Tojiro Cosmetic Upgrade

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wsfarrell

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I just bought the $50 Tojiro 210mm white #2 kurouchi. Nice knife, and cheap enough that I thought I would spruce it up a bit (not a disaster if I mess it up). I stuck it in my knife vise (I know you're supposed to put the blade in while sanding the handle, but it works the other way too) and went at it with wet/dry on a sanding block. Here's the knife as it came:
tojiro1.jpg


Here it is after some work with 220 (lubed with water and Dawn):
tojiro2.jpg


And here it is after 320:
tojiro3.jpg


That's where I've stopped for now. It doesn't show in the pics, but the cladding has a nice wavy hammered look that really pops with the kurouchi removed. 1000% better in my opinion.

Comments welcome.
 
Nice, thanks for the pics. I think it looks much better too.
 
that is a rough looking finish on the OOTB knife, and it looks great after your modifications, so i'd say you have a winner on your hands!
 
Nice work. If I had it, I would also try sharpening the wide bevels to see if I could get a nice contrast-y look. Then again, it might not be worth it, since the patina would cover that up anyways.
 
Thanks. I've heard that removing kurouchi may increase susceptibility to rust, but I cook at home only, so I should be able to handle that. The thought of polishing the wide bevel crossed my mind...

:cool2:
 
Pretty cool. Let us know how reactive the new finish turns out to be.
 
Let's just hope that Dwarvenchef doesn't see this, he will have a meltdown ;) Looks good to me, though.

Stefan
 
One thing I forgot to mention is that the kurouchi finish stank like crazy as I was sanding it. When the black was gone, the smell stopped. I think this is good news.
 
Cool. Please post some pictures and report back how it's reacting after it's been used. This is really interesting to me.
 
Cool. Please post some pictures and report back how it's reacting after it's been used. This is really interesting to me.
Yea, because you know dave, if you offer up a "group buy" of Tojiro's and just sand off the kurouchi finish as well as do some thinning and round the edges ... i'm sure you'd have quite a few people willing to get in on that. Or is it blasphemous to even suggest the mass removal of KU finishes from carbon knives?
 
Yea, because you know dave, if you offer up a "group buy" of Tojiro's and just sand off the kurouchi finish as well as do some thinning and round the edges ... i'm sure you'd have quite a few people willing to get in on that. Or is it blasphemous to even suggest the mass removal of KU finishes from carbon knives?


Hahaha - If you ask DC he'll say it's bad juju for sure. :)
 
O man, I wish they made these knives in at least 240. That is awesome, I did that once with a yanagi and it was my favorite knife that wasn't a beauty queen.
 
I'll keep you posted.

Speaking of cheap ways to improve appearance, I copied Dave's trick of etching the blade on my Hiromoto 240 AS. I used vinegar; I'm not sure what Dave used. Best 10 cents I ever spent on a knife. His pics are WAY better than I could do:

Martell Hiromoto
 
My Moritaka lost its kurouchi and became very reactive and the only way I found to combat that is mustard force a patina.* Your knife looks beautiful polished just be sure to dry it immediately and oil it before storage.Makes me want to polish my Tojiro and see whats underneath.
 
I imagine the vinegar would just cause a ton-o-rust on this blade, right, because it's not stainless clad?
 
I think the Hiro is stainless clad, but not the Tojiro. I won't be putting vinegar on the Tojiro.
 
I put white distilled vinegar on the moritaka to remove the rust that was forming and applied more vinegar and let air dry. The result was a light patina and was rust-resistant.
 
I too would really like to know how reactive it becomes. Pics please!
 
I have a Tojiro Shirogami Santoku with a kurouchi finish. I'm in the process of putting a mirror polish on the silver part of the blade. If it works, I'm going to try it on the 210mm Gyuto. It' easy to experiment on these inexpensive knives. They take incredible edges.

Cheers,

Jack
 
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