Ohta FK5 Higonokami-pocket knife, desert ironwood

The blade is razor sharp straight out the box, however being D2 steel it is extremely difficult to sharpen on whet stones, dry stones or paper. Unless you are experienced at sharpening hard stainless steels best avoid and look for carbon steels which are easy to sharpen. For that reason I don’t like the knife and have marked it down.

After an extensive search for a pocket knife that slips easily into the Condom pocket inside the right hand jean pocket I settled on this Higo knife. The Higo knives have a nice story and are generally handmade in Japan. The knife itself has a flat, relatively thin handle making it sit in the pocket unnoticed both by the wearer and others. I was impressed with the sharpness straight out the box and immediately tested it by shaving some hair from my forearm, a test which it passed easily. So there it was search over I thought........ However a week later when I came to strop the blade just to polish up that sharpness, something I do with my wood carving knives, I found that I blunted the edge ! Now I’m pretty good at getting razor sharp, mirror finished edges on my Chisels, carving knives and axes so was quite alarmed when after 1/2 hours work the edge was now even worse. Initially I worked it on my 3M Lapping film on glass to 3 Micron. The blade was now quite blunt and I couldn’t work out what I was doing wrong. So began the google search, turns out it is very hard steel and only wet stones should be used at an angle of around 10*. So after an hour on the 3000/8000 wet stone I finally got it sharp enough for day to day use but don’t think I’ll ever shave hair again. So be warned unless you are a master sharpener, blessed with Ninja sharpening skills I would look elsewhere, perhaps for a simple flat bevel edged knife.