Old Masahiro Nakiri - restoration (or something!)

[pavlobee]

So as a newbie to this with a itch to scratch , I purchased a Nakiri from FB market place as my first "fancy" knife. I wanted a project, and a project I got!

Out the packet, I get this, and to be honest it's as per seller's pictures but I just didn't spot (or think about) the condition. Looks like someone has cleaned up up with bench wire brush and buffing wheel.

As you can see here

I've never done this before, so just started with a fine stone to polish the high spots without damaging it. Damn son.....

Compare and contrast....

Went from Shapton pro 1000 to get a feel for things to Shapton glass 320

But needed more...

Being very careful with all this since I have no idea what I'm doing, so careful checking frequently and moving pressure up and down the blade to even things up, from 150 grit to 400 grit on the diamond plate.

Back to the SG320 and then Pro 1000 to see what the go is.

Starting to look much better but so much to do to really finish it nicely. The tip has been buffed to death, almost to a sharp edge, handle needs work, and trying not to reduce the depth too much in the all of this.

 

[pavlobee]

Coming from cheaper euro stainless knives, the burr thing is a bit different, but this gives an ide of the removal, that huge bevel coming down.

General progress, and it has an edge of sorts, but plenty more to do. The upper part has a nice hollow profile forged in, and I'm trying to preserve as much of what's left of the original kurouchi finish. It's already been seriously altered, so i did consider cleaning that up to, but I don't want to flatten that area and I think the original layer around the Kanji looks quite nice.

 

[pavlobee]

Did some more flattening/thinning.

Started with the 1000 grit stone, using this nagura to apply pressure in the correct place. I also did some on the shapton pro 2000 and 5000 just to see. The 2000 gives a reasonably nice matt finish to the iron if you let plenty of iron slurry build up and don't make the stone too wet.

Effective but makes a mess of the stone. My hot take is that coarse stone don't wear as bad as people assume, but that using high surface area on the stone causes a lot of slurry to be trapped, more quickly abrading the stone with it's own material.

Reprofiled the top, still a bit of the original bevel left but I will sort that out in a few sharpenings time.

Rounded the spine with a file, then carbide stone, then polished with 800/1200 silicone carbide paper.

Choil also (sorry for bad pic)

Sanded handle, and rubbed danish oil in with fine scotchbrite. I think the funk is deep in the original wood of the handle, I didn't want to sand it to nothing to get it clean, and I think it's nice to have some signs of age/use.