Help me kasumi!

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Hey all,
Title says it all. I've got some good steel, I can make a knife sharp, and I've got a few stones. I have been working on getting a nice cloudy finish on one of my blades, but it's never to my liking.
Is there a tutorial that I've missed? A particular stone that I don't have? Some range of techniques I have yet to develop?
I'm assuming all three.

Any advice?

Thanks!
Stef
 
Some basic starters..
king 500
king 1000
shapton 1000
maybe shapton 3000
maybe shapton 8000 (can't remember right now)
Atoma 140
BBW
Coti
An unnamed jnat
 
Hear that. I think my bevels are pretty good.
But I will go back to check and work on them. But let's assume I eventually get a nice flat bevel. What is the next step?
Sorry.. I feel sure all this has been covered before, but I'm not finding it.
Thanks!
 
If you don’t want to spend hours flattening bevels, changing blade geometry, and finding the right stone progression and the right stone for the right steel to finish (which is a lot of the fun for some people here and really kind of the art of it all) - I’d recommend just working up on a sandpaper progression to ~3k, and use mud from king 1000 and a dulled 3m sanding sponge for a workable kasumi with decent contrast and maybe some less detail and less shiny core steel.

These are some pics of knives I’ve done this on. I find on iron clad knives you get a darker haze and stainless clad knives in general are more like mist.

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None of the stones you mentioned are great for producing a Kasumi finish. It can be done with synthetics.

https://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/threads/the-grandiose-synth-kasumi-thread.51860/

The secret sauce is a good jnat. Try to get the core steel nice and bright with fine synthetic stones and then move to a softer natural stone for the cladding.

All of @milangravier 's YouTube videos are helpful and a great place to start. If you have a nice bevel to work with, it is not hard. Shaping the bevels and removing imperfections is the hard part. It is a right of passage I still have not achieved.
 
A photo of where you are at would help too.

King 1000 should produce even results fairly easily. Of course, it will be a little scratchy.

In general, when you get up to the higher grits, especially with harder stones, use less pressure. Experiment with slurry management as well. Everything from thick mud to clean stone.

#FreeEthompson
 
Blumbo said:
If you don’t want to spend hours flattening bevels, changing blade geometry, and finding the right stone progression and the right stone for the right steel to finish (which is a lot of the fun for some people here and really kind of the art of it all) - I’d recommend just working up on a sandpaper progression to ~3k, and use mud from king 1000 and a dulled 3m sanding sponge for a workable kasumi with decent contrast and maybe some less detail and less shiny core steel.

These are some pics of knives I’ve done this on. I find on iron clad knives you get a darker haze and stainless clad knives in general are more like mist.

View attachment 299937
View attachment 299938
View attachment 299939
View attachment 299940
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View attachment 299946
Click to expand...
I will try!
 
mockit said:
None of the stones you mentioned are great for producing a Kasumi finish. It can be done with synthetics.

https://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/threads/the-grandiose-synth-kasumi-thread.51860/

The secret sauce is a good jnat. Try to get the core steel nice and bright with fine synthetic stones and then move to a softer natural stone for the cladding.

All of @milangravier 's YouTube videos are helpful and a great place to start. If you have a nice bevel to work with, it is not hard. Shaping the bevels and removing imperfections is the hard part. It is a right of passage I still have not achieved.
Click to expand...
Thanks for this!
now reading...
 
ok... more questions. So what exactly is HAPPENING when making kasumi? Is it just a fine abrasive working in short enough strokes that it leaves no visible scratches?
Or is there something else happening? What is the quality of the abrasive that allows it to leave no lines behind? Just particle size? i.e. really small?
 
ssend said:
ok... more questions. So what exactly is HAPPENING when making kasumi? Is it just a fine abrasive working in short enough strokes that it leaves no visible scratches?
Or is there something else happening? What is the quality of the abrasive that allows it to leave no lines behind? Just particle size? i.e. really small?
Click to expand...

I’m not 100% sure about the details but abrasives interact differently with the harder core steel relative to the soft cladding which allows for the contrast. The abrasives I think leave deeper/different micro scratches in the soft steel that cause it to refract light in a way that makes it look cloudy/hazy where the hard steel does not develop the same types of scratches, so it stays shiny.
 
Yeah normally I'd say ethompson would chime in....

But send pictures of your bevels and we can troubleshoot more.

Kasumi is the hazing of iron caused by loose abrasives. Extremely hard stones don't haze up the iron. Stones that slurry haze up the iron. Sand blasting hazes up the iron. Rubbing a soft fingerstone hazes the iron
 
Nobody mentioned it yet so i’ll throw a lil cheat code in….

Jnat fingerstones

They are A LOT cheaper than a JNat benchstone with the same polishing quality. I got like 300g Uchigumori Fingerstones for about 50€. (big chunks you have to break down and flatten)

This will probably last for my intire life, considering im not about to open a knife store.

For sure this is not the only thing you need to make nice kasumi.
A flat bevel is the base you should start from. Then removing the scratches up to a good 1000 stone should be the next step. Following that you should go for a 3000 grit stone wich is more on the softer side. Use a lot of forced slurry on that one is my suggestion.
Followed by a 6k+ stone only on the core steel if you want it mirror polished. (not 100% scratch free)
Last the Fingerstone on the cladding. Use a lot of slurry again, dont press do hard and do short strokes in the beginning and longer strokes as you are about to finish. Last i rub my finger with the slurry on the cladding.

Overall its a learning by doing process!
But the right equipment is sort of essential. $-)
 

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King 1000 is a killer pre polisher imo. Super consistent.
I usually jump to 4k after that. Next I would move into jnats
As pointed out by others above if your having trouble with a spot or 2 use some powder or mud from your stone and finger polish with felt or a worn out abrasive sponge.
There’s no rules make your own
 
I used to play a lot with kasumi back then and like @honyama_lv4_is_GOAT said, soft uchigumori finger stone is an easy way to have something clean and homogeneous.

But remember that you need a perfect canva (kireha) before attempting to make the magic happen. I liked pushing the kireha up to 12k and then choosing the right finger stone for the finish. The correct finger stone is important because each steel reacts differently.

If you don't like a mirror finish on the core steel, you could use the jnat you have and mute the shine by working precisely on the hagane. And then you can use the finger stones. You'll have to try a lot of combinations and learn from it, just like anything else 🙂


This one is a full kasumi on a yanagiba I restored. The entire knife has been polished to a mirror effect and then finger stoned over the entire surface. It's about 2 hours of finger stone to get to something virtually scratch free.


This one was done all on bench stone and I used finger stone to blend everything for a homogeneous result.


This is the result you can achieve by working on synthetic up to 12k then using finger stone on the jigane. That handle is awful but the point is to look at the blade 😜
 
Following the steps above should get you a perfect kasumi, though it goes without saying that this is an expensive rabbit hole. You could also experiment with mirroring the core steel on a super fine 8000 grit synth or something of the like and hazing the cladding with some fingerstones (as JLA just posted while I was typing). In any case, you should probably follow general stonehead advice, which roughly goes as follows:

- Ensure the bevel is clear of any low spots and, ideally, convexed. The kireha can't be flattened perfectly, geometrically speaking.
- When working up the grits, ensure you have taken all previous scratches out. Laziness here will bite you in the butt later on, hard. Cross-hatching the scratches helps a lot.
- Be prepared to take it down to the low grits a couple times; stray scratches are easily covered up by soft stones and slurry
- Take your time. Expect to spend at least 5 hours polishing on this path, depending on your standards and satisfaction

As for your progression, use whatever works for you, though harder low-grit stones can be nicer when ensuring your bevel is consistent. Your final finish will depend on your naturals, so if you think this is hobby's going to stick, you might find it nicer to invest in a nice stone that gives you the look you like most.
 
You can get some from japanesenaturalstones and aframes tokyo. As for "finding the right finger stone," I would also like some advice, lol.
 
You could also buy a synthetic stone, and use stone chisels to break it up into fingerstone size bits...otherwise aframes Tokyo and japanese knife imports
 
@ssend reach me out in DM and I can send you a little piece of uchigumori so you can try it for free. I have 10 uchigumori koppa sleeping here.

I know your feeling and when I started I managed on my own and it's not easy to navigate. It is also an endless rabbit hole. If I can save you from unnecessary purchases it will be a mission success 😉
 
Cliff said:
The main thing to work on is preparing the bevels, dealing with low spots. There are a bunch of threads on this. If the stone doesn't hit the bevel evenly, you won't get a nice kasumi, no matter what the stone.
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This is THE WAY!!!

Making sure bevels are even is starting point for ALL POLISHING.
 
Assuming you're starting from scratch, probably 90% of the work is prepping the blade. Meaning progression of stones starting at coarse to set the geometry, and then gradually removing scratches as you work your way up through mid and finer grits. Your blade should be free of any localized low and high spots and then you're ready to play with the stones that make it all pretty looking.

A good place to start is on youtube, Milan Gravier @milangravier has some recordings from live polishing sessions. They're pretty long but very informative.
 
KasumiJLA said:
@ssend reach me out in DM and I can send you a little piece of uchigumori so you can try it for free. I have 10 uchigumori koppa sleeping here.

I know your feeling and when I started I managed on my own and it's not easy to navigate. It is also an endless rabbit hole. If I can save you from unnecessary purchases it will be a mission success 😉
Click to expand...
Thank you! I can sense the rabbit hole!
Seriously generous of you. I'll drop you a note later today.

🙏🙏
 
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