Why is there so much neg about Shun Pro?

[Newbflat]

I personally don't think shuns' fit finish is amazing. the damascus one i saw i thought was quite bad looking compared to hattori hd. also damascus as zero effect on performance. I think that yoshi even at 210 us makes the shun a terrible deal considering the difference.

I think your confusing materials and construction with fit and finish.. Shun doesn't do anything fancy with there cladding like Ryusen who is the Hattori HD OEM.. i think?. Shuns finish work is very good and there grind and consistence is too. Not perfect but better than nearly every Japanese knife maker in the same price range. Im acutely aware of this these days as i have had to many issues with knives i have received recently.

[willspear]

fit and finish of shun blades is usually top notch no doubt about it. They are made for american buyers so flaws are grounds for returns. The performance of some of them leaves something to be desired.


and that yoshihiro craps all over shuns for performance to money ratio.

[miles]

fit and finish of shun blades is usually top notch no doubt about it. They are made for american buyers so flaws are grounds for returns. The performance of some of them leaves something to be desired.


and that yoshihiro craps all over shuns for performance to money ratio.

And therein lies the rub...

Amongst this crowd, performance is king, the performance to money ratio is queen, and fit and finish is the bast**d son of the mistress (up to a point, anyway). We'll put up with all manners of fit and finish issues if the performance is stellar. We're a bit different in that regard. Most "average" consumers here in the States equate quality of finish with performance. Clearly we're driven by a different standard. When it comes down to it, there are crowd favorites here which are outshined in the fit and finish department by "disposable" fifteen dollar supermarket knives. Up to a certain monetary threshold, we'll put up with all kinds of subpar fit and finish issues if the performance blows 99% of everything else out of the water.

[kcma]

Continuing, we move into the world of Shun Pro, and Shun Pro II. The reason we call them Shun Pro is because these are the types of blades that a professional Japanese Chef would use. In Japanese cooking texture and repetitive consistency are critical elements

lol, that's a great quote. since no self-respecting japanese chefs would ever use one. and those who use one are not self-respecting japanese chefs.. so by definition, this product is wrong

[thombrogan]

In Japan, KAI also sells a larger line of products including their Seki Magoruku line (kind of like Naniwa offering export stones and keeping the good stuff in Japan).

[thombrogan]

Up to a certain monetary threshold, we'll put up with all kinds of subpar fit and finish issues if the performance blows 99% of everything else out of the water.

Very true (Takeda). Sometimes that's so even when a knife has great steel and a spot-on heat-treatment, but the steel is more than twice as thick as needed (Aritsugu A-series).

edited to add: Really nice, though, when fit, finish, and performance all match up (Sakai Takayuki).

[ChrisLehrer]

Akilia,

Just a few remarks, which I hope fit what you're looking for -- reasoned commentary.

1. Cladding: with the exception of a few fantastically expensive handmade items, all Damascus knives sold today are clad. The Damascus appearance does not run throughout the metal of the knife. So when someone says that the Damascus cladding on Shuns is annoying because it doesn't do anything functional, this is quite true: it's there for appearance. But the same is true of all Damascus blades, with as I say very few exceptions. Some people love that look, some don't. To be fair, I rarely hear a lot of carping about Damascus cladding on non-Shun knives, though there is certainly some. Some people have had the experience that the cladding on Shuns scratches very easily when sharpening, but not everyone feels that way.

2. Many people find that Shuns are relatively difficult to sharpen effectively, given the metal (VG-10, I believe) they're made of.

3. KC's remark about angles has to be taken in context. He's saying that a serious, high-end professional yanagiba should not have an angle on the order of 15*. I haven't measured or compared, but given his experience I would guess that he is correct about this. If as you say the Shun Pro yanagiba comes at 16*, that is indeed a strike against the knife, because it means you'd have to grind the heck out of the bevel to get it down to where it really ought to be.

4. As I think Mike noted, the Shun Pro yanagiba is back-beveled, i.e. it's been ground at an angle from the hollow back. This is quite problematic, for a number of reasons. First, if as you say the bevel angle on the knife is 16*, then the angle down at the edge must be rather larger if it's back-beveled. Second, it makes sharpening the knife much trickier than ought to be the case -- and since a yanagiba isn't the easiest knife to sharpen anyway, that's a real strike against it. The reason for this difficulty is that the hard thing on a yanagiba is the bevel, which you've got to sharpen very smooth and even all the way along that long blade. If the blade is ground traditionally, the back face is easy: you just flip it over and grind evenly, flat on the stone. But if it's been back-beveled, you've got to hold an angle precisely, which is tricky and finicky with a blade this long and this thin. One solution, as mentioned by another poster, is to re-grind the whole back completely flat, but that's rather a lot of work to have to put into a knife.

5. All told, the general experience seems to be that in order to make a Shun Pro yanagiba perform comparably to an equally-priced knife by a more traditional manufacturer, you have to put a great deal of work into it. You've got to grind the bevel down several degrees evenly, which with VG-10 or any tough steel is a big project -- this is what people are referring to when they talk about the problems with Aritsugu's A-series steel. Then you've also got to regrind the back of the knife to flatten out that back-bevel. With all that in hand, you'd have a knife that is literally comparable: that is, you can compare it directly against equally-priced knives.

Once you've done this, it appears that the knife does not compare especially well. To be fair, it is not an especially expensive knife, since nobody sells it at list price -- you're looking at somewhere on the order of $125 for 300mm, plus of course all that labor you have to put into it.

You are quite right, I think, that people on knife forums like this one are somewhat unfairly scornful about Shun, as they are about Global as well. You are right to suspect that this is in part a function of the fact that these are mass-produced knives, and there is a definite preference for more traditional workmanship. But the fact remains that the knife in question just isn't especially good. Terrible, no. Let's be serious: this is not Cutco or something.

Conclusion
Is the knife decent out of the box? No -- it requires a good deal of work.

With that work, can the knife be made decent? Yes.

Can the knife be made excellent? No.

Can one do better for the money? Yes.

Is the knife just plain laughable? No.

Is it worth the money? That's impossible to say. If you are willing to do all that grinding work, and you like its appearance and handle and so forth, perhaps it is worth the money. If you are looking for pure functionality, no, it probably isn't, because for about the same money you can get a knife at least as good as a Shun can be made to be. If your labor (and your stones) are worth something, you can get a much better knife than the Shun: if your labor and stones add up to about $50, let's say, that's a $175 knife, and with a little looking you can get a very good knife indeed for that money -- something unquestionably superior to the Shun.

Is the disdain for Shuns unfair? A bit, yes. Are they excellent knives being unfairly trashed? No.

Hope that helps.

[thombrogan]

Hi, ChrisLehrer!

FYI, the knife in question is monosteel/unclad VG-10.

Miles,

I've now heard the Shun Pro Yanagi is too thin and too thick. I'm confused. Too thin at spine and too thick at edge?

[willspear]

I am quoting kershaw's website here

"When Ken was asked to design a knife for use in the kitchen, he realized that he had no real culinary experience to draw from"

[thombrogan]

Thanks, Will. He didn't design the Shun Pro yanagi, but that quote might explain the very non-traditional look of Onion's Shuns.