Show your work! Uchigumori and co...

Japanese Knives - by Tokushu Knife
Advertise with us
Miura knives
Kitchen Knife Forums

Help Support Kitchen Knife Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Got a new suita from Uncle Ed this week. Below is a video after a bit late at night.

Question: what techniques or approaches do you do to avoid streaking in polishing? I notice that sometimes the polish looks great until you tilt the blade and the light angle / quality quickly shows streaking



 

Attachments

  • IMG_2976.mov
    26.2 MB
Pressure control, burnishing, and consistency and if you are looking for a clean finish only on bench stones, you are years of experience away (like me lol). Compromise with finger stones and diamond pastes instead. We learn as we go down the rabbit hole. Keep your wallet with you. Good luck! Nice knife btw but would like to see that suita as well!
 
NickMinton said:
Got a new suita from Uncle Ed this week. Below is a video after a bit late at night.

Question: what techniques or approaches do you do to avoid streaking in polishing? I notice that sometimes the polish looks great until you tilt the blade and the light angle / quality quickly shows streaking


View attachment 311654
View attachment 311656
Click to expand...
I think it looks like a pretty good effort @NickMinton - especially given that (o think?!) you’re still finding your feet with hadori polishing.

How long did it take you to get to this result? If you keep working and focus on backing off on the pressure just up to the point where you can feel the stone is still abrading then you can minimise the streaking. It’s really easy to accidentally burnish on very convex knives in my experience, probably because you’re only making contact with a small surface area at once.

As per @gentiscid - my approach here would be to take your polish up to as high as you want on benchstones, taking care to minimise the streaks as much as possible, then smooth it out with fingerstones that leave a very slightly coarser finish for the best effect in the shortest time.

I haven’t enjoyed doing a fingerstone progression to refine a bench stone polish further because it takes forever, so others here can chime in on that approach!
 
dragjp said:
GJ! Want to add that washing hands and equipments thoroughly, make sure residuals of previous stones are gone is important too.
Click to expand...
Second this. And used/dirty towels can fog your polish up too
 
Will we ever get to a fully scratchless finish with no noticeable flaws? Maybe.

Will that be today? Nope.

Is it still an improvement with every attempt? Yep.

I’m very happy with the overall aesthetic here.

(Feedback and constructive criticism on how I can improve are welcome!)

 
Last edited:
Trialing some newer to me stones while doing a KU restoration on another knife. New naka suita does really nice things
IMG_9620.jpeg
 
Yes, as stated above. You can’t bring back KU in the same way as it came from the forge, as the kurouchi is part of the forging process and is a finished product after fire and water (or oil)

Dying metal blue has been done for years by people with guns. You can do it cold by yourself or have a gun shop do it for you, where it requires heating or maybe they use the kind of method ethompson is mentioning.

You could alway send you knives to Jiro-San. He seems like a skill full painter 😉 He’s ”KU” is easy to restore compared to forged KU
 
Uncle Danny said:
Yes, as stated above. You can’t bring back KU in the same way as it came from the forge, as the kurouchi is part of the forging process and is a finished product after fire and water (or oil)

Dying metal blue has been done for years by people with guns. You can do it cold by yourself or have a gun shop do it for you, where it requires heating or maybe they use the kind of method ethompson is mentioning.

You could alway send you knives to Jiro-San. He seems like a skill full painter 😉 He’s ”KU” is easy to restore compared to forged KU
Click to expand...
I know how to use a spray can of matte black paint, thank you very much.
 
30 hours with my finest Nakayama fingerstones later, and we are finally starting to reveal some crazy banding on the rear view mirror!

And to think some people said my 2006 Citroen C1 was ‘worthless junk’ 😎
 

Attachments

  • IMG_1627.jpeg
    IMG_1627.jpeg
    800.4 KB · Views: 0
Been working on this Heldqvist integral gyuto (that just sold) for a while and I decided to call it quits. I initially hoped I would be able to go straight to naturals on this but I spent quite a few hours on coarse stones… these higher bevels proved tricky for me but I learned a lot in the process. I even ended up buying some nsk stones to help with the task. Final stone is an ohira suita which is just about at the limits of what these bevels can handle. Leading up to this, polishing with an uchi or a softer suita was a breeze.

Overall this was a humbling experience. I thought I was going to be able to bring out some finer detail in the cladding but I honestly think it may have taken a step backwards. I suspect maybe some finger stones were used originally because of the scratches left behind but regardless not much to show for after hours of work 🤦‍♂️.

Original polish
IMG_0179.jpeg


Final polish
 
Tobias does to my knowledge not use fingerstones and finishes on natural bench stone (if you ask for that kind of finish)
That said, I found that too fine naturals tends to cloud the wrought. I finish mine on no higher than Aizu or Mikawa. Cleaning the core steel with fingerstones.

This does leave some visible scratches and stone heads more badass than me, probably has better stones and cooler skills
 
Uncle Danny said:
Tobias does to my knowledge not use fingerstones and finishes on natural bench stone
Click to expand...
I’ve bought quite a few from Tobias and I’m huge fan of his work. In a past conversation I’m pretty sure I remember Tobias saying he’s not opposed to using finger stones at the end to blend the kasumi especially around the shinogi. Given this is an integral which is a pain to polish, and the many small horizontal scratches that I could see in harsh lighting I supposed he used some in this case but I definitely could be wrong here. At any rate he’s a professional and I bow down to his expertise.
 
I don't find that finer stones cloud up wrought at all. If the bevel is prepared prestinely or close to, fine stones bring out every detail with clarity. Scratches for that matter to. If I'm getting a good burnish on the bevel with a fine stone suited for knives, there shouldn't be any scratches due to that stone. It Will probably reveal errant scratches that were missed previously but it doesn't leave scratch patterns like fingerstones do. This is all of course under perfect circumstances. Even the most perfect polish, short of a sword polished by a togishi, I can find small errant scratches from missing. Sometimes getting them all gone is a fools errand, but I do try.

Anyway, more pics of recent blade I'm working off an on with. 9fold oroshi over a core steel. Nakayama kiita benchstone polish. Still fooling around.

20240331_145006.jpg
20240331_145001.jpg
20240331_144924.jpg
 
I think it might be a question of detail vs contrast. I can pull more fine details out on a finer stone, but overall contrast seems lower, vs something like a Mauro or other soft suita I get less fine detail, but more contrast. The lower contrast can make it look a little more one note if you aren't looking closely.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top