Japanese kniveswere traditionally all made of carbon steel, but today stainless Japanese knives are more and more common, because they are easy to look after. This is especially true for people outside Japan who are not used to Japanese carbon-steel knives: Westerners, and Thais too, tend to be more familiar with stainless. Today we will talk about the stainless steels used to make knives, and here I will cover two main ones: VG10 and MV (Molybdenum Vanadium)
VG10 (sometimes called V-Kin-10 or V金10号) is a steel developed specifically for kitchen use. It is produced by Takefu Special Steel in the city of Takefu (Takefu), Fukui Prefecture (Fukui) Its composition is C 1%, Cr 15%, Mo 1%, V 0.2%, Co 1.5%. In use, VG10 is easy to sharpen, takes a keen edge and holds it well. People ask how different VG10 is from VG1. It can be said that VG1 is sharper and easier to sharpen, but less durable, because it contains less nickel and molybdenum and so needs sharpening more often. VG10 is therefore the more popular choice for knives, since in many respects it offers better value.
MV (Molybdenum Vanadium) is steel with molybdenum and vanadium added, which makes rust much harder to form. It suits hard, demanding work because it holds an edge for a long time and is very rust-resistant. The drawback of this stainless is that it is quite hard and difficult to sharpen.
Tojiro, our good partner, offers both VG10 and MV. They take a good edge, they are durable enough for restaurant use, and — importantly — they are easy to sharpen, without demanding much skill from the person doing it. That is why large restaurant groups favour Tojiro: it does not depend too heavily on the individual ability of the staff, and it gives a good edge for the price.