New Yoshihiro deba: First impressions and initial sharpening

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By the way, this post also made me feel like I'm part of a club. The over-the-top-overly-obsessed-stay-up-till-3am-in-the-morning-sharpening-so-a-knife-isn't-only-sharp-but-looks-good-club. Hurray me! :D

heh. i got into single bevel knives beginning of the year. i was stuck home with a badly broken leg (i wish the surgeon had used one of my knives, the scars would have been cleaner), and i bought single beveled knives specifically to keep me busy. there were times that i was still up at 5 AM with that. it really helped my recuperation.
 
So I went at it again last night, took it back down to the 500 and polished all the way back up. Still a little bit of overgrind in the heel left, but it's almost there. Main thing is the blade road is mostly flat now with that one exception. Polished back up to the natural finish. It looks a lot more even now. Here's a quick video that shows what a kasumi finish looks like for those who haven't really seen one before. At some angles it looks like a mirror, at others it looks like an even (not streaky!) haze. This is still not the best effort, but I'm getting there.

[video=youtube;5k74oN4otyc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k74oN4otyc[/video]
 
Did you tried it on any fish yet? :)
Looks beatifull but how does it cut??
 
Unfortunately no, and it's killing me. We don't ever get any whole fish here (nothing that looks remotely edible, anyway), and I haven't had any other butchery to do this week. Going to break down some chicken's this weekend, and I'm hoping to get a whole wild salmon from a local sushi joint in the next couple of weeks. Will let you know!
 
Thanks guys! The finish is pretty good, but the edge is a marvel. I can't wait to see what kind of edge I can put on the yanagi (which you can catch just a glimpse of on my board in the video). From what I can tell the HT on these Yoshihiros is fantastic. They take an amazing edge, they grind easy, and the knife really was set up exceptionally from the factory. It was a lot of work grinding the knife, but it was pleasant work, not panicked or frustrating work. I'd say these fall into the entry level of high end work. This feels like a knife that I would never need to replace, though I might want to for something more exotic. From a function and sharpenablity standpoint, I'm not of the opinion that you'd need something better... that's yet to be verified by actual use obviously, but everything about the blade tells me that it will work very well. Highly recommended, especially for people that fall in the "I don't want to spend a fortune on a knife but also don't want one I will want to replace in 6 months" category.
 
the Yoshihiros take a great edge, definitely. hopefully your Yanagi doesn't have the problem mine had, where there was a divot half an inch from the tip. that meant that i had to grind much more steel off the back than i wanted to to make it flat. it's still a very nice knife, cuts great, and looks nice (my usuba and yanagi look similar to your deba, plus 6 months of patina), but i was pained by how much i ground out the ura. maybe there was a better way to do it, but it was a pretty big divot.
 
A divot? In the blade road or ura? Can't quite visualize what you are talking about.
 
on the Ura imagine that the last half an inch of the blade was ground some small, but significant, fraction of an inch thinner than the rest of the knife.
 
And it wasn't a small bend in the tip that caused this? The actual hollow was ground out more and the edge wasn't touching the stone? Still hard for me to see in my head, but that wouldn't be the first time it was hard for me to see something in my head...
 
definitely not a bend. i was hoping it was a bend, after i discovered it (which was, of course, after i started sharpening it). the tip was just ****** up.
 
Well, when I get a chance to open up my yanagi I'll let you know. Might be awhile though. Prepping to lecture a summer session General Chemistry course. NOT FUN.
 
i'm sure yours will be just fine, i likely just got unlucky.
 
Okay, so it's been a while since I updated this thread. I finally got to legitimately use the knives for their intended purpose last week. It was my first experience breaking down a 17lb king salmon. My thoughts... damn, you sushi chefs make this look WAY easier than it actually is! As to the knife's performance, both the deba and the yanagi worked BEAUTIFULLY. Highly recommended. No chipping on the deba (and I never backbeveled the heel of the knife). After breaking down the whole fish it was still hair popping sharp. Needless to say my friends were frightened and confused by the edges of these knives. They had never seen such a heavy beast like this deba that could take the head clean off a large fish with one push and then still shave arm hair like a straight razor. They shook their heads, declined to even hold the knife, and walked away... one of them muttering something about "severed toes".

Needless to say, I couldn't have had a better experience with my first "real" traditional single bevel knives. They sharpened beautifully, there were no issues with grind, warping, etc., they took an amazing edge and maintained it... what more could you ask for??
 
Was that $500 for both knives that you were looking at or just for the deba?
 
It ended up being slightly less than $500 for both knives together.
 
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