Knife Care 101
A plain-speaking primer for your Japanese knife.
Twelve pages. Ten sections. Everything we'd tell a good friend about keeping a Japanese knife sharp for a decade.
DOWNLOAD THE FREE PDFNo email required. No strings. 18 KB. Printable.
What's inside
- What makes Japanese steel different — and what it means for care.
- Hand-wash, always. The non-negotiable rule, and why.
- Dry immediately. Not "after lunch."
- The right cutting board — end-grain wood vs Hasegawa plastic vs never-glass.
- Honing vs sharpening — what your rod is actually doing.
- Storage — from magnetic strip to "please not loose in a drawer."
- The one-minute weekly routine.
- What NOT to do — the short list that ruins knives most quickly.
- Three signs your knife needs attention.
- Your first whetstone — when you're ready.
Who wrote this
Andrew Kuzmin, Editor-in-Chief of Okami Blades. Vancouver. Four whetstones on the kitchen counter, one of which is being defended right now. Editorial site: okamiblades.com/pages/editorial-standards.
Why we gave it away for free
A Japanese knife at 60+ HRC is a long-lived tool only if you care for it properly in the first few weeks. Most owners don't, because nobody ever told them how. We'd rather have cooks who own any Japanese knife — ours, Shun's, Tojiro's, a Sakai honyaki — using it well, than watch more good steel get wrecked in dishwashers and on glass cutting boards.
Built with our catalog in mind, honest about what works for any Japanese knife.
Free to share. Please don't repackage.
