Another Refurb...

This past week I got a chance to do a "complete overhaul" on a yanagiba. I was thrilled by this one because I was given the opportunity to regrind the hollow (ura) side of the knife, something I had not previously attempted. The knife had been through a few hands but the wear was put on the knife by the initial owner through some overzealous sharpening. The second owner had done some pretty major repair work to both front and back to get it into working shape. I was tasked with taking it one more level and giving it the "full spa" treatment.

The hollow back side had been worked nearly flat across greatly reducing the remaining life of the knife. The front side bevel (kiriba or blade road) had been overground in spots, the tip had been nearly rounded away, the shinogi line was wavy, and it appears that the knife had been shrunk in both length and height.



I started out on the back side (see the before picture to the right) figuring that this is what will make or break the refurb, might as well get this part out of the way. I reground the hollow removing previous sins and then I cut in new zero ground bevels along the edge and spine. I had to go back and forth between belt grinder and waterstones until everything was just right. Needless to say I took my time on this part. I need to give a big thank you to Butch Harner for his tips on how to do this procedure - invaluable and spot on as always - Thanks Butch!

I then moved onto territory that I'm much more familiar with (see the before picture to the left) and started on the stones and the blade road. I quickly found that stones alone were not going to cut it this time. The blade road was uneven, shinogi line screwed up, and approaching the curve/tip was very thick. I needed to fix all issues before I could hit the stones so I went back to the belt grinder. I flattened the blade road and spent a lot of time thinning and blending the curve and tip to match up with the thinner part of the bevel.

At this point I had to make a decision about the shinogi line, I had to either leave it as is, raise it to make it even (while taking a HUGE chance on messing with the edge and blade road), or lower it from above to straighten it up - I chose the third option. I ground the flat section (where the kanji is stamped) just until the shinogi line became straight again. I was very lucky on this part in that I was able to stop just short of erasing the kanji away - whew!

After all of the major work was done I was off to the stones to make it functional for use. As I often do I took it a few steps past that point. I etched the blade (3 times actually) to bring out the damascus appearance (which was important to the customer) and then I hand rubbed the surface with stone dust and finger stones to achieve a "smoked" look on the back and to bring the appearance of the damascus into the forefront while also creating a slick surface texture.

Following the blade work I moved onto installing a custom made Stefan Keller olive wood handle to which I believe suits this knife perfectly in both looks and size/shape.

Here's some before and after pictures...

BEFORE...

AFTER...

BEFORE...

AFTER...

I'm very pleased to have been given the chance to work on this knife, being given the correct amount of time to not only bring it back to life but to possibly make it better than it may have been when it was new. Thanks Steve W.!

This is very satisfying work - I really love it!