I sent a used honyaki for uraoshi restoration to Yoshihiro, and I'm very disappointed with the result.

[Dune Cough]

Before:



And after:

Sorry for the difference in image quality.
The scratch pattern on the urasuki is the same, but the the uraoshi is much more polished and pronounced, and almost twice as thick as before.
It seems as though someone simply sharpened the knife and spent far, far too much time grinding the back, which is essentially the opposite of what I was expecting and paid for.
I believe the knife is in worse shape than before.

Any advice?

 

[user 37848]

Am I wrong, but are parts of the restored ura not touching the spine or edge?

 

[jedy617]

Yoshihiro in america or japan

 

[refcast]

Single bevel ura work can be tricky . . . It's really a bunch of compromises or competing goals. For example it's ideal to have a thin consistent uraoshi line, but it's also necessary for everywhere to be planar. Knives should be straight, but bends and warps can prevent edge contact. With honyaki especially, it's riskier to bend the knife due to higher force needed or risk of breaks or cracks (I've never bent the hardened portion of a honyaki, so I wouldn't know, I've only done softer monosteel). The panita before is preventing me from more clearly seeing how the ura was like before. Also I wouldn't know if the uraoshi even contacted the edge flat before. . . Sometimes there's microbevels on the ura which should be ground out, but height is lost (by grinding height away) or ura concavity is lost (by grinding ura flatter). It's possible to make the concavity back again but it's difficult, but some places might be able to do it, but the ura finish changes where it's ground, and the knife could warp too.

@Byphy I agree some spine parts don't touch, but near the very spine is fine since it contacts along the spine anyhow. It looks like maybe the edge has a small microbevel on the ura near the heel but I'm not sure. Ura microbevels have happened to me a lot and have been a bit of work to remove, if I even wanted to remove them to restore more proper function

 

[user 37848]

Thanks for the info @refcast , I know you have a lot of experience with single bevels and the challenges they present

I've watched YT vids of Yosuke Colorado and Togi Togi, and I know they put more emphasis on getting the knife in working order vs. restoring beauty at times, so maybe this is along the lines of that

Wondering if the Yoshihiro that OP sent to, does not have a giant water wheel.

 

[Dune Cough]

It was sent to Yoshihiro America.
There is a microbevel long the heel, as @refcast says.
Here are more images of the ura beforehand.

I was rather shocked by the appearance, and it's certainly not what I expected, but I can understand how this constitutes a repair now. But I'm not sure how it constitutes $150 dollar 'restoration'.

 

[jedy617]

Mmmm yeah don't think they have such a hot reputation. Maybe send to JKI, they seem to really specialize in stuff like this

 

[icanhaschzbrgr]

What problem were you trying to solve in the first place?

 

[Dune Cough]

@icanhaschzbrgr Fish cleaving to the knife, and a suspicion that the edge was minutely beveled on the back, as it remains on the chin.

 

[FoRdLaz]

You have some very experienced sharpeners in the US, particularly JKI. If there’s ever a next time send it to them. They will do things properly. Might be worth sending it there just for Jon’s opinion and to see if he can “reverse” some of the damage

 

[ethompson]

Not the first time someone has sent a single bevel out for ura work and been disappointed by the outcome. The reality is that ura is really best thought of as a one shot thing. It either comes very evenly ground from the factory or it doesn’t.

You can fix warps and bends on san mai if you know what you’re doing prior, but fixing those on honyaki can be a real pain and comes with a higher risk of breaking the blade.

Basically the only road to getting and maintaining a thin nice ura is to get a knife with a very well done grind from the factory, to make sure it is straight as can be prior to sharpening, and then to sharpen as minimally as possible on the ura side. In almost all cases ura flaws are pretty much best left as is and lived with.

As compared with double bevels where a lot of people can remove chips or thin, ura stuff is way more difficult to do well or do at all. I know of a few people who use convex stones to do polishing and restoration work like you were probably thinking of, but they’re mostly the crazier hobbyists and this process is wildly time consuming and challenging.

Sorry this happened to your knife.

 

[refcast]

The non-contact on ura at the chin is something that happens to single bevels somewhat often . . . I've seen it myself it in about 1/4 - 1/5 of the single bevels I've bought from Japan second hand. Over time, as the knife wears down in height, the heel will contact. Straightening a knife at the heel is a more difficult process for clad knives and I'm not sure how easy or sure it will be for a honyaki. But the honyaki has the most soft steel near the heel, but also the thickest cross section. I would imagine it would straighten the most readily there. . . Aside from the tang which is completely soft. I've straigtened honyaki tang before and it's really easy and soft and responsive.

Now, we all say honyaki have higher risk of breaking while straightening, but extremely few of use have tried due to the cost of the knife XD. Carbide hammers or punches are supposed to be able to straighten honyaki as well but they leave deep marks that most people would say devalues the knife, unless the marks are ground off.

Since most of the ura does contact and looks planar, you can live with it. Or you can try to sharpen the heel more to make contact there more, but the ura will curve for that area . . . Not the worst thing in the world but not great either. The knife can be attempted to be straigtened but few people would want to risk doing the job.

Also you can check the ura on a flat surface to see how straight the edge is too, or how planar the ura is. I really wish they would be better at quoting what the work could and could not do. . . It's not a "repair" necessarily either, more of an uraoshi setting. . . With a not so great condition ura. Not the worst ura though.

They did not have stray scratches on the urasuki concavity, nor left over lower grit scratches on the uraoshi flat, so that at least is a good thing, among the rest

 

[Ochazuke]

In my own experience working along side people who use honyaki professionally, I've seen worse. The trap that occurs is that deburring can be tricky when the ura is overdone this much so I have seen a few chefs who raise the knife a bit when trying to debur and end up making the knife a lot worse. I have seen some people still using knives professionally with the ura this overdone, so if you're looking to use it all hope is not lost.

If you were hoping to keep this as a collector's item, then I'm sorry for your loss.

 

[Dune Cough]

Thank you all so much for your input, I'm glad I didn't start with an angry email. I may simply use it as is, or put it on the shelf until I can afford an actual repair. I just feel foolish.
I am a chef, I didn't intend it as a collector's item. I did invest in some stones to upkeep it's appearance, but I can use them on my kasumi.
Again though, it's an Aritsugu... It's frustrating.
Thank you again!

 

[Mr Kooby Shemayrew]

In my own experience working along side people who use honyaki professionally, I've seen worse. The trap that occurs is that deburring can be tricky when the ura is overdone this much so I have seen a few chefs who raise the knife a bit when trying to debur and end up making the knife a lot worse. I have seen some people still using knives professionally with the ura this overdone, so if you're looking to use it all hope is not lost.

If you were hoping to keep this as a collector's item, then I'm sorry for your loss.

Many used single bevel knives in Japan have at some point been run through a pull-through knife sharpener, or have been sharpened on stones as one would a normal double-bevel knife. It does not take much of that to be a nightmare to fix later. And with that said, some businesses view knives as expendable tools, and with the high resale value of used knives, the final cost to performance ratio makes that a rational argument. Others as individuals just buy a fancy knife with no equipment or skill for maintaining it and a $20 pull-through sharpener gets their dull fancy knife cutting again.

My mother-in-law had an old cheap deba that was made into a double edge. There was no point in trying to fix it and it was functional despite not being optimally functional.

Fun little video on a restoration.

 

[nutmeg]

Before:

View attachment 252981

And after:
View attachment 252985
Sorry for the difference in image quality.
The scratch pattern on the urasuki is the same, but the the uraoshi is much more polished and pronounced, and almost twice as thick as before.
It seems as though someone simply sharpened the knife and spent far, far too much time grinding the back, which is essentially the opposite of what I was expecting and paid for.
I believe the knife is in worse shape than before.

Any advice?

It sounds like this is not how you imagined a repair.
And it sounds like this is not the first time!

I feel upset to see that some craftsmen seem to not understand that communicating BEFORE doing the job can be important for you.

For the story, once I received a similar blade with a similar "repair" on the ura. Trying to correct it was the worst job I had to do. And actually, I couldn't do much to make the geometry look good...

 

[Blank Blades.]

If you really want to get it restored. Maybe try to send it out to this guy.

I have no idea how to do that. But im sure google translate can help.

 

[ReiHamono]

We have plenty of sharpeners here to choose from

 

[blokey]

If you really want to get it restored. Maybe try to send it out to this guy.

I have no idea how to do that. But im sure google translate can help.

This is Masaya Shimizu from the Yamawaki Hamono, the company for the Japanese Goh Umanosuke Yoshihiro brand. (Not the same as US based Yoshihiro)

 

[Blank Blades.]

This is Masaya Shimizu from the Yamawaki Hamono, the company for the Japanese Goh Umanosuke Yoshihiro brand. (Not the same as US based Yoshihiro)

From what i remember. He does repairs knives others made. At least ive seen that in quite a few videos. So provided someone was able to contact them i think they likely would do it.

I have no idea how the pricing, or logistics of it would work out though.