Some Sharpening Stuff:
Spyderco Sharpmaker and a ceramic steel are redundant. The fine stick makes a pretty good steel -- if too short and too much of a PITA to set up for my taste. People LOVE the Sharpmaker, but it's really not a substitute for stones.
Regular flat bench stones will work for nearly all knives. For the sake of completness the limitation on all is that some serrated knives are or highly curved knives are better sharpned on slip stones (or curved files). Not much of an exclusion, really.
Not all knives sharpen best on a given set of stones, or even -- if you're dividing into types -- on waterstones. I'm coming to find that my oilstone set is more efficient on tough steels which aren't very strong (i.e., Euro stainless), than my waterstones which seem to be more efficient on everything else. Does this mean that you NEED two complete sets of stones? No. You can get by with a waterstones and add oilstones later.
Just one of those nuances. I've been sharpening for a long time, more than forty five years (and have been pretty good at it for more than thirty-five), and I'm still learning stuff. Moral of the story: I'm not trying to steer you away from stones and towards an EP. On the contrary. I just want you to be aware of what's involved.
Knives like the Kagayaki and Masamoto require a good bevel, a sharp edge, and a fair bit of polish to operate at its best. That means a good set of waterstones. The good news is that you don't need them all at once. There are two ways to start. One is to buy a medium-coarse/medium-fine combination stone. The other is to buy individual stones at those levels.
Once you've learned to use the medium-coarse stone to consistently do your basic sharpening, you can move up to the medium-coarse stone. If your angle holding isn't solid and you haven't developed a sense of touch and pressure, you'll mess up your bevels and edge -- dulling instead of refining a fine edge, smoothing the bevels, and preparing the knife for polishing.
The same "dull instead of sharpen" is true if you move on to a polishing stone if you haven't developed the technique to use it.
If you start messing with coarse stones before you're ready, you can mess up your edge badly enough to need a skilled sharpener to correct it. That's the whole point to coarse stones -- they're FAST. But, thank God, you don't have to know THAT much. Armed with a basic understanding of what you're trying to do; enough practice on the medium-coarse that you can kinda-sorta hold an angle; and the magic marker trick, you'll be OK.
So, it takes about four times the amount of practice just to get the point to get solid enough on the medium-coarse to move on to the medium-fine with some assurance that you'll actually make the medium-fine work as it does to master the whole Edge Pro system.
Is it worth it?
To me, yes. To you? I can't say. If you like working with your hands, developing feel, all that sort of thing; or, if you see yourself as becoming a knife collector or if your a tradition bound luddite; or a whole lot of other things, then stones or for you. If you simply want the best practicable edge and get on with it, I'd go with an EP.
You're not going to get me to make up your mind for you on this. I don't know if it will make it easier or harder -- but it should make it more comfortable -- for you to know that these are two good choices and you can't go wrong either way.
Kit 3. Wonderful stuff. Would work great for all your knives.
Let me add that the EP Apex is not a perfect tool. Although very well made, might feel a little rickety and might slide around a little if you don't put it on a good surface. The Pro is better in those respects, but it's nowhere near worth it's price for what you want to accomplish. If you were sharpening twenty knives a month, yes. But five knives every 10 weeks? No.
I like Naniwa 10mm stones for beginners because they're very responsive (as stones go), fast, inexpensive, maintain easily, pre-mounted on bases that add more responsiveness, and thin enough so they're not a life time commitment. I don't know whether they're available in Oz or not. Something makes me thing they aren't.
What you will need if you do go stones is a medium-coarse (which is around 1000# JIS), and a medium-fine (3000# to 6000#). There are plenthy of fine choices, but I don't know what's available to you. I prefer Naniwa over Shapton and just about everything else. Bester 1.2K and Arashiyama (aka Takenoko) are an outstanding pair which are durable and good enough to last a lifetime.
Suehiro makes a good, reasonably priced combination stone. Everyone and their aunt learned on the King 1K/6K or Norton 1K/4K. Combi stones are an economical starting point, but you'll outgrown them.
Whatever you choose, be aware that you'll also have to make some provision for flattening. It doesn't have to be an expensive choice, but it will have to be a choice. FWIW, most of my peers use a DMT XXC (expensive) diamond plate but I use (cheap) drywall screen.
Do all knives need to be honed?
Unfortunately "hone" is one of those words that can mean a lot of different things.
If by "honed" you mean "trued on a rod honed" aka "steeled," the answer is: Almost all knives can be dinged out of true and require truing of some sort; but not all knives should be trued on a rod hone.
Knives made from very strong, very hard steel chip too easily to make it worth the risk of steeling. You wouldn't steel a metallurgical powder hardend to above 63RCH ,for instance. Knives with highly asymmetric edges -- chisel edges for instance -- don't respond well either.
For those knives, the most efficient way to true either is to "touch up" on one or two stones. And yes, ordinary sharpening does true the edge.
High end, traditional Japanese knives tend to be both asymmetric and extremely hard. And, the Japanese have pioneered the use of very hard alloys and extreme asymmetry in western profiles as well. But not all -- or even most -- western profile, Japanese knives are made that way.
Neither the Masamoto nor the Kakayagi fall into either of the unsuitable categories as shipped. You can, if you like, sharpen either to that level of asymmetry in a search for absolute sharpness. I don't recommend it though, because the edge collapses too easily.
Did Your Cleaver Leave You Forever Sullied?
Your cleaver use won't make any difference in how you feel about Kagayaki vs Masamoto. Just as the moonrise restores Aphrodite's virginity every night, switching from a cleaver to a pro quality gyuto should do the same for you.
THE Dreaded Sports Cars Analogy:
The Masamoto is a better all-round knife. It's better in ways that will make a very small difference in terms of your knife prep, and won't make much of a difference at all in your general cooking. Sort of like the difference in choosing between Porsche and a Mazda roadsters to drive to work. Porsches are nicer, Mazdas cost less.
Masmaoto OOTB Edge:
One never knows exactly which edge is going to come out of a Masamoto box. It seems to depend on who's doing what for Masamoto, things which are by no means constant; and what Masamoto and the e-tailer have going on between them.
Most likely you'll get a Christmas Morning edge -- sharp enough to fool around with for a week or so. You'll want nice, wide, flat bevels and a fine, polished edge to not only get a sense of the knife -- but to have an edge that will stand up to a couple of months of ordinary home kitchen use without dulling too much or too fast.
E-Tailers and Sharpening and E-Tailers and Korin's Weirdness:
Both JCK and Korin will arrange to have the knife sharpened for you before shipping -- for a price. Either will do a good job. Getting the edge you want as opposed to the edge Korin thinks you should have can be a bit of a chore. You have to be very specific with Koki (at JCK) about what level of quality you expect from sharpening.
I'm not sure about shipping to Oz, but I quite like dealing with Chefs Knives To Go (aka CK2Go). I'm not sure if Mark will arrange for an initial sharpening or not.
Purely as a side note, Korin is reliable, honest and very good to deal with, but they have some eccentric opinions. They can also be startlingly misinformative. You're only likely to run across two issues with them. If you ask them to open the Masamoto for you, they'll likely recommend a higher degree of asymmetry than you want. IIRC, Masamotos ship at 50/50, and Korin likes to sharpen at 70/30. In fact, Anywhere from 50/50 to 2:1 (66/33) is OK, with 60/40 an excellent compromise.
Also, if you ask, they'll tell you not to use a "steel" on any Japanese knife. That's crap.
Masamoto Handles -- Known Issue:
For awhile western-handled Masamotos shipping from several sources have had some serious issues with sizing, smoothing, gaps, climate shrinkage, and just plain bad F&F. Why? It's probably one of those weird OEM/keiratsu things that's impossible to deal with because it's... well... Japan.
Viel erfolg explaining that in Solingen. Not to mention why you won't let it put you off.
If you order a Masamoto, be very specific with your e-tailer (especially if it's JCK or Korin) and insist that you want handle scales which fit properly. I think Masamoto's resolved the issue at the production level, but why take a chance? They'll look through their stock to choose the best knife for you if you ask, so ask.
Hope this helps,
BDL
