D. Martell Hiromoto AS Sujihiki Thin & Etch

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Dave Martell

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These pictures show a Hiro AS suji that's been thinned and etched to bring out the new pattern created during the thinning process through cladding removal.

The kanji was only lightly stamped on one set and the other was etched in, both disappeared instantly as expected.

Each Hiro seems to offer up a different result when etched, I never know what I'll get. On this knife the stainless cladding became mottled looking but I got it to be smooth textured.

The pictures don;t show the knife sharpened, when this happens there will be a very small bevel on the right side and almost no bevel on the left.

This knife is going to displace food with it's mere presence. :D


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I think etching like this is one of the coolest ways to make a knife set apart. I gotta learn how to do this!
 
The etching part is easy, it's the before and after that make the difference. Before you have to (in this case) remove material to expose the core but at the least you often need to sand and make it even. After requires some form of finish work be it sanding/buffing/both and maybe even chemical polishing too.
 
Looks like the cladding made it to the edge on the left side. That could be a problem. Otherwise, looks awesome.
 
Looks like the cladding made it to the edge on the left side. That could be a problem. Otherwise, looks awesome.


Yeah I saw that, but that's a factory boo-boo. I considered trying to deal with it but I think that if I removed more on that side I'd have had an issue for sure.
 
Yeah I saw that, but that's a factory boo-boo. I considered trying to deal with it but I think that if I removed more on that side I'd have had an issue for sure.

How so? Just curious.
 
Yeah I saw that, but that's a factory boo-boo. I considered trying to deal with it but I think that if I removed more on that side I'd have had an issue for sure.

How so? Just curious.


The left side came almost flat with only the slightest bevel but even so I ground off a good amount of cladding all the way down to the edge bevel nearly disappeared. If I pushed any further at the edge I'm pretty sure I would have blown through it creating that stupid hole we all hate. The edge is just so thin that I don;t think anymore could safely be removed.
 
that looks awesome! if the group buy hasn't sold out yet, i bet it will now!
 
Yeah, that sucks about the cladding, You'd have to shorten the knife and move the profile up to remove it, and God only knows how far up that goes!

Etching is cool. Does it stay though?
 
great looking etching job Dave, now just wait to see how it slice through things :).
 
As you all know these are my favorite knives hands down, Dave you really made that one look great :) You may end up having to go with a more centered bevel if that cladding there is at the bevel, save what you can from this knife even if you don't get the near 100/0 bevel.

I always watch with interest at what your dooing with the Hiromoto AS knives :)
 
Nice job on the weight reduction! It seems like a crap shoot what you are going to uncover when you thin these.
 
Yeah it's true. The cladding on the left side was all over the edge and I ground most of it off of the edge except for that one part that I couldn't get. I can't always fix the problems the factory builds into knives but I try. :)
 
I have a 300mm Wa-Gyoto that I'm in the process of grinding a kiritsuke tip onto. After I'm done with it, I'll send it by you and let you do some magic to it.
 
If "the hole" is a possible concern, how is this knife going to hold up to sharpening? Won't the cladding give out soon and leave a screwed bevel?
 
I have a 300mm Wa-Gyoto that I'm in the process of grinding a kiritsuke tip onto. After I'm done with it, I'll send it by you and let you do some magic to it.


I don't know if you're doing the tip by hand but if you are you could always just mark the blade for the desired look that you want and I could grind that in rest, wouldn't take me any time at all to do it.

Either way thanks for the incoming thin & etch work. :)
 
If "the hole" is a possible concern, how is this knife going to hold up to sharpening? Won't the cladding give out soon and leave a screwed bevel?


There's a hole? I didn't see one. :)

The issue of the cladding is that it's hanging down low on the left side, down onto the bevel in that one spot, but there's still core steel behind it. The knife has been like this since it was made and hasn't presented a problem so I think it'll be OK.
 
I should have written "possible hole". My bad!
Either way, as long as it won't pose a problem, it's all good. I was just wondering if the cladding would be low enough to be where the Aogami core was supposed to be the bevel. In other words, is the low cladding an issue because it might be in place of the Aogami (in the hanging portion), which will effectively be a soft clad bevel segment, or is it another issue?
 
Yeah sure it could be an issue as the cladding has no edge holding capability but like I said before the knife had even more cladding all down over the edge before I touched it so at least now it's only one little spot so it's probably OK.
 
Gotcha! I know you wouldn't do anything that would negatively affect a knife, but I was curious when I read the thread.
 
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