u/Brief-Net-3339

Here’s my Wakui V2 Nakiri off the Chocera 3000 with a strop on bare leather. First paper is toilet tissue double ply, second is Kirkland paper towel. This knife came extremely thin bte and I’ve really only touched it up; Knives that are this thin are much easier to get a screaming edge on. After a week of use without touching the edge, it was still paper towel slicing (sort of) but couldn’t grip waxy veg skin. Now it can but it’s certainly over the threshold of what is necessary in the kitchen imo, and I usually prefer a coarser edge on my Nakiri. But this knife is truly fantastic Wakui is a true master imo

Took my Hinoura petty for a quick trip to the stones, started on the green brick of joy and finished on the Kitayama 8k. I have a strong preference for muddy synths when sharpening this knife, I feel they really inhibit the formation of the burr. No edge leading strokes; none needed. Just burr reduction strokes along the way and a quick strop on bare leather at the end. Paper towel is Kirkland signature

Hey all,

This new Wakui v2 just arrived from Protooling and it’s sooo nice to cut with, Wakui truly is a fantastic sharpener as well as blacksmith.

Anyway I don’t like the stock finish on the jigane so I decided to polish w uchigomori fingerstone. Then I used some crushed uchigomori on a soft sponge to round it out and get in between tsuchime. Then a few passes face down on a diamond loaded strop I have to shine it up a little!

There’s some marks still in the hagane from stock grind but I cbf modifying the grind at all yet as it just cuts so nicely and I don’t want to take it to stones for a while.

Thanks for looking 😊

Hi all,

This is a little experiment to try and create the darkest jigane I could. I kept it a lot coarser as it seems to lose a lot of darkness for me when refined. I did used a cheefarcuut 400 into Chocera 800 into Aotoishi 2000. Then I used uchigomori fingerstone and spent quite a bit of time on jizuya fingerstones too. This created a very dark contrast yet less refined, more scratchy, which I quite like the look of personally!

Mazaki 🙇🏻

I have spent quite a while working on my Mazaki, basically thinning it out, sanding it back to a sort of ghetto nashiji, re applying some deliberate convexity and finally applying a natural stone polish.

My progression on this was atoma 140 (bad fucking idea, had to actually bust out some 80 grit sandpaper up to 400 grit to fix my deep scratches, never again) > Shapton rockstar 500 > Chocera 800 > Aotoishi green brick of joy > JNS Tomo Nagura Extra (as a bench stone it’s actually kinda nice..!)> Viet nat 3-5k, Viet Nat 7-9k, JNS Uchigomori fingerstones.

I really love how it feels now to use; it just fucking slaps actually and going through this process of breaking it down, freaking out when I had a fucked up scratched to hell Mazaki with atoma 120 gouges and thinking I’d ruined it, to coming out the other side with something I’m really happy with, has been immensely gratifying and rewarding. Also this was a new polishing challenge for me to work with a convex edge and not fully flat ground; I worked for a long time to initially fully flat grind it because idk I know you hear Mazaki comes with flat bevels but this one did NOT have fully flattened bevels - Took ages in three certain low spots.
I wish I took pictures of the entire process but oh well.

Anyway hope you enjoy the pics

I have spent quite a while working on my Mazaki, basically thinning it out, sanding it back to a sort of ghetto nashiji, re applying some deliberate convexity and finally applying a natural stone polish.

My progression on this was atoma 140 (bad fucking idea, had to actually bust out some 80 grit sandpaper up to 400 grit to fix my deep scratches, never again) > Shapton rockstar 500 > Chocera 800 > Aotoishi green brick of joy > JNS Tomo Nagura Extra (as a bench stone it’s actually kinda nice..!)> Viet nat 3-5k, Viet Nat 7-9k, JNS Uchigomori fingerstones.

I really love how it feels now to use; it just fucking slaps actually and going through this process of breaking it down, freaking out when I had a fucked up scratched to hell Mazaki with atoma 120 gouges and thinking I’d ruined it, to coming out the other side with something I’m really happy with, has been immensely gratifying and rewarding. Also this was a new polishing challenge for me to work with a convex edge and not fully flat ground; I worked for a long time to initially fully flat grind it because idk I know you hear Mazaki comes with flat bevels but this one did NOT have fully flattened bevels - Took ages in three certain low spots.
I wish I took pictures of the entire process but oh well.

Anyway hope you enjoy the pics

How do you guys photograph your kasumi finishes? I feel as though it’s literally harder than obtaining the finish in the first place lol I’ve been playing around w phone and a lamp but damn there’s so mf nuance here , anyone got tips ?

Refinished a beaten up old hinoura ku petty i got ages ago; I was never happy with the grind as it stood and despite thinning it a little behind the edge and using it quite a lot, it never really felt great.

Decided to take it on as a freehand hobby to practice geometry and polishing; ground out new flat bevels and the Kira to create a new shinogi, and polished bevels on synth and nat progression.

It's definitely NOT perfect, still a LONG way to go. But it's a great step forward for me, and the best freehand stone only restoration l've done so far on a traditional iron clad Japanese knife.

It taught me a lot about geometry! Better than a maths tutor!

On JNS munetoshi bunka.

Still many imperfections, but with time and patience the kasumi is revealing itself increasingly.

I need to learn how to take better photos tbh

Received my munetoshi bunka from JNS today, gotta say it’s a hell of a knife.

The grind is a lot better than I was expecting; it’s not a JNS grind but was done by munetoshi. No wedging in carrots, but a nice classic Sanjo style grind. The Ku is gorgeous and the hand chiseled kanji really stand out. I love that munetoshi has hand laminated the san mai, it’s very rustic and awesome.

I got the blinged out version, by asking for the spine and choil polishing, as well as purchasing a premium Sakai made ebony handle, which Maksim generously shorted by 1cm and refinished taking it from 145 to 135mm. It’s such a nice handle, it just feels premium.

The profile is lovely and flat for push cutting and the tip is beautifully tapered making things like onions an absolute joy.

I took it to my Chocera 3000 as it came a little dull and was quite surprised at the hardness and abrasive resistance the munetoshi Shirogami 2 displayed; it cut very slowly, but surely enough after some work its hair popping and behaving thus far like a seriously good heat treat.

This knife is really good - I am now both a munetoshi and JNS fan.

Did this one today at my sharpening stall, been focusing on properly deburring and the results are much better than they were. I’d say for beaters it’s almost mandatory to thin bte a little to properly get a clean apex on this sort of soft 420J steel, maybe not with a guided system though, but im fully freehand

Hi knife nerds,

One thing about me is I love trying out all kinds of knives, even cheaper ones. I’ve tried a lot of the knives you can find on AliExpress and usually you kinda get what you pay for in some way or another.

But with this one I’m genuinely shocked, its a very good knife. Better than any CCK I’ve used, better than any chopper king. I like it more than my custom cleavers?

It’s got this ridiculous convexity to it, the food release is off the charts somehow. The maker says it’s SG2 steel at 60-64hrc; I haven’t sharpened it yet but I did some testing and it’s retaining an edge beautifully. Look at the video, ghosts carrots, potatoes barely stick to it, yes it does have wedging in sweet potato (can’t have it all right?)

The handle does feel a bit cheap, but there’s a nice little cutout for the pinch grip which I intend to polish eventually. May even remove handle and put a custom one on.

The price was *$62AUD* - I am in no way affiliated w AliExpress, I am just genuinely pleased and a little shocked w this find. Have we finally entered the age where Chinese mass produced knives can compete against small scale craftsmen in grind quality? The food release on this is better than my Toyama, it’s as good as a Takeda. Obviously it’s much more rough around the edges as it’s a mass produced stamped knife, but wtf

Anyway maybe I just got a good one, idk. But you could do a lot worse than try this one I gotta say

Why does this (I assume SK “Japanese steel”?) steel take and retain such an insane edge? Could a nihonko be the best value for money starter knife? I reckon they absolutely blow Tojiro out of the water. This 18cm was $47 on Amazon

Same as last time but different knife. Also thinned out somewhat on AliExpress diamond plate. Sharpened on Shapton 1k.

This one goes out to those who need proof it isn’t glued or cooked