Dustin Reviews Stuff

Let me start with a disclaimer - this is my first Japanese knife.  I am far from an expert.  There is much I don't know.  I honestly don't know much about Takamura, but I do know it's a family business and the man who runs the company now, Terukazu Takamura, is the third generation of the Takamura family to be a blacksmith. I also know, they make crazy awesome knives.  I had never heard of them until I got a recommendation on the ChefKnives sub-reddit. Lets get the stats out of the way, then we'll dive into it. Manufactuer: Takamura Model: R2 Gyuto, 180mm Materials: Blade: R2 core with SG2 cladding Handle: Pakawood Dimensions: Blade Length: 180mm / 7.09in Blade Height: 44mm / 1.73in Blade Thickness: 1.7mm / 0.07in Handle Length: 120mm / 4.72in Weight: 143g Price: $160 WHAT I LIKE I like this blade, a lot, I mean, a lot lot lot.  What sets it apart from others I've used is it's thickness, or lack thereof.  The blade stock is half the thickness of my 8" Wusth

This is my first real microbrand watch.  If you're unfamiliar with microbrands, well, do some Google work, I won't bother explaining it here because chances are you already know.  And if you know much about microbrands, you've undoubtedly heard of Zelos.  I've had my eye on their Swordfish model for a while, and when they launched the titanium model the 'frost' variant really caught my eye.  I happened to of just sold an old set of bicycle wheels I had hanging around the day before they launched the ti models, so I handed that money over to Zelos in exchange for a frost titanium Swordfish of my own.  STATS: Manufactuer: Zelos Model: Titanium Swordfish, 42mm, Frost colorway Materials: Case: Titanium Bracelet: Titanium Crystal: Sapphire, flat, inner AR coating Bezel Insert: Ceramic Movement: Seiko NH35 Automatic mechanical Date complication Hacks and hand winds 42hr power reserve Dimensions: Case Size: 42.0mm Lug to Lug: 47.9mm Lug Width: 22mm Thickness: 13.9mm (i

Promaster is Citizen’s higher end line of sport watches, and is broken up into Land, Sea, and Sky groups.  This is part of the Land group and is a JDM watch - meaning Japanese Domestic Market, AKA it's only sold in Japan.  Of course thanks to the internet you can buy it anywhere in the world...but you can't go to your nearest dealer and look at one unless you live in Japan.   This is the first ‘nice’ watch I bought myself, I’ve had it for a year and a half now.  Long story short, my interest in watches went from ‘lets try it’ with a cheap Timex, to a Citizen BM8180, then to this Promaster Land.  I liked the size and style of the BM8180, but the mineral crystal and very basic movement left something to be desired after learning more about watches. I bought the Promaster Land as my ‘one watch.’   That didn’t really last as my interest in watches deepened, but this is still my favorite watch.   We’ll get the specs out of the way first: Manufactuer: Citizen Model: Promaster Lan