Xinguo | SKU: XING_AUHYK_GY240

Xinguo ApexUltra Honyaki Gyuto 240mm w/ Saya, B Grade (Non-refundable)

$30,427.00

IMPORTANT: Carbon steel knives can rust or patina quickly if not cared for properly. They require regular cleaning, drying, and oiling. If you are unfamiliar with carbon steel maintenance, we recommend choosing a stainless steel option instead.

St Peters (Online/Showroom) —
2 Bishop St Unit 2 St Peters NSW 2044
+61 2 8234 8818
Crows Nest (Storefront) —
107 West St, Crows Nest NSW 2065
Pickup only

Detailed Specifications

Line	Xinguo ApexUltra Mizu Honyaki
Profile	Gyuto / Chefs Knife
Bevel Type	Double Bevel
Weight	235 g \| 8.3 oz
Edge Length	243 mm \| 9 9/16″
Heel Height	56 mm \| 2 13/64″
Width @ Heel	3.1 mm \| 1/8″
Width @ Mid	2.2 mm \| 3/32″
Width @ 1cm from Tip	0.5 mm \| 1/64″
Steel	ApexUltra \| Carbon
Blade Construction	Honyaki
Hardness (HRC)	66 - 69
Surface Finish	Mirror Polish
Handle	Heart-shaped Ironwood Handle with Blonde Ferrule
Region	Other
Best for	Pro chefs Enthusiasts Collectors

Free shipping for knives over AU$200 Australia wide.
World-wide shipping via DHL Express, 3 to 5 days.

Xinguo’s Honyaki are special items in many ways, the look, the steel and even the maker and region of production. These blades are truly remarkable to look at, and I don’t want that statement to overshadow the performance of them. This ApexUltra Honyaki really stands up to this studio’s motto: Pursuit beyond high proficiency in forging and polishing, but seek strong expression in different products.

You might think the name ApexUltra doesn’t sound very Japanese, and it is indeed not. This is an alloy carbon steel developed by European and American metallurgists based on 52100 and Blue Super that aims to be the best available culinary carbon steel. It behaves like those two steel but has a much better performance in working hardness, edge retention and toughness at high hardness. It really makes Xinguo’s knives stand out as I don’t expect Japanese makers to pick up this new foreign steel any time soon.

ApexUltra is excellent in its hardness, with regular oil quench, it can reach 65 HRC easily, which you would have to push for with Blue Super, but Xinguo pushes this even further by performing a water quench rather than a safer and perfectly viable oil quench, because this steel need quicker quench to produce hamon. This brings the steel to its highest achievable hardness of 67-68 HRC, which is unheard of in the world of Honyaki. I’m not sure how they manage the failure rate but it is impressive to know something like this can be done. This hardness allows a very thin and fine edge to be put onto these Honyaki knives, combining with a quite well controlled convex grind, the cutting performance can go toe to toe with some of the Japanese counterparts that produce similar knives.

The appearance would be a totally different story, and I think Xinguo has achieved their goal of seeking strong expression with this knife. This surface of the knife is entirely covered by very strong alloy banding, and the fine glitter-like pattern has such a strong texture that makes me think of the legendary Wooz steel. This alloy banding is a phenomenon commonly found on alloy carbon steel especially those with a lot of Tungsten, but this is not common especially like this one with strong contrast. To intensify this look, the blade is etched to increase the contrast. The harmon turns to a light grey colour with brighter banding over it, but the hardened steel shows a light blue sheen, which looks breathtaking when paired with the mirror polishing and the white banding floating over it.

The knife takes a more Sakai style profile, but made a bit wider than typical, although Honyaki tend to be some of the more “collector items” this board blade with a pretty thin edge would still be happy to chop through whatever you feed to it. For head chefs and collectors, this line offers a reasonable option for you to experience a premium Hoyaki Ownership, but I say the price speaks very little about how well these blades are made, whether in terms of fit and finish, craftsmanship or overall design and aesthetics.

Pros	Cons
Excellent performance Great artistic Excellent fit and finish	High budget Prone to rust

Care Instruction

Don't cut hard things! Japanese knives are brittle so bone hacking is a NO NO!
Wash with neutral detergent after use, and wipe dry;
Please don't wash knife with dishwasher, it will damage the wood handle;
Be careful not to leave the knife close to a heat source for a long time;
It is a lot more dangerous to cut with a blunt knife than a sharp knife!
It is best to sharpen a Japanese knife regularly on a waterstone.
Oil the (carbon) knife if storing for an extended period of time to prevent rust.

Xinguo

Xinguo — The Outsiders Making Their Mark

Xinguo is a brand that is truly unique, as a small group that started their business as hobbyist knifemakers and knife repairers, they gained their skills and reputations rapidly. They started their knifemaking journey back in 2015, crafting American/European high alloy steel kitchen knives while taking repair of some high end Japanese knives. By 2022, they finally set up their factory in Shanghai and went into full scale production.Their approach is almost a hybrid between western and Japanese knifemakers, often use modern powder steel from Crucible or Bohler but finish their blade with profile and geometry you’d only found on Japanese makers.

This team is not bound by any tradition and rules, and constantly seeks better solutions for a certain product. You can see knives in their catalogue with steel like RWL34, M390, Magnacut, Swedish Damateel or even their own forged dual core stainless damascus. The execution on some of the complicated details can easily match some highly skillful custom knife makers, whether its integral damascus bolster, multi-directional taper and detachable nine-piece handle. At the same time, Xinguo’s team is very familiar with common finishing methods used on kitchen knives with different origins. They produce many of their monosteel knives with very clean brushed finish and their Damascus often has a mirror finish with very high contrast. But when it comes to Japanese Kasumi or even Mirror polished Honyaki, years of experience in repairing allow them to bring out a finish that matches their Japanese counterparts.

They are also great solutionmakers that fully leverage the industry that China has to offer. You could see in their factory the gigantic contact wheel that is made to match the Japanese grinding stone, which they made custom order for to repair the concavity of the single bevel knives. They would also develop their own abrasive solutions just to finish their knife with a certain look with better consistency and speed. Due to their need to deal with high alloy powder steel all the time, they even made their own diamond stone. This is a group that has ambition in their product and a skill set to match it. Their motto says it pretty well: Don’t just be content with high proficiency in foreign and polishing, but seek the expression of different products.

“From hobbyist repairers to rising makers — a small team crafting their own path outside tradition.”

Est. 2022

Known for Started as hobbyist knifemakers and repairers, rapid skill growth

Gyuto

Chefs Knife

A Japanese chef's knife is known as a gyuto (牛刀ぎゅうとう） gyūtō), literally meaning 'beef knife'. Its blade resembles a flatter version of a French chef's knife. Japanese cutlery is known for sharpness due to its acute blade geometry, and the hardness of the steel used, sometimes exceeding 60 HRC on the Rockwell Scale A typical western chef's knife may be sharpened to an edge angle of 20-22°, while a Japanese gyuto generally has a sharper edge angle of 15-18° (or even lower), which requires a harder, more brittle grade of steel. In recent years Japanese gyuto have gained in popularity with western chefs.

A modern chef's knife is a multi-purpose knife designed to perform well at many differing kitchen tasks, rather than excelling at any one in particular. It can be used for mincing, slicing, and chopping vegetables, slicing meat, and disjointing large cuts.

Compare with

ApexUltra

—

2.6% 2.0% 1.3% 0.7% 0

1.25%

1.5%

0.4%

2.6%

0.3%

0.35%

0.01%

C — Carbon Cr — Chromium V — Vanadium W — Tungsten Mn — Manganese Si — Silicon P — Phosphorus S — Sulfur

Hardness 66–69 HRC

555759616365+

Steel

ApexUltra

Manufacturer
- Unknown
Nature Carbon
Hardness66–69 HRC

ApexUltra is one of the newest creations in the world of blade steels, and its performance and characteristics are specifically designed to suit the needs of culinary tool makers. Inspired by the legendary Blue Super steel and 52100 steel, ApexUltra targets extreme high hardness while maintaining a decent toughness, which allows super thin edges for fine slicing jobs.

The development of ApexUltra is quite different from the traditional approach used in the industry. At the core there are three members: Larrin Thomas, Tobias Hangler and Marco Guldimann, they are highly trained and experienced metallurgists, blacksmith and chef with thorough understanding in knife steel and their applications. With the theoretical knowledge to back them up, they utilised the resources across Europe to create the ApexUltra with high purity and homogeneity as well as fine grain and carbide size. This leads to really good and balanced performance that surpasses its predecessors Blue Super and 52100, allowing the steel to be hardened to almost 69HRC while maintaining better toughness than Blue super at 65HRC. Makers can create incredibly fine and thin edges that last an extensive amount of time in the kitchen.

The secret lies in the technology and composition. With finely selected source material and advanced electroslag remelt technology, the inclusion and impurity is minimised to reduce particles that can damage the toughness of the knife. When looking at the elements, you’ll find this is a very low alloy carbon steel. The small amount of chromium can form chromium enriched iron carbide and increase the hardness significantly, the tungsten and the vanadium will form very fine carbide that significantly increase the wear resistance without sacrificing a lot of the toughness. This leads to a good balance in hardness and toughness at a very high working hardness, as well as a stellar performance in wear resistance.

One thing the maker wanted to achieve was the workability for forging knifemakers, and they intentionally kept the alloy level low so all carbides can dissolve at forging temperature. This means we can expect all the great blacksmith with top forge techniques can work with this steel just like the other older carbon steel that they are used to, but not you can expect higher performance from the better material. An added benefit is the ease of sharpening, despite the very high hardness(66HRC+ in kitchen knife application), the low volume and small size of carbide will allow ApexUltra to be sharpened on regular stones without much difficulty, so this really is a steel that is friendly to makers and users.

Although the ApexUltra is relatively new to the market, most of the European custom knife makers have adopted it as their primary choice for carbon steel, hopefully we can see this steel get used by Japanese makers in their knives eventually.

Construction

Honyaki

In Japanese kitchen knives, "honyaki" (本焼) denotes a traditional forging method where the blade is crafted entirely from high-carbon steel, often white or blue steel. Mimicking samurai sword craftsmanship, honyaki knives are either oil-quenched or water-quenched. Water-quenching produces an extremely hard yet brittle blade, requiring exceptional skill to achieve without cracking. Oil-quenching is more forgiving, offering a balance between hardness and resilience. Both techniques yield knives with sharp, enduring edges. Due to the complexity of production, honyaki knives are prized for their unparalleled performance but are costly and challenging to maintain, appealing mainly to expert chefs or serious knife enthusiasts.

Normally the hardness of Honyaki blades is HRC 1 to 2 higher than non-honyaki blades.

Finish

Mirror Polish

Mirror Polish is a simplistic yet hightly demanding process, where the roughness of the metal surface is gradually removed with higher and higher grit abrasives, leading to a extremly smooth surface with only specular reflection, just like a mirror.

The Mirror Polish can be applied to various constructions, ranging from Damascus to Honyaki. It can reveal the beautiful Hamon on the Honyaki blade, and form textural contrast on damascus. The perfect surface is highly appreciated, but it also means a lot of care must be give to avoid it being scratched.

Handle

Heart-shaped Ironwood Handle with Blonde Ferrule

Profile Heart Shape WA
Material
- Desert Ironwood

The heart-shaped desert ironwood handle on Japanese kitchen knives offers ergonomic advantages, providing a comfortable grip that reduces fatigue during prolonged use. Its design conforms naturally to the hand, enhancing control and maneuverability for precise cutting tasks. This handle shape also promotes balanced weight distribution between the blade and handle, improving overall control and reducing strain on the wrist and arm.

Beyond functionality, the Desert Ironwood's luxurious appearance adds aesthetic appeal to the knife, elevating its visual appeal in the kitchen. Whether it's a versatile Santoku knife, a multipurpose Gyuto, a specialized Deba for fish, or a precise Yanagiba for sashimi, the heart-shaped Desert Ironwood handle enhances both the performance and the beauty of Japanese kitchen knives, making them indispensable tools for culinary enthusiasts and professionals alike.

Xinguo ApexUltra Honyaki Gyuto 240mm w/ Saya, B Grade (Non-refundable)

Availability

Detailed Specifications

Xinguo

Gyuto

ApexUltra Element Composition

ApexUltra

Honyaki

Mirror Polish

Heart-shaped Ironwood Handle with Blonde Ferrule

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Xinguo ApexUltra Honyaki Gyuto 240mm w/ Saya, B Grade (Non-refundable)

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Crows Nest

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