Today’s Honbazuke
Today, I did a full reset and sharpened a Yanagiha and Deba for a Honbaduke request.
Lately, I’ve been really into coarse stones, experimenting with different types and trying to find the best one.
Among them, the Ebijirushi Super Stone #400 has been great, and I’ve been using it for a while now.
What’s so great about it, you ask? It’s the sharpening efficiency, the rate at which it wears down, and the way it feels on the edge.
It doesn’t give that gritty, harsh feeling, so it seems gentler on the knife. I also like how it doesn’t over-sharpen the edge, making the convex curve come out beautifully.
Coarse stones that have a gritty feel tend to grind down too aggressively, making the convex edge thicker than intended.
With this stone, finishing up after the coarse grind is a breeze!
It also leaves a good amount of texture on the edge, so I’ve been using it for basic sharpening of stainless steel gyuto and sujibiki knives.
But yesterday, I returned to using the diamond stone again—guess I just couldn’t resist that precision!
Anyway, let me introduce today’s knives.
A 270mm Shirogami Yanagiba and a 180mm Deba.
The request was to sharpen them with a strong edge, so the Yanagiba is now close to a flat grind!
It feels like it could be thinned out just a little more, but doing so would risk losing its rigidity, so I stopped there.
If the edge width were narrower, I’d go for a more aggressive grind (reason: the edge angle would become less acute than it is now!).
Rough stone: Diamond #500
Middle stone: Aoto and Suita
Finishing stone: Yoka Mountain Combination Stone
The request was to make the Deba equally aggressive. Since it’s a Togashi knife, I opted for an aggressive grind but created a natural hamaguri shape around the impact-prone areas, leaving the tip area flat.
Even so, due to the potential for chipping, I added an Itohiki.
Setting up the stones:
Rough stone: Diamond #500
Middle stone: Aoto
Finishing stone: Suita + Nagura with Aoto
When starting from a new knife, I feel that about 70% of the work is done with the rough stone.
The middle stone takes care of about 20%, and the finishing stone wraps it up with about 10%.
This is just my personal take on it!
- 2015-04-07
