Honesuki means "bone lover". This knife is mainly used for boning chicken. Traditionally, the Honesuki has only one bevel, with a concave on the back side of the blade. This helps to work around the joints when boning. The upper part of the cutting edge and the thin tip are used to cut through ligaments and remove skin, while the stronger heel is used to get between bones. The Honesuki can be used for deboning all poultry and smaller pieces of red meat and for butchering small fish.
The city of Sanjo in Niigata Prefecture has been famous for its blacksmithing since the 1600s. In the early years, they mainly forged nails by hand. Then, from 1660, different forging techniques were introduced by blacksmiths from Aizu. Thanks to this, the blacksmiths of the city began to diversify their production. The quality of Sanjo's tools and knives enjoyed a strong reputation in Japan at that time, and it still does today.
SLD steel is Hitachi steel co.'s version of SKD-11, which is a wear resistant and relatively easy to maintain steel. This makes it an ideal steel for workhorse knives. With a hardness of 60-62 HRC, SLD steel blades retain their edge for a long time and have the ability to be sharpened to a razor sharp edge. Basically, SLD is used in the factory to cut other steels and, over time, has made its way into high-end Japanese cutlery.
