Tojiro Senkou 13cm Utility Knife SK-3704

Tojiro Senkou 13cm Utility Knife SK-3704 

A general, all purpose knife with a small blade. 

"Senkou" is Japanese for "Flash" and is a term associated with light and inspiration. Tojiro's superbly sharp blades, made from DP multi-layered Damascus steel, will certainly help to illuminate and inspire your cooking. 

Japan has a long tradition of knife manufacturing. Over one thousand years ago, Japanese swordsmiths developed the high art of sword making to provide strong, sharp blades for the Samurai, the feared warrior caste. 

Tojiro has adopted many of these traditional techniques, producing knives which incorporate the same multi-layered blades, so painstakingly produced by these masters in the past, which both look and perform as well in the kitchen as their predecessors did in the field. 

The technique of laminating steel was first seen in Damascus, Syria, around 400AD. It was later adopted by Japanese swordsmiths who would fold and hammer many layers of steel into their blades. 

A perfect blade needs to be hard to hold an edge, but also be strong and flexible for durability. In many respects, these features can be contradictory. The cutting edge of Tojiro Senkou knives is made of extremely hard steel (Rockwell 60°–62°), allowing the knives to be sharpened to an acute angle and to emerge from the factory razor sharp. If the knives were made solely of this hard steel, however, they would be inflexible and brittle, breaking easily if dropped or misused. 

The solution is to use the process of lamination to cushion the super hard inner core by adding outer layers of softer stainless steel. This results in a knife that is as flexible and as strong as any single layer knife, but with a cutting edge that is harder, sharper and longer lasting. 

The Tojiro Senkou Utility Knife is made from 37 layers of steel. This results in the beautiful Damascene effect formed by the many layers of steel which is known in Japanese as "Kasumi-Nagashi" or "Floating Mist". 

For the Senkou range, Tojiro has allied its remarkable multi-layered Damascus steel blades with comfortable and stylish micarta handles. These handles have an inlay of stainless steel which you can engrave should you wish. 

As recommended and used by Heston Blumenthal.