All Rectangle March?

Miura knives
Japanese Knives - by Tokushu Knife
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Due to a discussion on another forum, I made an inventory of my rectangles.

PXL_20241201_155615034.jpg


From the left:

Unknown cheapie.
Kajibei Damascus AO from Cleancut.
Gaijin x Spåre, a rectagle I made under Fredriks supervision in his shop
Watanabe Pro Nakiri 165mm
Chinese Cleaver, from Taiwan via Copenhagen.

The leftmost one is a beater that I've been thinking of selling since I have to many knives, but a cheap knife is not reasonable to sell internationally... the second one, the Kajibei is actually up for sale on a Swedish forum right now, perhaps I should list it here too?

On the swedish forum, we might do a Fyrkantig February, translated as "Four-sided february". This is to not conflict with another (non-knife-related) march challenge. :)
 
Last edited:
Here is your reminder that most usubas are sufficiently rectangular.

Everyone who doesn't have a Chinese cleaver kinda knows they should try one.

Everyone who doesn't have a nakiri kinda knows they should try one.

Almost no one who does not have an usuba thinks they should try one.

It is a great tragedy for the most underappreciated Japanese knife shape.
 
I had to slice tiny radishes yesterday. At first I was doing it the usual way, left hand claw wobbling the tiny ball against the board and cutting down with the knife. After a while I switched to “YouTube style” horizontal cuts. I wouldn’t have had the confidence to do this if I hadn’t spent time practicing katsuramuki with an usuba.
MSicardCutlery said:
Blade: 229mmx54mm Apex Ultra
Click to expand...
 
Rangen said:
Here is your reminder that most usubas are sufficiently rectangular.

Everyone who doesn't have a Chinese cleaver kinda knows they should try one.

Everyone who doesn't have a nakiri kinda knows they should try one.

Almost no one who does not have an usuba thinks they should try one.

It is a great tragedy for the most underappreciated Japanese knife shape.
Click to expand...
I have always wanted to try one, but never bought one because I don't have any experience with sharpening single bevel...
 
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nhb22 said:
I have always wanted to try one, but never bought one because I don't have any experience with sharpening single bevel...
Click to expand...
I found that easier than I expected, though I am sure that razor honing experience was the main reason for that. I don't know what is conventional, but here is how I approached it:

- Be absolutely paranoid about removing steel from the flat side. Edge-leading strokes only, very gentle, you're just deburring and trying for the most minimal intervention.

- The real sharpening is done on the bevel side. That too needs to be gentle, because everything is delicate, but not as overwhelmingly gentle as the flat side.

- The flat side must be placed absolutely flat on the stone, and both spine-side flat and edge-side flat must be on the stone at all times when deburring on the flat side. You can ruin an usuba in a way that takes a lot of work to fix by raising up the spine and making a bevel on the flat side. I did this to my first usuba, which fortunately was inexpensive and poorly chosen.

- Here's the part, other than gentleness of touch, that came from razor honing: Torque the blade when deburring on the flat side. When you have two metal parts touching the stone, but you're trying to affect only one of them, default behavior is not what you want. With the spine-side contact being more inline with the handle than the edge-side, default behavior will actually tend to take more metal off of the spine side contact than the edge-side contact. The result can be a frustrating inability to affect the edge, and a wear pattern that just makes the problem worse.

Instead, gently twist/torque the handle toward the edge, to emphasize the contact on the edge side, rather than the spine side, while keeping both in contact. It's all very gentle, but it makes a really big difference in results at the edge, and in the wear pattern you impart over many sharpenings.
 
Rangen said:
I found that easier than I expected, though I am sure that razor honing experience was the main reason for that. I don't know what is conventional, but here is how I approached it:

- Be absolutely paranoid about removing steel from the flat side. Edge-leading strokes only, very gentle, you're just deburring and trying for the most minimal intervention.

- The real sharpening is done on the bevel side. That too needs to be gentle, because everything is delicate, but not as overwhelmingly gentle as the flat side.

- The flat side must be placed absolutely flat on the stone, and both spine-side flat and edge-side flat must be on the stone at all times when deburring on the flat side. You can ruin an usuba in a way that takes a lot of work to fix by raising up the spine and making a bevel on the flat side. I did this to my first usuba, which fortunately was inexpensive and poorly chosen.

- Here's the part, other than gentleness of touch, that came from razor honing: Torque the blade when deburring on the flat side. When you have two metal parts touching the stone, but you're trying to affect only one of them, default behavior is not what you want. With the spine-side contact being more inline with the handle than the edge-side, default behavior will actually tend to take more metal off of the spine side contact than the edge-side contact. The result can be a frustrating inability to affect the edge, and a wear pattern that just makes the problem worse.

Instead, gently twist/torque the handle toward the edge, to emphasize the contact on the edge side, rather than the spine side, while keeping both in contact. It's all very gentle, but it makes a really big difference in results at the edge, and in the wear pattern you impart over many sharpenings.
Click to expand...
This is an excellent and very clear tutorial - thank you. I don’t have a usuba, and I probably won’t until my cooking and presentation skills are up a few notches. But I’ve read about them with interest.

I was under the impression that the “flat” side had some very slight concavity to it, adding even more intrigue to maintenance. Not so?
 
Seemore said:
This is an excellent and very clear tutorial - thank you. I don’t have a usuba, and I probably won’t until my cooking and presentation skills are up a few notches. But I’ve read about them with interest.

I was under the impression that the “flat” side had some very slight concavity to it, adding even more intrigue to maintenance. Not so?
Click to expand...
You're welcome -- I'm glad you found the tutorial to be clear.

There is definitely concavity on the flat side, and it is a huge and necessary benefit -- it means that much less metal is in contact with the stone, because the middle part of the flat side has been scooped out for you. I can't imagine how hard it would be to sharpen, otherwise.

The same thing is done on Japanese chisels, and on all straight razors, in a more obviously visible way. The end-on profile of an usuba looks very similar to the end-on profile of a kamisori (Japanese straight razor). Not surprising, since both are about having the finest possible edge, but with some weight to the blade.
 
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