Thinning and refinishing my Moritaka AS 240 Gyuto

Emieloss · Jan 25, 2024

Hey all.

My Moritaka needed some thinning. A couple years back I already did this and removed the KU finish. Also gave it a mirrorlike finish, but after a lot of usage it got scratched and patina'd.

Not really sure what the end result will be but I'm giving you some pictures on where I'm at with the process.

What it looked like before I got to work with it.

After some thinning on the SG220

Gave both bevels some work on the Naniwa 400 / Naniwa 1000 and Naniwa 3000. T

Then I took some sanding paper and went 500 grit, 1000, 1500, 2000, 3000. And took on the whole blade.
This is what I was left with:

Then I took it to the Suehiro Rika 5k to try and get a kasumi finish. I was a bit disappointed with the scratch marks.

Took it to the Belgian Blue stone:

I then made a slurry of the Belgian Blue stone, covered the blade in it. Got a 5k sandpaper and rubbed away for a little while over the entire blade.
This is where I am at right now:

Not quite sure how to go from here. I do have a Kitayama 8k and a SG16k but I'm afraid they will take away the kasumi finish I'm building. Sadly I don't have JNAT's yet.
Any people who got some creative ideas to get something cool going?

thebradleycrew · Jan 25, 2024

Random orbital sander could be fun to play with here. You can get high grits, and pattern might look good? I know @KAMON Knives plays with it and does a great job with finishes the way he does it.

Emieloss · Jan 26, 2024

Some pics by daylight.

The grind now:

Desert Rat · Jan 27, 2024

I bought a Moritaka bunka because I wanted to try the AS steel. Surprisingly wedgie out of the box and I would call the grind a little workmanship challenged.

I love the AS steel and the profile though. It's became kind of an experiment in thinning for me currently with a right hand bias and wondering how much I can get away with or what I could do to improve it. I will probably fubar it at some point.

So ya, looking forward to see what you do here.

Emieloss · Jan 27, 2024

Desert Rat said:
I bought a Moritaka bunka because I wanted to try the AS steel. Surprisingly wedgie out of the box and I would call the grind a little workmanship challenged.

I love the AS steel and the profile though. It's became kind of an experiment in thinning for me currently with a right hand bias and wondering how much I can get away with or what I could do to improve it. I will probably fubar it at some point.

So ya, looking forward to see what you do here.

Yes Moritaka makes great knives. But they lack finishing. Imo they need thinning, choil and spine relieve ootb. Also with the standard grind, the "shoulders" are pretty far down the blade and that makes it wedgie.

A couple years back I havily thinned those shoulders already. So I just needed to throw some more thinning at it to get where I wanted to be. As you can see in my choil shot, it's much more convexed now. This helps food release without being wedgie or having the feeling you get stuck in products.