Polishing, Kasumi Finish & Etching

[Altadan]

Mucking around with micro-mesh is fun, though it does take a considerable amount of elbow grease Masking tape, and micro mesh from 1800 up to 3600.

I'm not even sure this is worthy of this illustrious thread, but I thought I'd give this thread a lil' shake.
After doing this I thought I should have done it along the back of the blade, and make it look like a honyaki, but that would really be a gold ring in a swine's pig... so forget I mentioned that

[yg420]

Hey Steve, or any of you other polish pros...
What can I use to get that "white cloudy" contrast, like seen on many lines like Mazaki and Toyama among others, as opposed to
the more "grey cloudy" contrast. Or does the steel in the cladding have more to do with that?

I think the white finish on toyamas, wats, etc are sandblasted. Different grit jnats can bring out different shades tho. My ohira uchigumori gives a dark finish, while my finer nakayama kiita gives a lighter finish similar to shigefusa.

[pd7077]

After a nice long 3 month break, I’m back to polishing. So what ends up being my first project of 2019...a Watanabe 240mm honyaki gyuto. I forgot how much work honyaki gyutos are, especially when there’s a bit of surface rust and some light pitting on the hardened steel. After this knife, I feel like I need another 3 month break

[Kalaeb]

Damn...

[nakneker]

Gettin 2019 started off right! Gorgeous!

[old onion]

After a nice long 3 month break, I’m back to polishing. So what ends up being my first project of 2019...a Watanabe 240mm honyaki gyuto. I forgot how much work honyaki gyutos are, especially when there’s a bit of surface rust and some light pitting on the hardened steel. After this knife, I feel like I need another 3 month break

Help,help,I can't see.I just got blinded.

[yg420]

Amazing!

[mauichef]

WOW!!!!!!!

[Jeff B]

Steve that is an impressive skill you've mastered!

[pd7077]

I finally got to work on one of my own knives for a change. This Kikuichimonji B#1 240 was a nice change of pace from all the honyakis I was working on previously.

[arthurfowler]

Fantastic work as always!

[pd7077]

I should probably mention that I also did a little bit of thinning on this knife before polishing it. The original grind was heavily righty biased so it had quite a bit of steering. I started off on a 150 bamboo that I got from Ken last year, and I think it performed perfectly. Yes, the stone is a thirsty beast that dishes fairy quickly, but my plan was to use that dishing in order to help maintain some of the original convexity...worked like a charm. From there, I jumped to a SG500 to delete the coarse scratches before shifting to a SP1k. From there, I went through my usual sandpaper & diamond emulsion polishing progression. The fingerstones used for this kasumi were hakka, followed by uchigumori, and then finished off with Okudo suita. Here’s a before & after choil shot:

[nakneker]

You hit another homerun. That thinning job is impressive, looks like a totally different knife. I think the Kanji on that knife is my second favorite, beautiful and it has a unique classy look after the polishing. Nice job. I always like it when I see an update on this thread, I know I’m in for a treat.

[Jeff B]

I don't know what I enjoy more Steve, reliving your Japan vacation or seeing the knives you polish!

[pd7077]

I don't know what I enjoy more Steve, reliving your Japan vacation or seeing the knives you polish!

Haha...thanks Jeff.

For me, the whole point of polishing knives is so that I can use them and build up a patina so that I can polish them again I’ve been using the Kikuichimonji all weekend, and this is what she looks like now...

[Bluenoser87]

Wow, that's some intense blue

[pd7077]

What I did on this next knife is a bit of a departure from my usual polishing. The knife is another that I picked up in Japan during a day trip to Osaka...a Kanechika/Keiichi stainless clad W#1 270 gyuto. All of my current knives are fully reactive so I wanted something that wouldn’t require the same type of maintenance. I also wanted to try my hand at etching a stainless clad knife so this gyuto fit the bill perfectly. Here’s a photo of the knife when it was new:



The stock vertical grind marks were not very deep, at least when compared to other knives I’ve worked on. However, the chiseled kanji is somewhat shallow, and I didn’t wanna risk losing any of it (especially the kanji on the left because it is particularly special to me) so I decided to just refine the vertical scratch pattern with some 280 grit sandpaper.




From there, I etched the blade in FeCl for 5 minutes. I’m loving the results that I got, and this should make for a great beater knife that I can use and not have to worry about too much.





There was one thing that did surprise me about this knife. The etched cladding showed some very faint alloy banding. I was totally not expecting that, otherwise I would have brought the polish up to a higher grit. I’m still debating if I should at least take it up to 600-800 grit so that I can get a cleaner look to the banding, but for now I’m just gonna ship it off for a new handle so that I can get back to using her.

[gladius]

Nice. I like the contrast.

[Bluenoser87]

That looks crazy. It’ll be a shame to sharpen it almost haha

[pd7077]

That looks crazy. It’ll be a shame to sharpen it almost haha

Haha...I know what you mean. The grind on the knife is really nice, and it’s pretty thin behind the edge so my plan is to just put a very narrow edge on it once I get it back. That should save a majority of the etched core so that I don’t lose the overall aesthetic.