I recently decided to build myself a passive solar room heater out of cardboard, aluminum foil and black paint. Since I decided to be cheap and use cardboard for the entire construction I looked through my accumulation of knives to find one that I have yet to use. And there on the bench already was a Higonokami that I acquired in a POS exchange here AAPK. Immediately I decided that was the knife to use!
So a little background on this little knife. It was made by Motosuke Nagao. Here is a link to a you tube video showing Mr Nagao making one of these knives.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRXNQaT5mA0 Mr. Nagao is a 5th generation knife maker. His family began making these knives in the 1880's. Those interested can find more history here:
https://www.higonokami.jp/en/history.html
Okay the passive solar heater being made of mostly cardboard. There are several pieces to cut out. So I set out to cut my end plates and center baffles using this knife.
I found the Higo easy and fun to use. Just 2 cuts were needed. One cut to score the line and a second cut to finish. The second cut was fun as I was able to push cut the Higo through the cardboard. In the above pics you can see the shapes of the plates and baffles that I have cut. I cut a total of 6 pieces. As I got close to cutting out the last one I decided, kinda late in the process, to compare the cutting ability to a couple of other knives. A Queen #48 whittler and TL- 29 mod that I built a couple of years ago.
First to go up against the Higo was the Queen. I only used the coping blade. You can probably guess how sweet that knife cut through cardboard! Of course with that slim blade and quality blade steel the scoring cut was so deep that I just snapped the cut line to finish the job! No surprise here.
Next up was the TL mod. For this test I focused on the using the Wharncliffe/screwdriver blade. The modded Wharncliffe did an outstanding job cutting through the cardboard, with the ribbing or against the ribbing in the cardboard this blade was almost as good as the Coping blade on the Queen.
While the Queen had the thinnest blade the Higo has second thinnest blade with the TL Wharncliffe having the thickest. The Higo felt good in the hand. So much so that I was surprised by how comfortable it is! The TL was also easy to use with a thick heavy handle and the wharncliffe blade it beat out the Higo but not by much. The Queen? It cuts like a dream but with the arthritis in my hands it was a little uncomfortable but not much. In conclusion I like the Higo very much! I have 3 or 4 of them and this is first time that I have used one. I may even mod one at some point. Just using the blade. Maybe some nickle silver liners and walnut handles or Elk or who knows. Mr. Nagao makes a simple knife that is a pleasure to use.
I still have to cut and build the solar collector and put the whole thing together. Its been getting pretty cold around here and I can always use some free heat!
