Shimatani Yanagiba from Metalmaster arrived bent... to return or not?

Kitchen Knife Forums

Help Support Kitchen Knife Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

carboonrider

Active Member
Joined
Sep 21, 2014
Messages
29
Reaction score
0
Starting a new thread as my post in the old one had no response.

The 330 Ao Super Yanagi knife I have ordered from Metalmaster has finally arrived. It is however slightly bent - around 1mm along the length.

tried taking photos but find out I've got no idea how to take it in way that will demonstrate the bend.

Question is - would such a bend make any difference in real life to justify the hassle and cost of shipping cost back to Japan.
 
Common with clad single-bevel knives. Does it affect performance? If not, it doesn't need to be returned.
 
If it's not as serious as this, it should be ok? Need pictures to judge. I can't picture yours by words alone.

PS. 330mm, oh, I won't expect that length to be dead straight.

http://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/showthread.php/18381-Shimatani-Yanagi-bent

Don't think it looks as bad as this. How do you position the knife for such a picture (I mean the first one)?
When I lay it flat on a chopping board, the edge raises about 1mm.
As for impact on performance - I have not had the chance to get some sacrificial piece of fish or something similar to test :)
BTW - my 300mm Watanabe is dead straight...
 
Just grip the tang and lay it flat on its own box for picturing. 1mm raise, from where? PICTURE! Maybe it's back tapered? PICTURE!

According to the experts here, Japanese craftsmen don't straighten the blade by laying flat on a table or anything else that is flat. They judge by eye sight only, if it looks alright, then it's good to go, especially the edge part. A bent blade only affects sharpening from what they say here. It's a handmade stuff after all, got to accept some minor imperfections.
 
Try to capture the whole blade length. If you look from the edge, is the edge a straight line?
 
Nice picture, from what I see it's not a warping nor bending, it's tapered from the back. So the bending is just an illusion. I put a 30cm ruler on top of your picture here and the right side of the blade is completely straight, aligns perfectly to my ruler. It's good to go, you got a perfect yanagiba! Get a 30cm/ 1 foot ruler and see for yourself. I feel jealous now, I want it!:happymug:

I think Metalmaster is already very careful about selling yanagiba's after my sad case about 5 months ago. Shipping back and forth using EMS is not fun.
 
It doesn't appear to be that bad, but it's really up to you. If you aren't happy with it for any reason, return it. Takeshi will make it right, although it may take some time.
 
Bending it either way is very easy. Just press the tip on your cutting board with the handle hanging in the air and bend it. It's not that brittle - I've bent mine with no problems. Wouldn't try it on a honyaki but clad ones should be fine.
 
They bend Master Smith blades over 90 degrees without snapping. A Japanese blade should at least withstand the needed 3-4 degrees. I know a seller shouldn't ship a bent blade but we've seen it happen. In this case it's far easier to correct it than send it back. I've bent two of my Yanagibas without problems. Hope this helps!
PS: don't take my word 100% and break your blade in half now! I'm just sharing my experience of bending a few blades without problems which might not work 100% of the time in other blades but I'd say it's worth a shot. Only takes 10 seconds to see if it's working.
 
Has anyone actually tried a destructive test on Yanagibas to see how much abuse they can withstand?
 
You should really use a knife straightening tool (which is a pair of offset hardened pins set in a sturdy handle) so that you can apply the bending force precisely. If you don't, you can end up with a wavy blade instead of a bent one....

I straightened my cheap stainless steel yanagiba using a vice slightly opened, sadly after I tired to grind it flat on the back, so now the concavity is messed up and the edge isn't as good as I'd like. Worked pretty well in that the knife is now straight, but poorly ground (as it was anyway) and it's rather ugly. Cuts OK though.

If you don't have something like a large vise, you need to trap the blade between a heavy object and a table where you want the correction to occur and bend the rest of the blade from the handle end to get the bend out. You may have a single "kink", or a gradual bend, I cannot tell from the picture, but in either case you must determine where the back deviates from flat and apply correction. A single bend is fairly easy, just go slowly and don't try to get it straight in one try, you will likely over do it and have a bend the other way. Multiple bends, or a curve, is harder to get rid of. Mine had one major bend and two small ones closer to the handle.

With some practice you will be able to tell when you have reached the elastic limit of the blade and feel it "give" with more pressure. First time or two you reach that point you will probably go too far, which is why I recommend gradual stages.

If you do have a vise, leave the blade loose between the jaws, don't clamp it. The bends are rarely sharp, you need to spread the correction out over the same length as the bend, which you can adjust by how far apart the jaws are. If you are worried about scratches, you will need to pad the corners of the jaws. I didn't bother as my knife cost me less than $25 so I don't care, but a better one I'd want to keep looking very nice.

Peter
 
I don't think it's actually bent, it may just be taper. If the right (when the edge is down) side is flat, then it's not bent.
 
I don't think it's actually bent, it may just be taper. If the right (when the edge is down) side is flat, then it's not bent.

Yeah, that's it, that's a perfect 330mm yanagiba. There are some Japanese guy who has been using Shimatani yanagiba for more than 10 years, that's a battle proven knife.
 
I don't think it's actually bent, it may just be taper. If the right (when the edge is down) side is flat, then it's not bent.

It is slightly bent. If I put it face down on a flat surface I can see the gap in the middle (closer to the tip the straight middle). Also, I have personally never seen a single bevel knife tapered back-side - only front-side. All my single bevels lay straight on a flat surface whichever side down.

So... right now, not having heavy duty vice at home, it is clamped between two hardwood boards using heavy duty woodworking clamps (the entire blade is clamped). I will leave like that for a couple of weeks and see if it changes something before I try any more aggressive unbending.

I knew this knife is going to be a bit of a project: AO Super, 330mm, Ebony handle and all that for $300 - one should expect to get what one paid for :)

Thanks all for the helpful advice and insight.
 
Back
Top