Miyabi Koya 5.5" Prep Knife

This is one of the highlight shapes. The slight blade rise gives you a nice access to access before slicing meat out. The size is not too big for most home uses, but it also has enough height on the heel to do some chopping without having to switch to a larger knife. The tip is thin enough for delicate work. Good balance but slightly handle heavy (not that you would pinch grip this anyway) Overall, this is a great compromise for small mixed jobs where you don't want pull out and wash dedicated knife. Lately the blade tilt issues seem to have been solved with the Koh and Koya line. The thickness of the blade primary bevel seems a bit obtuse (the Shinogi line is too low) and should have been a more acute angle. This is less of an issue here in this knife due to the overall size but does poke its head out on the larger 7" or 8" knives. Please get rid of the fake (what I assume is laser) clad line. It looks cool at the beginning but really looks dumb and tacky in the long run. Another gripe is that food likes to stick to these, especially the longer blade versions. Overall it's a really good knife and surprisingly easy to sharpen on mid tier water stones such as a King. I do question the hardness of the material, this is highly unlikely to be 61 Rockwell (which I assume is the FCS61?) as the burr and effort to sharpen it leas me to believe that it feels much more like a 58-9 ish? Yes the larger blades are also softer. I compare to woodworking tools of course. That said, 58 is way more than enough for hardwood, let alone a few carrots. Playing with the geometry leads me to also conclude that the secondary/actually cutting edge geometry is far more important for durability than hardness after a certain Rockwell rating. I noticed that it's really chippy at stock grind or less. Make sure you give it a robust cutting edge a few degrees more than the stock. Anyhow, I really like the handles on these and feel they are every bit as good as the nicer Miyabi's. The hardness is hardly and issue as most cutting edge geometry is far more important than pure hardness. Even woodworking tools above Rcs 61 is chippy and mostly unsuitable for practical work. This is a good hardness steel. Thanks for reading and hope this is useful to everyone. I think this shotoh (petty knife) and the nakiri (with the mild tip) are the highlights in this line.

It's perfectly balanced rasor blade sharp, better than any other knife