Altering Heiji Tip Geometry?

Hello KKF members,

I have a Nakaya Heiji 270mm gyuto in his semi-stainless. While I love the wide bevels on the knife, I find the tip to be a little thick on my particular knife. I am considering raising the shoulders gradually along the last 1/4 of the gyuto and easing the last 3-5 cm to attempt to make the tip a bit more nimble, especially through things like onions and daikon.

Before I do this, I wanted to ask if the members here see any problems with this idea. I want to improve my sharpening skills before I would attempt such a thinning project, but does anyone think I would lose any performance from the knife if I were to do this? If I eased the bevels just at the tip, how might this affect the functionality and/or aesthetics?

Thanks for the help as always.

Silky

might be better to just get someone who is comfortable with this type of work do it, sounds like a big job if you don't have the right technique or stones or mostly patience!

inzite said:

might be better to just get someone who is comfortable with this type of work do it, sounds like a big job if you don't have the right technique or stones or mostly patience!

Click to expand...

I second this, and I have tried this very thing myself twice with my two hejis. The the real problem was how both of my heijis (240 gyutos and 180mm petty), did not have flat hira, which complicated things.

If you really really want to give this a shot here is what I recommend - pop the handle, flatten the hira (with the drastic taper from the tang it will be extremely tricky), then raise the shinogi on both sides of the blade. If you want to, you can lower the angle gradually towards the tip so the kireha will be much wider at the very tip than the heel. Yoshikane grinds are a good example of this tapering. Once done, go through the sand paper grit to re-surface the hira and polish the kireha as you wish.

I ended up changing them be a convex grind so that there is no shinogi line anymore. It cuts way better now, as it is nearly half the thickness of the original grind.

Good luck