Am i ready to begin?

Kitchen Knife Forums

Help Support Kitchen Knife Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

vintage.pt

Member
Joined
Jun 11, 2020
Messages
11
Reaction score
9
Location
Portugal
Just bought a sharpening setup that consists in:

Kitayama 8000
Naniwa Professional Stone 800
Shapton Pro 1000

Still waiting for Kitayama 4000 to become available (Sold out)
Also thinking in buying the Atoma 140

Not sure i kneed, at lest right now, a coarse stone like a 320/400 or something like that. Still a virgin in sharpening

Can i start with what i have right now or should i wait for the 4000? The Atoma will be just for levelling stones i suspect

I have a Sujihiki. a Mioroshi bouchou and a brand new Deba (Sakai Takayuki Tokujou)
The Mioroshi Bouchou will be my training knife and already has the tip broken and a small chip. As a single bevel will be a training for my deba. The sujihiki already would benefit from sharpening

All help much appreciated

Cheers and keep safe
 
Short answer, yes.

Longer answer still yes. The flattening plate is helpful but won't prevent you from starting. (Look up three stone flattening) You'll figure it out for yourself but the low grit stones save you so many hours. The 800 and 1000 really offer substantial overlap and not sure I'd buy both.

Have to get to work but others will come in. Just start and have fun.
 
A very fine start. For repairs and if you choose to get into polishing, getting something coarser eventually would be wise. Also thinning way down the line.
 
Yes, ready.

When you can, get a stone flattener (Atoma works great as I'm sure do others). And some sort of circa 4k stone (Chosera/ Naniwa Pro 3k is a good option). And eventually a coarse stone.

To fix the tip, grind the end of the spine down to where the edge meets the broken part in a smooth curve. You can use a coarse stone (I often use coarse W&D sandpaper fixed in a Kasfly but you could just use a sanding block if you promise to be super careful not to cut yourself). Don't try to grind the edge up towards the spine.
 
Yeah I'd say that you're more than set to start sharpening. I only had a single stone for a long time (the Chosera / Naniwa Professional Stone 800) and that alone was able to get my knives back to a decent sharpness.
 
The Mioroshi Bouchou will be my training knife and already has the tip broken and a small chip. As a single bevel will be a training for my deba.

You're definitely ready to go. The Naniwa Pro 800 might be a little too fine to fix this tip and chip though. I've been flattening down a White #2 Mioroshi Deba to remove some low spots with the exact stone and it's a very slow and painful process to say the least. I've just ordered some SG 220 and 500 stones to do this, but it's taking awhile to arrive.

You might want to use something coarser for this, either a coarse stone (when you get one) or the sandpaper option as mentioned by @Nemo. Nonetheless, you could use it for practise and slowly remove the chips with your current setup.
 
Just bought a sharpening setup that consists in:

Kitayama 8000
Naniwa Professional Stone 800
Shapton Pro 1000

Still waiting for Kitayama 4000 to become available (Sold out)
Also thinking in buying the Atoma 140

Not sure i kneed, at lest right now, a coarse stone like a 320/400 or something like that. Still a virgin in sharpening

Can i start with what i have right now or should i wait for the 4000? The Atoma will be just for levelling stones i suspect

I have a Sujihiki. a Mioroshi bouchou and a brand new Deba (Sakai Takayuki Tokujou)
The Mioroshi Bouchou will be my training knife and already has the tip broken and a small chip. As a single bevel will be a training for my deba. The sujihiki already would benefit from sharpening

All help much appreciated

Cheers and keep safe

the shapton pro and nanipro 800 will basically fill the same role. but i guess you knew that from before. its usually the most used stone so variation here is nice. i would keep both.

instead of the kit4k you can get a glass 4k or 3k. i have all those and the kit 4k. the kit is softer and perhaps more forgiving. but the end result is the same. and i think the kit 4k is slower than the glass 4k. especially on powder and hss steels. but its not a deal breaker for me. it still works.

atoma 140 sounds good. i have the 400 and used that for flattening for several years. it works too.

for coarse stone i like the glass 220. and the shapton pro 220. the pro is softer and dishes faster. but its thicker. i think they will abrade the exact same amount of steel before finished though. i'd say the glass 220 is a better stone all over. get one of those!!
 
Yeah I'd say that you're more than set to start sharpening. I only had a single stone for a long time (the Chosera / Naniwa Professional Stone 800) and that alone was able to get my knives back to a decent sharpness.

This is my current situation - I only have the Naniwa 800. I've been happy to use it on my german style knives but I have a few nice (by my standards, not this forums standards haha) Masamoto knives I've been hesitant to touch since I'm worried I'll botch it. Do you have a recommended technique that gets the job done well without being overly fixated on perfection?
 
These stones won't make you ready, but you have them so see what you can do with them. At best, you will be satisfied. At worst, you might start chasing other stones, "easy" to sharpen alloys and so on.
 
You already have more that most do when they begin sharpening.. many start out on much worse than that list...

It's about learning...if you've read enough to come up with that list, I'm sure you know, it's all about repetition and muscle memory...time and technique...

You've got everything you need to get started...best of luck with it...it can be a great hobby...you can spend as much or as little as you want on it...geek out to it or just produce a workable edge...it's whatever you want to make of it...

Let us know how it works out for you...

Take care

Jeff
 
This is my current situation - I only have the Naniwa 800. I've been happy to use it on my german style knives but I have a few nice (by my standards, not this forums standards haha) Masamoto knives I've been hesitant to touch since I'm worried I'll botch it. Do you have a recommended technique that gets the job done well without being overly fixated on perfection?
That's how I started as well - practicing on my German knives to build up experience and muscle memory, quite a few scratch marks on those knives in the process. Then when I first started with my Japanese knives, I put some masking tape on the face of the knife (towards the spine-side) in case I slipped up. Eventually got comfortable enough to stop doing that and just sharpen normally.
 
That's how I started as well - practicing on my German knives to build up experience and muscle memory, quite a few scratch marks on those knives in the process. Then when I first started with my Japanese knives, I put some masking tape on the face of the knife (towards the spine-side) in case I slipped up. Eventually got comfortable enough to stop doing that and just sharpen normally.
The tape is a good idea, I'm a fellow newbie to sharpening and I've made a few scratches higher up the knife than desirable. At least now I will get experience at refinishing surfaces:cool:

Another tip I've seen is to use painters tape to avoid residues.
 
That's how I started as well - practicing on my German knives to build up experience and muscle memory, quite a few scratch marks on those knives in the process. Then when I first started with my Japanese knives, I put some masking tape on the face of the knife (towards the spine-side) in case I slipped up. Eventually got comfortable enough to stop doing that and just sharpen normally.

Thanks that's an awesome idea. I'll definitely do that.
 
Back
Top