Restorations WIP

So I got this from a fellow sushi chef from Trondheim. Before I moved out to live in Oslo, I did some sharpening/maintaining jobs for him.

This time though, he gave me all of his workbeaters to fix, as he is off for holiday. I must say here, I am kind of impressed that he actually sharpens his knives regularly. Not that theres no technical errors but he kept them sharp.

So here they are:



And heres today subject, the way it was when it arrived:



:sad0:
Shite much to do actually.

But hey dont panic stay cool I checket things out and yeah it will be fun! Plan is to do just about that:



plus polish the front and remove little thickness, like .5mm or so to reveal more of the "damascus" and then polish, and install new handle.

So the grinding started, and damn if Im not happy that have bought the german sandpaper specifically for metal. This first critical stage, just enough to hate life and the job itself took two hours. But it revealed all of the work that is awaiting. Good.



As you can see tip got some attention, the shinogi risen and I took some away from the heel area. That is it for now.

Next I ground a bevel the way I would see it when the knife is sharpened and at the heel area the bevel width was some 3mm and thickness above was terryfying. Time for part two called "hell why do I do that by hand" and first chapter is called "its too fu**ing freezing outside to take it the the belt grinder god damn it".
After tearing through 3 pairs of gloves and tons of good will I have the rough shape and the blade thinned.



Tomorrow face will get polished, And I will start the "finer bevel trauma" with DMT.

tbc

You've taken on quite a project there. Progress is looking very good!

Cool, i'm tuned in.

I'm very happy to see that you're taking the time to document your WIP Mike. I'm still pretty impressed with the work you did on my old Ino. Looking forward to watching this project progress.

Cant see any pics

Great Job Bieniek. Can't wait for the rest of the project. I wish to have your skills

Wow, that's really impressive Bieniek! I'm trying to learn and understand the 'whys' and 'hows' of knives and sharpening so please excuse what might be an obvious and probably ignorant question but why did you have to change the profile in the first place? A video of this would really be terrific too. Cheers!

I'm guessing its to account for the thinning.

Or is it to correct what may be a 'wobble' of the edge? Or to have a flatter edge?

Now that I look at it a little closer, it appears that the yani is becoming too flat in general. Mike illustrates the need for a more pronounced curve towards the tip in his overlay pic. There's probably a dead spot when attempting to do long draw cuts 3/4 of the way up the belly.

Sambal said:

why did you have to change the profile in the first place?

Click to expand...

Well here it is just about the feeling. If you look at the blade in the first pic, it doesnt look natural, the heel was undersharpened but overthinned [you can see just that in this little curve upwards in shinogi line just at the heel] while the edge bit that usually does all the cutting, so about 15cm from the tip, is underthinned and oversharpened [in other words, too thick and too low].
But one could say its about finding balance when you look at it.

Cheers to all you guys for kind words.

I can see the uneven shinogi at the heel; can't quite see the underthinned and oversharpened bit - but I get your point. Thanks!

Holy cow, you removed all that metal with sandpaper? What kind of stuff are you working with?

Nice Mike, looking forward to following this--and please do give us all the details as you go.

Cheers!

Don on the back side theres Logo with brand name Klingspor and the grits I have are 80 & 120. Two dollars a meter.

I am about to glue some belts out of it.

Allright.
I pushed forward with all of the knives but have pics of works just of the yanagi.

The handle was taken of, sanded and polished to 400 grit



As to the blade, I had like 4 trips to belt sander to get it almost right so the rest could be done by hand....

I managed to thin the face enough to cover the overthinned shinogi at the heel, almost



The tip got new curve to it, and thinned touch more.


Polishing the face, first various grits of paper


And natural mud


You kind of get the idea what Ive been through?

You must have some sore fingertips. It looks good, can't wait to see the rest.

Its not that bad

OK so here Im after the JNS 1K, and the white binsui. Then I got back to JNS to sharpen the edge.


And the knife finished:



I left some small but deep scratches. For purpose









And here is the worst of Shuns...hah basically it was made a single bevel knife, so the core was not the cutting edge...the cutting edge was on the left side and it was the cladding. Few hours with belt grinder and here it is:



I managed to remove enough metal from the left side to expose the VG core. Umphhh.



And check how the choil shot is different from when I got it

OOooooooooops, forgot to add the before pics...




BTW this Shun now is not a bad longer petty at all...not bad at all

Very nice job on the yanagi. What did you use after the binsui?

cheers

just fingerstones then cork then felt.

Super impressive work. Thanks for sharing the WIP.

OK last update.
Next five days will bring 80 hours at work [my another week at the 2 star place] plus and two hours in transport of the arse.
And next monday I have to give the knives back so in the last ramatic effort I finished the whole set!

The yanagi might look the most impressive, but actually I like the usuba the most.
It is because I had to straighten the blade a lot to get the edge to be close to straight - it was bent inwards.

Before shots of deba and usuba




Some in between the deba after belt sanding and DMT, and usuba at fingerstone station. Notice that I also removed some jigane from the "tip of the blade" to uncover some steel, I think it looks coool




And the end, my only friend, the end







Both handles were taken of and polished.

And yeah the owner got my handmae sayas for all of the blades totally free of charge !:shocked3:

Awesome work mate I am wondering how many people on this forum own skills like yours?

Great Job Mike!

Very nice work indeed!

That's a lot of work and looks worth the effort. God job!

Beautiful work, as always.

You said you left some small deep scratches on the yanagi on purpose. Is that because it would have required removing too much steel to get rid of them? And could you say what caused those scratches?

Damn! Great work!

Cheers guys! Cheers I really appreciate it

Wsfarrell I left the scratches so the finish is not too uniform. I want it to show that it was hand restored.
The scratches left are after DMT I noticed them quite early after the first natural stone when polishing, and theyre not soooo deep, I could take them out with few more minutes but I shall not, its something hard to explain, spiritual.