Misono Swedish Steel Hankotsu - Left Handed

Pardon me if I seem to be boasting about my knife, coz well...to be honest, I am!!! =D

it's my first hand specific knife so I'd like to show it off. So if anyone doesn't wanna read on, you're welcome to do so. Please feel free to comment positive and negative things about what I did to the knife and whatever else.


Reason why I'm posting it is coz I wanna share anything I've found out about the knife and learn from you guys so please bear with me.

so here it is.... pix taken right after unpacking. Got it in a huge @$$ box from UPS which pretty much made me pa twice as much for how I usually get charged for a knife this size. which sucked for me. packaging was overkill, but better overkill than getting it damaged. This is so far the most money I have spent ever on a single knife. All my expenses for the knife not including gas and toll fees, right around $225 total.



ordered it last year late december. Mari of Korin has been coordinating with me about the status of the knife before, during and after the thing's arrival to New York since it was a specially ordered knife what with me being a lefty. it took another week for it to get to Daly City to the warehouse of my courier and then another 10 or so days before it arrived here in the Philippines.





it didn't get sharpened by the master sharpener that comes free with Korin's services since he was out of the country at the moment. I told Mari that it was fine and she can send it out without the "finish sharpening".





it arrived "meh" sharp. so i took it to the stones real quick. didn't raise a burr or anything so I didn't get it as sharp as I usually do. lol. so it was "meh+1" sharp. if you could believe it. lol.









So before I went to pick it up at the courier's office (I know right? they suck, you have to pick it up there and don't do door to door!) and got some belly of pork so I can make some homemade bacon. To get ready to use this knife for what I need it for, boning out meats. =D









Pardon the quality of the pictures since these are just phone camera pix, they're not as good. I was too lazy to bust out my digital camera. LOL.

So after making the bacon, the edge was dull all over again. duh. lol.

I sharpened it up again, this time raising a burr. with a coarse stone (your standard silicon carbide), nubutama bamboo gold 1k and a 5k suehiro rika. I didn't have a hard time sharpening a mostly left handed ground knife as it seems to be actually a lot easier than sharpening dual bevelled blades. I just followed the angle, sharpened as normal and then pretty much just wet stropped the right side. deburred and stropped with newspaper. It got quite a bit sharper than before and I was quite happy with my results.

here it is:







this time i hope it won't get dull after one use. lol.


the only thing I didn't like much about the knife was the welding on the bolster to the blade itself was pretty obvious and it was just sanded out. but that's fine. no damage on the knife whatsoever, came in real pristine. it was just a bit dusty, which is fine. didn't get a note from Korin like most folks on here. Maybe my order was rushed into shipping soon as it arrived so they didn't have time. LOL.

This swedish steel feels a little harder to sharpen than say blue steel, the carbon steel on the masamoto HC, 1095....but I really can't say after using them all together in time. The steel is already starting to form a patina specially on the left face of the knife. These are all just preliminary observations so my judgements may change.

Would anybody know what kind of swedish carbon steel misono uses on their swedish line?

one last thing, does anyone have any tips on sharpening this thing? =D

thanks.

No tips on sharpening, but congrats on the score =). My first lefty specific knife was my glestain that I also got through Korin. I remember how good it felt to unpack it and bring it to work. Then it was yanagiba, deba, and another yanagiba. All of which just sit at home these days. My 300mm sakai yusuke suji replaced my yanagiba in my work kit, and we haven't seen a whole fish in awhile at work either so the deba just stays at home =(. Working 7 days a week this time of year keeps me off the water so I can't catch any of my own. But Aaaaaaaanyyy way. Bacon pics?

i'll do some bacon pix tomorrow. =D on the proper thread. lol.

this is my first time making bacon with pink salt. it just doesn't taste the same without it, even if it's so bad for you. lol.

my next lefty knife will be a 120mm deba which is on it's way here via the post office. then i'll probably get a bigger deba, a 180mm deba or a 270mm suji.

we'll see. i also got stones to think about like a 2k-3k stone, another 1k stone, and coarser stones. i think i'll go with a couple more stones first then knives again.


thanks K-fed on the post!

on certain websites they said that the hardness on the knife was at 60RC, when i was sharpening this thing (which was a joy BTW!!!).... first time i actually felt joy while sharpening a knife. it was an odd feeling, lol. a real pleasure to work with (signs of becoming a true knife knut? :knife....it felt harder than 60RC. more like 61-62RC. then i stumbled onto this review from some dude that says it felt more like what i mentioned, like 61-62. it felt just as hard as my blue steel aritsugu kyoto santoku. so... maybe. i dunno, maybe i'm just talking out of my butt. so whatever. lol.

later on tonight i stropped it on some newspaper then on a green compound loaded leather strop then naked leather strop just for kicks. felt sharper. wonder how it'll feel on actual meat after a few quick swipes on the strop.

i forgot to mention that while i was cutting around some of the soft bone of the bacon, i nicked myself on my right hand on my middle finger on the first knuckle. i usually tell myself, arlight, this is really my knife now. it cut me. it's saying hello and telling me to treat it well.

=D

Congrats on the lefty blade! No help from me on sharpening, but Jon does some single bevel stuff on his youtube page--hope it may help.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEBF55079F53216AB&feature=plcp

thanks for reminding me. i'll need to brush up on that vid. i've seen it like 3 or 4 times already. i'll just have to watch it more in detail on my phone while i do it just so i don't make a mistake.

Vid may be useful. I've hot the moly hankotsu and whilst edge retention isn't great it touches up easily

[video=youtube_share;FqEkSHJkQaQ]http://youtu.be/FqEkSHJkQaQ[/video]

one of theory's vids. forgot about that. thanks!

franzb69 said:

one last thing, does anyone have any tips on sharpening this thing? =D

thanks.

Click to expand...

Yeah actually I made a vide.....oh yeah I see it's already here. I'll be leaving now.

I am sneaking this thread in (I'm beyond busy today), but I wanted to say congrats on the new knife. For me, Misono does it right! Sexy little blade, man!

thanks lefty!

my first lefty knife but hopefully will be one of many

some updated patina pix, this time with my digicam so it's a lot clearer. I know there aint much but it's patina i made on my first lefty knife. lol.











the pictures are odd, maybe it was the light, i see patina i see was on the bluish hue and not this rusty looking color.

after looking at the knife a little further today i found out that the handle scales near the bolster had tiny hairline gaps on it which was disconcerting. I'll just plug that up with beeswax. top and bottom part of the scales no less.

Maybe CA glue would fill the gaps nicely?

pardon my ignorance but what is CA glue? thanks

Nice Misono, I have one of those in the right-hand version, great little knife.

CA is super glue

thanks glasseye and spike.

ohhh superglue. i see. good idea then i'll just sand off whatever's left and smoothen it out.

thanks!