Every Day Blade Maintenance

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bishop27

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I'm wondering what some "best practices" are for every day blade maintenance or just personal tips anyone is interested in sharing (caring for special finishes, storing, honing, etc.). I've only owned knives with the standard stainless steel look but what about with finishes like these:

http://www.japaneseknifeimports.com...su-210mm-stainless-clad-white-2-wa-gyuto.html
http://www.epicedge.com/shopexd.asp?id=84321
http://www.japaneseknifeimports.com/kitchen-knives-by-type/gyuto/kochi-210mm-kurouchi-wa-gyuto.html#

Are there anything special that needs to be done in order to maintain those looks? Is it just expected that those finishes will fade away at some point? Should they be cleaned with any special sponge, cleaning solution, something abrasive vs. non-abrasive?

I'm sure all this info is somewhere in the forums. Unfortunately I was unsuccessful in finding it. Apologies in advance if this has already been talked about.
 
Funny you should ask about the gengetsu...I just posted yesterday about some maintenance work I did on mine (wa-petty though). Keep in mind that I'm still very much a beginner...I found the cladding on this particular knife to be easy to scratch up when thinning behind the edge (possibly it's that way with many/most/all, my experience is too shallow to comment)...or maybe I did it improperly/poorly.

It's easy to sharpen though...stupid easy compared to the cheap-o stainless knives I practice on. And the carbon higane develops a nice patina...or you can keep a moist towel on the corner of your cutting board and wipe the knife frequently, and everytime before you set it down. The patina doesn't bother me though.

I don't (yet) have any knives with Kurouchi so I can't say anything about that.
 
You maintain those knives just as you would any knife - clean and dry them after use, don't leave them lying around dirty and never put them away wet or damp.

Stainless-clad carbon like the Gengetsu (knife #1) will develop a patina where the carbon edge is exposed. Most people think this is attractive. The stainless cladding is soft, and will scratch if you use anything abrasive, even a ScothBrite pad.

Kuro-uchi finished knives (knives #2 and #3) require a little more diligence in drying after use, since they are a carbon steel core in a mild steel jacket. The kuro-uchi finish will give some protection against rust. However, and this is a big consideration, the quality of the kuro-uchi finish varies widely among knifemakers. In my experience, the kuro-uchi finishes from Murray Carter and Kochi are more durable than those from Takeda or Moritaka. There have been reports that the kuro-uchi finish on the Tojiro ITK knives is particularly prone to coming off in normal use, but I have no first hand experience with those knives.

I hope this helped.

Rick
 
cladding scratches, just how it is. makes it easy to refinish. i've found Takeda kurouchi to be as durable as Kochi kurouchi. i don't scrub either very hard, though.
 
The kurouchi on my Tojiro ITK is pretty good & on my Yamawaku even better.
 
I haven't had any problems with the finish on my Takeda, but I don't feel the need to scrub away at it either!
 
Funny you should ask about the gengetsu...I just posted yesterday about some maintenance work I did on mine (wa-petty though). Keep in mind that I'm still very much a beginner...I found the cladding on this particular knife to be easy to scratch up when thinning behind the edge (possibly it's that way with many/most/all, my experience is too shallow to comment)...or maybe I did it improperly/poorly.

It's easy to sharpen though...stupid easy compared to the cheap-o stainless knives I practice on. And the carbon higane develops a nice patina...or you can keep a moist towel on the corner of your cutting board and wipe the knife frequently, and everytime before you set it down. The patina doesn't bother me though.

I don't (yet) have any knives with Kurouchi so I can't say anything about that.

I was actually leaning towards getting a Gengetsu. I linked those knives just as examples but the Gengetsu really caught my eye as a good looking knife (though a little expensive for me). This may be a noob question (seeing as though i'm a huge noob) but does that polish on the carbon go away after sharpening? Also when you say "thinning behind the blade" what do you mean?



Also, thanks everyone for the help!
 
I was actually leaning towards getting a Gengetsu. I linked those knives just as examples but the Gengetsu really caught my eye as a good looking knife (though a little expensive for me). This may be a noob question (seeing as though i'm a huge noob) but does that polish on the carbon go away after sharpening? Also when you say "thinning behind the blade" what do you mean?

Also, thanks everyone for the help!

The best answer to that is a video from Jon:
[video=youtube;3jsTtnidY3w]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jsTtnidY3w&feature=g-user-c[/video]

It would be a good investment of time to watch all of his videos....and subscribe to his updates on YouTube :thumbsup:

I'm not sure what you mean by "the polish on the carbon."

The gengetsu is a fantastic product...at least the petty is...I'm hoping to get my hands on the gyuto soon :)
 
The best answer to that is a video from Jon:
[video=youtube;3jsTtnidY3w]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jsTtnidY3w&feature=g-user-c[/video]

It would be a good investment of time to watch all of his videos....and subscribe to his updates on YouTube :thumbsup:

I'm not sure what you mean by "the polish on the carbon."

The gengetsu is a fantastic product...at least the petty is...I'm hoping to get my hands on the gyuto soon :)

Cool! Thanks for the heads up.

By "polish" i meant that mirror like (it looks like it's highly reflective in the pictures anyway) finish of what i assumed was the carbon steel. I believe the technical term is the Hagane? The hard steel core? I could be totally wrong though. :crossfingers:

The gyuto looks amazing too. I really want both but my wallet wouldn't be happy with that. :D
 
By "polish" i meant that mirror like (it looks like it's highly reflective in the pictures anyway) finish of what i assumed was the carbon steel. I believe the technical term is the Hagane? The hard steel core? I could be totally wrong though. :crossfingers:

You sharpen that part as well as the jigane above it on every sharpening session, I believe. In the same way a single bevel knife is sharpened, but on both sides. Watch Jon's single bevel video, actually just watch all of his videos when you have the time, very helpful.
 
By "polish" i meant that mirror like (it looks like it's highly reflective in the pictures anyway) finish of what i assumed was the carbon steel.

Depends on polishing equipment and skills :) You can make it happen either way. Obviously, any portion of the steel that touches the stones will lose its patina though. The level of shine left behind is EQ/Skills dependent though.
 

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