Len's News, Notes, and Stuff

A Look at 2 Tanaka Petty Knives

In the world of Japanese knives, Tanaka is one of the oft-mentioned names for newcomers and those looking for solid value. They are very affordable knives that perform very well. You will easily find people on the various knife and cooking forums saying they perform as well as knives 2 to 3 times the price.

That’s why I bought my first Tanaka, the VG-10 stainless steel 150mm petty knife that I present in this post. Based on my experience with this knife, I ended up buying a Tanaka 240mm VG-10 gyuto chef knife and 180mm aogami carbon steel deba fish fileting knife. They are indeed very nice knives.

I’ve recently been getting more into carbon steels, thanks to the great cutting experience I’ve been having lately with my Takeda 270mm gyuto with its marvelous aogami super hagane cutting core. With that bug in my ear, I decided to buy another Tanaka petty knife.

At $40 for the aogami carbon steel petty knife, I feel like I got a tremendous deal. Far better, in fact, than the $80 I had paid for the VG-10 one that started me down the Tanaka road to begin with.

The two knives really are fantastic little performers. Between the two of them, there really is a difference in feel: with the same sharpening skill (me!), the carbon steel version gets a keener edge.

The VG-10 stainless steel blade is great to use. It’s comfortable, agile, sharp, and more than gets the job done. The aogami carbon steel blade is fantastic, taking the performance just one notch higher. It really is just that little bit sharper.

There are slight physical differences in blade profiles, but they are trivial differences. The difference in performance is from the different hagane cutting cores.

As I said in the video, both are great little petty knives. If you search diligently enough on eBay – buying from either metalmasterjp or 330mate – you will find Tanaka blades at a great price, and you’ll have a great little petty knife in your hands.