What size steel for a nakiri?

A nakiri is a tall, flat Japanese vegetable knife, and its height is what sets the bar. The preset is a 6 1/2 in blade (about 165 mm), 2 in tall at the heel, with a 3/32 in (0.094 in) spine and a 5 in hidden tang for a wa-style or drilled handle. Add 1/8 in for clean-up and you need 2 1/8 in. That is just over 2 in, so it rounds up to the next listed width: 2 1/2 × 3/32 in flat bar. A nakiri up to 1 7/8 in tall fits 2 in bar, since 1 7/8 in plus the 1/8 in clean-up comes to 2 in. The Small size below is 1 3/4 in tall, so it comes from 2 × 3/32 in bar. The nakiris America's Test Kitchen (ATK) tested ran from 1.75 to 2.2 in tall, so both sizes are normal.

The matching KraftyDesign blank (the "Draw this blank" link) is a rectangle with a flat edge and a square front. The handle hangs off the spine, and the edge drops below it at the heel. That drop keeps your knuckles off the board. ATK faulted one nakiri for low clearance under the handle, because testers' knuckles kept knocking the board. Its top pick had a partial tang and an octagonal wood handle, and its testers found heavy full-tang knives tiring.

Thin matters on this knife. ATK's winner was 1.8 mm (about 0.07 in) at the spine, one of the thinnest it tested, and thick spines wedged in peppers and cabbage. At about 2.4 mm, 3/32 in bar leaves a little to grind off. The calculator starts on 1084. 14C28N is sold in metric thicknesses, so the calculator flags 3/32 in as uncommon for it. Check what your supplier stocks.

The calculator starts on stock removal for this one. Stock removal takes the whole 6 1/2 in blade and 5 in tang plus clean-up: 11 3/4 in of bar per blade. That is about 12 1/2 oz of bar for a blade that finishes around 4 1/2 oz. Most of that difference is the wide bar cut away around the narrow hidden tang. A 12 in bar gives one blade, and so does an 18 in bar. The 24, 36 and 48 in bars give two, three and four. The 12, 24, 36 and 48 in bars all come out at the same cost per blade.

Forged, the steel is moved instead of ground away. Drawing out the tang and the bevels stretches it, so just under 5 in of the same bar (about 5 oz) is enough. The blade finishes near 3 1/2 oz. A 12 in bar gives two, an 18 in bar gives three and a 24 in bar gives four. A 36 in bar gives seven at the lowest cost per blade, and a 48 in bar gives nine. If you start thicker and forge down, set "Forged thickness" to "One size up". 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 nakiri is for

A nakiri is a Japanese knife for vegetables. Wikipedia says the name nakiri bōchō means a knife for cutting greens. ATK says it was a core knife in Japanese home kitchens, made for slicing, dicing and chopping vegetables. The edge is straight, with little or no curve, and the front is blunt. ATK says that lets the whole edge meet the board, so you can chop through large bunches. You cut with a push or a pull, moving the blade up and down instead of rocking it from tip to heel like a Western chef's knife. The tall blade keeps piles of greens in line and scoops cut food off the board. ATK says most nakiris have 6 to 7 in blades. JCK says 165 and 180 mm are the popular sizes, and Wikipedia gives a wider range of 15 to 20 cm (6 to 8 in). The blade is thin and light. ATK's testers liked thin blades that didn't wedge into food, and the best ones weighed about 5 to 6 oz. The thinness has a cost. ATK warns that the blade is hard and brittle and can chip if you use it on bones, big squash or frozen food. The edge is thin as well. In a BladeForums thread on nakiri bevels, one poster wants it under 0.005 in before sharpening.

The usuba is the nakiri's professional cousin. Wikipedia describes the nakiri as a home knife sharpened on both sides and the usuba as a professional knife sharpened on one side only, usually for right-handed use. The best usubas have a slight hollow on the flat back, which allows thinner slices but takes more skill. Korin, a Japanese knife shop in New York, says the name usuba means thin blade. JCK says the usuba is thicker and heavier than a nakiri and comes in longer lengths. In the BladeForums thickness thread, one poster makes the same point from the maker's side: 1/8 in steel would make a usuba, not a nakiri. Both knives come in regional shapes. Wikipedia says Tokyo nakiris usually have a squared tip that looks like a cleaver, while knives from Osaka often have a sheep's foot drop tip. The preset's blank is the square Tokyo kind. Korin traces the usuba to the Kanto (Tokyo) region and the kamagata usuba to Kansai (Osaka). The kamagata has a pointed tip for delicate work and decorative carving. In Western shops the nakiri is often sold as a vegetable cleaver. ATK calls that label misleading, because the knife is not built for hacking. JCK says it can look like a small Chinese cleaver but is too thin and light for heavy chopping. The Chinese cleavers JCK sells are generally 180 to 220 mm long and about 100 mm tall, and weigh about 300 to 900 g. Wikipedia says the thinnest Chinese knife, the slicer, is used for vegetables, herbs and thin strips of meat, and some narrower slicers look like a nakiri.

No one has a solid source for where the nakiri came from, so take these stories as lore, not history. Some knife sellers date it to the Edo period (1603 to 1868) or the 17th century. One ties it to home cooking with little meat, under the influence of Buddhism. Another says it was one of the two knives in a typical household, the other usually being a deba. None of them cites a source. ATK says the santoku appeared after World War II as a friendlier alternative to the nakiri. By ATK's account it kept the nakiri's height and straight edge and rounded off the top front corner. ATK gives no source for this either. One BladeForums poster says the santoku took over from the nakiri as the standard home knife after the war, as Japanese diets turned more Western. The same poster says the nakiri is older than the usuba. In that poster's telling, the nakiri was the rustic knife for cutting bite-size pieces, and the usuba was the fine-dining knife for garnishes and delicate cuts.

Stock for a nakiri

In a BladeForums thread on nakiri thickness, one poster says anything from 0.06 to 0.10 in will work and leans to the thin end, since a nakiri is a thin vegetable cutter. Another is fine with 1/8 in stock as long as the blade is ground or forged down to about 0.08 in, 0.09 in at most. On KnifeDogs, one poster suggests starting at about 0.093 to 0.110 in and grinding down, which puts 3/32 in bar right at the bottom of that range.

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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