Tsunehisa Ginsan Nawame Santoku 165mm

Tsunehisa’s Nawame(縄目, Rope Pattern) is the brand’s new attempt to bring more interesting textures to the affordable knife’s range. The highlight of the line would be the new pattern that’s imprinted on the surface of the knife, which leads to a unique aesthetic when combined with the dense nickel Damascus layers in the cladding. It is a refreshing look in the entry level market as there is just an abundance of Tsuchime Damascus that looks more or less the same.

The Nawame currently comes in AUS10 and Ginsan versions, both are fairly common stainless steels of this range, with the AUS10 having potentially higher wear resistance and Ginsan would be easier to sharpen. Upon this solid foundation is a fairly decent geometry, the test cutting tells us this is a blade with average thickness which has some resistance when cutting into denser food, but the following geometry have a pretty positive release on the thin slice of potatoes that I can hardly make the thin slice to stick on the blade. The strategy is very similar to Hatsukokoro’s Hikari: thin blade at spine, slightly more thickness behind the edge to create a stronger food release and avoid friction from sticking. The additional benefit is a relatively stronger edge which is friendly for entry level users.

The pattern is a very interesting feature to talk about, depending on the size of the knife, there can be multiple ropes laid over the blade, each rope when inspected closely, is formed by smaller strands, and inside the strands are smaller strings. This twine rope is complicated in design, but the visual aesthetic is rather pleasing, the repeating patterns forming a texture that extends across the blade. If you look closely, the Damascus pattern carries the pattern over, so the texture flows all the way towards the cladding line. To achieve this, the knife has to be rolled with the textured roller, creating the indentation and causing the deformation in the Damascus patterns before the blade gets stamped and sharpened.

As basic as this line is priced at, I can still see the design effort and tooling that the manufacturer put into this line. For enthusiasts who have been around these knives for a long time, these special Tsuchime patterns used to be a specialty from Echizen makers like Yu Kurosaki or Yoshimi Kato. Although this isn’t a fair comparison, it is great to see this sweet and characterful feature can make its way to the entry level market.