kansai style and the maru the Kanto style. Even the name is read more than one way. One seller's listing translates it as "bone knife", and Cutting Edge Knives gives "bone chaser".

Stock for a honesuki

In a BladeForums thread on making a honesuki, the original poster plans to use 1/8 in 52100 at 62 HRC. A reply lists five brands of honesuki at 0.088 to 0.125 in at the spine and 0.010 to 0.030 in behind the edge. At the thin end, an AEB-L honesuki with a 5 in edge, listed for sale on BladeForums, was 0.084 in thick at the tang.

Widths assume blade height + 1/8 in rounded up to stock; thickness is the finished spine rounded up. Change the inputs above for your own pattern.

Steels that suit it

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