“And I will continue devoting myself making blades to satisfy these users by imagining faces of each user”
– Teruyasu Fujiwara
… Fujiwara san makes his way home on a beautiful evening of September, only yearning for some rest after a busy day. As he crosses his threshold, he is suddenly hit by images that are, and are not, his own mind. He staggers a bit, finds hold to the doorjamb, and let the alien reel unfurl. These are not users faces.
What is it? …
Okay, okay! I’ll stop now…
Well there we are, yesterday was sharpening day.
By the way, can anyone guess what was my starting stone? What was my finishing stone? ;P
Quadruple fold newspaper test went quite alright!
Luuuv the demarcation of the cladding vs. core with that choil shot!
Finish is nice enough – and required the less amount of effort – but now that we’re there, it’s not suiting this blade. It looks like mud clinging to a blade – which is exactly what it is, but somehow where I find it agreeable enough on my Moritaka and my Deep Impact (would need some working on consistency finish wise, that one, though) it’s not fitting here. I’ll try a mirror polish on it next time, and then try a Rika kasumi alike finish from that polish the time after… Then who knows… Oh yes I am keeping that blade for sure.
Just look at that handle… Yes full of faults, but I made the most of it, and it’s solid, so smooth and comfortable, the knife ergonomically is perfect, and now looks quite the part from any distance but this close. This will be our dirty little TF secret. No one needs to know…
Okay, okay!
That’s the kind of love I give to a knife that has seduced me thoroughly, is what I mean. A keeper.
Sorry for the two next, went to show the etching, and the pics looked fine on the iPhone – “duh!” ultimate sh1t phone… In the end I could only salvage parts of the shots, and blurry ones at that.
Full blade – these pics are clean enough. How do you feel about that tip repair? It looks better than new to me. BTW you can see I had no intention to respect the recurve at the heel. While I understand its purpose, in my use of medium length Gyuto if a heel is is no flat spot then it’s a waste of space. For now recurve is still there, and makes for a rather inconsistent edge bevel. Couple of sharpenings from now we should get about even, it and me. My Masahiro VC has a recurve I respected to test myself, but intend to keep – it is my go-to rock chopper and best pepper cutter as is.
Now... TF looks pretty contemptuous about my results…
Mind you, that could have to do with a close presence with my Deep Impact. Now that we’re to this comparison, I’ll admit that where the DI handle has less faults, the Mabs handle just have it bite the dust from the circles it runs around it. A 500$ knife handle, not quite, and a shame to waste so good material and perfect potential – but head to head, the Mabs handle still wins.
While I was on the Mabs I just used the slurried NP800, and muddy creamed Rika, to touch up the Deep Impact and have my carrot laser out of its recent AS edge lethargy. Interesting thing, this. It still was cutting right. It still went through paper. But there wasn’t any more feeling to it. It was numbly sharp, almost feeling dull – but there those carrots still went. Today I rectified this, and TF is pissed because I didn’t buy his Denka. He’s thinking – you’d still have that crazy out of the stones edge with my AS.
Oh well… I now think that TF is mostly a sad man somehow. Proud of his technique and excellence, but bitterness has swallowed the light out of the persona, and some of that poison is leaking out into words that seem more terrible than what he really intended to say.
My final word on the Mabs is that it’s worth it’s price, but has a hard time with first impressions. Just like its maker. And I wish for TF to be at peace, if he’s not. I do love this knife.