Polishing a Turd..Before/After

So I always wondered what a 217$ blue #1 honyaki would be like and I did need a rainy day project. I was expecting a chubby blade but that's not the case.I would describe this blade as Thin,Rough,and HARD! It was seriously over hammered in the middle so I was limited to what I could do to her.I only thinned the shoulder and the tip,I hardly removed any metal.I am going to say that this blade is by far the hardest thing I have ever sanded.She would not let go of a scratch for nothing,she's still very scratchy.I will have to do a review when she gets a handle and a good sharpening.

:jawdrop:My word, please don't tell me you did that entirely by hand!

The Mythbusters actually polished turds. fftopic:

johndoughy said:

:jawdrop:My word, please don't tell me you did that entirely by hand!

The Mythbusters actually polished turds. fftopic:

Click to expand...

My hands were holding it up to a belt grinder:biggrin:I do go to hand sanding at 400,but this blade was just laughing at my sandpaper.

I'm missing skin on 5 fingers from trying to hand rub S35VN, I beleive it is easier to pull your teeth through your a$$, then it is to hand rub this stuff! This wasn't laughing at my paper, it was laughing, pointing, and whispering nasty things!

Yeah, I've never been so motivated to go buy a power tool than when sandpaper stopped working, and I noticed the steel I was rubbing actually took the grit entirely off the paper.

That is a great job cleaning it up! You gonna handle it next?

I have some ringed gidgee and buffalo horn epoxied up.

A major improvement! From what little I have read about blue steel, I am wondering if it is the carbides more than the RC hardness that makes it scoff at your sandpaper? Doesn't that steel have some carbide forming elements in it like vanadium or tungsten?

Yup. Tungsten.

Isn't that the steel that also has 1.5% carbon content/ If so, I would think that you would have as much of the carbon locked up in carbides as you do in the iron. If so, hat would make for a fun hand sanding experience......NOT!!!:biggrin:

tk59 said:

Yup. Tungsten.

Click to expand...

Regular Blue 1 has 1.25-1.35 C, .3-.5 Cr and 1.5-2.0 W.

Btw. Mario, where you got that turd from?

It's a Takagi from JWW and calling it a turd is kinda harsh on my part,but I have such a strong hatred for a rustic finish.For 217$ shipped it's a steal.

Do you need to spend as much sharpening it as you spent thinning and refinishing?

Takagi use's clay on the HT/quench process but there is no hamon.Do you think I should give it a quick etch to see if it brings it out??

It won't hurt.

Marko Tsourkan said:

Do you need to spend as much sharpening it as you spent thinning and refinishing?

Click to expand...

After all the abuse on the edge this blade is still crazy sharp:thumbsup:

This is one odd looking differential HT,if that's what it is.

takagi's "hamon" is always pretty darn close to the edge as I recall

Very interesting thread. Thanks, Mario.

Could that be the core popping through?

Dave Martell said:

Could that be the core popping through?

Click to expand...

Core on a honyaki?

Dave Martell said:

Could that be the core popping through?

Click to expand...

Rottman said:

Core on a honyaki?

Click to expand...

Good question.....ignore me....carry on!

I'll change my question.....

Could that be good steel popping through forge scale?

Dave Martell said:

I'll change my question.....

Could that be good steel popping through forge scale?

Click to expand...

I hope so,that was my goal:lol2:

JBroida said:

takagi's "hamon" is always pretty darn close to the edge as I recall

Click to expand...

I've read this too and was confused by this Jon.
So newbie question: wouldn't placing your Hamon line so close to the edge make for lots of soft steel close to the edge of the knife? Why then is this blade so hard it destroys sandpaper? Maybe I'm confused though.

G-rat said:

I've read this too and was confused by this Jon.
So newbie question: wouldn't placing your Hamon line so close to the edge make for lots of soft steel close to the edge of the knife? Why then is this blade so hard it destroys sandpaper? Maybe I'm confused though.

Click to expand...

It was pointed out earlier in the thread that steel comp is making it hard to sand not RC.I have no idea why the clay was placed the way it is on this blade.I do know that in my life time I won't sharpen the blade enough to worry about it.

johndoughy said:

:jawdrop:My word, please don't tell me you did that entirely by hand!

The Mythbusters actually polished turds. fftopic:

Click to expand...

I was just thinking about when they did that; I think the lion one was the easiest to polish! haha with regard to the topic, I was hoping someone would do this and post about it; I've been thinking about this knife for a while

One of the guys who posts on Blade Forums built a big water cooled aluminum horizontal platen that sets up high on his KMG. It has a pump to circulate water though the block. The bad news is that he never made plans for it. He just built it. Something like that would be pretty sweet for jobs like this.

So the final question is, is it worth it to spend 700 in a masamoto honyaki or 200 on the Tatagi and go through the time and pain to fix her up.

For some of us the fixing is reason enough. For others, not so much!

Well said, Spike