Haha, I definitely have the "confidence" after repairing a single yanagiba. but I'm still looking at testing stones and honing my skills even after I'm able to thin and clean up a bevel.
Don't need that for a TF. None at all.
An essential three you need for these is:
-Confidence that you can make best of whatever it'll be if it's not essentially a warped blade/grind; or EVEN so, and/or an easy way to return it;
-An understanding that to prove good to them while loyal to whatever behavior pleases you OOTB IF ANY, they mostly need thinning BELOW the still very low Shinogi - many of them just that 0.2mm too thick directly BTE and near above to just shine their own best of what they genuinely can achieve; YET the often wonky-LOOKING geometry itself is rarely so much your enemy ESPECIALLY if assessed mostly from a choil shot of a notched Mabs/Denka iteration - notch itself but also tendency for "overgrinding" heels against a generally thicker mid-section "helping" such assessment being very inadequate of the whole blade;
-Guts to find that just extra that will levy any leftover of any low Shinogi/ill-beveling hindrance and acceptance that remedying it outside of precision tools for refinishing WILL leave a trace - I don't think any one of them is so likely to have a clear, sharp Shinogi that'll come easy to chase back, even less so that any one of them COULD ultimately get closer to stellar without such work at the Shinogi.
That is, once you made do with:
- a general yet specific envy to cry upon having a critical look unto it;
- a misfit of handle/puke-inducing finished one;
- a general roughness at any grip area;
- a general disregard of "getting one's money worth";
- and a likelihood of that much extra deception to match any "better than expected" critrerion above.
Somehow, I think TFs are thus more immediately satisfying to work on the coarser-to-low-mid grits synthetic efficiency, but not a first choice to having fun with any J-Nats in the Here and Now. But I never tried any J-Nats whatsoever. I've known a few TFs though.