Hado Shiosai(潮騒, Tide Sound) is the brand’s value lineup, compared with their more traditional carbon series like the Kirisame or Sumi, this line uses stamped billet to obtain a lower price. But from a practical point of view, this is a lower maintenance, better edge retention knife and you still can get the excellent thin blade produced by Hado, this is certainly a very competitive lineup in its price range.
The highlight of the knife would be its grind, as the sharpening company, Hado will design and order billets from different sources to sharpen and polish them, and their approach on the sharpening is what makes them stand out. At a glance, we would notice the Shinogi line is positioned very high up the blade, close to the spine, this is neither a flat grind nor a Traditional Sakai convex grind, paired with a pretty thin blade thickness, Hado produces some of the thinnest knives we can get. These “lasers” have minimal amount of resistance even when cutting into the toughest food, and if you are worrying about sticking issues over the wide bevel, I can confidently say it is mostly avoided by the subtle convex built behind the edge.
This very specialised and well designed geometry scores pretty high on performance, but Hado still leaves space for some aesthetic features. The stamped blade incorporates textures on its surface, covering the Hira with octagonal shapes of various sizes. Looking at the name of the line, these patterns easily link to the imagery of foamy bubbles created by the tide striking the shore, then the splashing sound of waves and bursting sound of bubbles just naturally comes forth in the brain. The surface of the knife combines a really refined brushing along the blade and sandblasting among the cladding, giving the knife a subtle and minimalistic look, the highly polished choil, spine and edge connects and forms a shiny edge, frames this knife using their contrast in textures. Despite the pricing, this is a very well thought after and well executed line in terms of appearances.
The usage of SG2 billet is an excellent move in my opinion, although the traditional forged carbon steel can have a nice tapered spine and more aggressive edge, their pricing is still a bit too high and the maintenance can be tricky. Having a low maintenance stainless steel with premium level edge retention, while keeping the price reasonable shows that Hado is offering this line for the average user instead of enthusiasts, and from the availability of the Shiosai we see, there is also a more steady supply of these blades. We can clearly see Hado’s ambition in expanding their target markets, and Shiosai is a great addition in the superthin “laser” category as it is more available and carries some aesthetic features.
By
HADO
