Masamoto KK 270mm yanagiba project part 2

Today I prepared handle materials for further processing. Also I removed handle. Unfortunately I had to destroy it because I couldn't remove it in normal way. That's shame because it was very nice Ho wood handle.
Now I can see that when I will be finished it will be very nice handle. Tommorow I'll square everything nicely on belt sander and drill tang hole in the ferrule. When this will be done I will have worst job done.

Masamoto KK 270mm yanagiba project

Hi there.
 I couldn't wait to start this project. Some time ago a member of Polish knives forum has ordered Masamoto KK 270mm yanagiba from Japanesechefsknife.com directly to my home. I have this knife for over a month now and it's owner has never see it before. I couldn't start it because I had to wait for materials. Earlier this week I recieved small package from Poland. Inside I found new silver, water buffalo horn roll and beautiful stabilised brown maple burl. So now I have all materials and will to start this project.
Plan:

1. Rehandle it.
2. Polish the face of the blade to mirror finish
3. sharpen it and polish the blade road.

I will start tommorow at the morning but because I have to prepare presentation to my work for Tuesday, I won't rush and focus on my presentation (about knives).
Also I will try to polish face of the blade on the stones instead of using sand paper. I hope that it'll save me a lot of time. I just hope that this part of knife is not concaved that much. Kanji is stamped and very deep so I can remove some steel.
I can't wait to finish that project. As I said before, the owner of this beautiful yanagiba has never seen it before and I hope that when I will be finished and knife will be sent,  he will open a box and will be amazed.

Itinomonn Kurouchi Deba 180mm V2 Steel part 5

Ok so I started all over again. I removed low spots on the tip and heel of the knife. I still can't manage to make straight and even shinogi line. I tried many kinds of finger position on shinogi and pressures. I will leave that at the moment because it is not so important. I wanted to focus on hamaguriba edge and kasumi finish.
When you're doing hamaguriba then you should flatten secondary bevel and then start primary bevel in 1/3 of height between shinogi and edge. This is really hard to achieve for me because I had to keep very low angle. I raised the spine a liitle bit, cutted new adge and then I lowered the spine. I've noticed that it was much easier for me.

The widest bevel I could achieve.

This is a picture where blade road is finished on JNS 1000 stone and edge is polished on White Binsui. You can see that I have settled new edge on lamination line or place where soft jigane and hard hagane meets each other.

  Here you can see the whole blade polished on White Binsui and very big contrast between steels. Compare that to previous picture.

Here is  edge after Red Aoto

 On the next picture i wanted to show you small convex on the edge. Hamaguriba means ''clam shell'' in Japanese and this is how it should look. I have lots to learn. Let's say that it was small hamaguriba:D

I tried many things to polish the blade even more. When I used aoto mud and ultra hard felt and polished the blade I couldn't reach actual edge. Then I tried to make some experiments and I ruined it again. I tried some fingerstones mud, stones mud etc. I have only scratched it even more. However I can't work on it more because I hardly used that knife and already removed lots of steel. To finish it I've used paste made out of chromium oxide to polish the blade a little bit. 

And this is finish after it. I believe that if I have left Red aoto finish and have  polished it with mud a little bit more, but also focus more on edge and then used chromium oxide then effect could be better. I am leaving it now. I will definitely work on it in the future so it's not finished yet. I had my lesson with this knife and I know my mistakes. I will try to not repeat them anymore. See you next time:D

Itinomonn Kurouchi Deba 180mm V2 Steel part 4

Hi.
I couldn't stand the finish I have achieved before and I decided to start over again. Two low spots at the heel and tip were very deep and were ruining the finish. Also because of low spot at the heel it was really hard to sharpen at that place. This time I started with cheap diamond plate. As you can see on pictures I removed most of the low spots. I will work more on the tip and it shouldn't be a problem any more. I will fix the heel as well. The black remaining marker pen it edge which I cut before. You can't see it on the front part of the knife because I worked hard on that area and have removed edge.

Remaining low spot on heel.

And tip:

Now there is another issue. The shinogi line should be even but there is one place where line is higher than rest of it. I tried to avoid that place while grinding the blade road but it seems that it doesn't help. I will try to grind a little bit more today and will examine it properly.

Itinomonn Kurouchi Deba 180mm V2 Steel part 3

Today I polished the blade on White Binsui for a while. In this moment we can see clearly contrast between jigane and hagane.

Then I made some mud from white binsui with diamonds and polished the blade road with ultra hard felt. I really like the result.

I believe that I could spent more time on polishing with mud.

Then I sharpened deba on Red Aoto but didn't polish on it. Instead I used same technique as previously but with Aoto mud.

I am not happy with result.

I think that Aoto mud is scratching the blade. I will try tommorow again with fresh felt and will spend more time on it.

Itinomonn Kurouchi Deba 180mm V2 Steel part 2

Hello.

Today I worked a little bit on deba. I spent only few moments on Beston 500 and then I swaped to JNS 1000.

Beston 500:

First of all I have cutted my new edge. I really wish to make it wider to have a nice hamaguriba but I couldn't do that without scratching the blade road. I think that it should be fine. The low spot on heel is a problem now because I can't reach that place so it will be really hard to sharpen in that place. I can make a burr but as you can see on picture below there's still a marker pen on heel. I removed chips as well.

Then I polished the blade road with JNS1000. Now I can see that I will have to work on shinogi line in the future. It should be even on whole lenght but it isn't. The bevel is wider near front of the knife. It's also little bit wider near heel than in the middle. I will change that in the future.

Then I cleaned stone with diamond plate and I didn't clean it from mud. I used it to polish with that stone and actually result was different. I could see contrast between jigane and hagane. It's not that visible on the picture but I could see it. It shows me that mud have a big importance in polishing.

TBC...

Itinomonn Kurouchi Deba 180mm V2 Steel

Hello!

I had nothing to do at the morning so I have decided to work a little bit on my Itinomonn Kurouchi deba in V2 steel.
I have sharpened it before and then I noticed that there are some low spots. I think that this will be bigger project and I don't think that I will finish it after first session. However I will try to focus on kasumi finish and will try to do that with my existing setup. I have some very small fingerstones but I can't use them and don't want to experiment with them at the moment. Just don't have inspiration. I have some ideas with felt. Instead of using fingerstone I will try to finish polishing on White Binsui and then will polish it with ultra hard deburring felt and Red Aoto mud only. Can't wait for results.

There are some micro chips on the edge after last usage.

So I worked on the blade road for a while and then I covered whole blade with marker pen. Black spots are low spots. There are two big ones. One is on the heel and second one is on the top corner of the blade road on the tip. There is one more on the middle exactly on the shinogi line but this one will not be a problem.

I worked few moments on it and low spot on shinogi has dissapeared and now we can see onlt two of them. Heel and tip. Rest of the blade road is quite even. I think that there is no point fo removing those low spots in one session. They will not affect cutting that much so I can do them next time. I will work on it with Beston 500 tommorow but that's it. I will try to focus on polishing and hamaguriba. This is still black magic for me but I hope to learn it quickly.

Beston 500 finish:

Deep low spot on the ''kissaki'':