Nigara Hamono has a reputation for the absolute highest quality and the level of expertise and skill these craftsmen posses is not often found. The company is led by the master blacksmith by the name of Tsuyoshi Yoshizawa and every knife they make is forged by hand with the utmost care and attention to detail and quality. This combined, helps create knives made to last for years to come. Hand-crafted using SG2/R2 powder stainless steel and with perfectly crafted custom wood handles the fit and finish of Nigara knives are second to none.

The petty knife is light and thin with a bit of flex to it and is used for peeling, chopping and trimming. Not used in a hammer grip way meaning you don’t chop up and down like a chefs knife due to not having enough clearance for the knuckles. Mostly used for cutting away from the chopping board but is essential for any knife roll and home kitchen. The general size of a petty ranges from 95mm to 150mm but can go up to 180mm but this is considered to be in a slicing categories.

SG2 (R2) is a high speed powder stainless steel made by Takefu special steel Co Ltd. For some knife makers, this is an ideal steel for knife making as it has a great hardiness of greater than 63HR. This steel has great edge retention, high wear resistance and is stainless. The grains are so fine and uniform that the hammer forging is not necessary. The black colour of the kurouchi finish is burned steel, which gives it a matt black finish and is very distinctive. The kurouchi finish can change over time as the black layer will wear away. The word tsuchime means “hammered” and that’s how this finish is achieved. After the blade has been forged, it will go through a second hammering process with something like a ball-peen hammer to give the distinctive round dimples.