I was always under the impression that you were supposed to sharpen the shinogi line first, then do the uraoshi sharpening to remove the burr created and so minimal sharpening is done on the uraoshi to preserve the hollow grind. Not to say the way you do it doesn't work, because it clearly does, but it might be removing more material off the back of the knife than is necessary.
I think the problem here is that, on that cheap of a knife, the grind on the uraoshi isn't properly flat at the edge, and you never were able to apex. I watched this video a while ago and wanted to try it, so I bought a chinesium one from Lucky Cook, and it was sufficiently aweful. When I first sharpened it, I experienced the same problem, so I looked at it under a microscope and it had what looked like a convex-ish microbevel on the uraoshi side, probably caused by a belt grinder belt curving up to form around the blade. Upon learning this, I took it to my diamond plate, and this took a very long time of grinding before I could get it to flat. Unfortunately, I'm sure much of the concave was removed from the knife, but at least it's apexed now, lol. Now all I need to do is take out their massive secondary bevel on the right side of the knife. Is it worth my time? Definitely not, but I have nothing better to do at this point lol. Honestly I have no clue on why I'm dead set on getting a mirror polish on a cheap knife I'll probably never use, but I guess that's just one of the things this hobby and too much free time will do, lol.
In my experience, it's also often just very hard to sharpen knives with particularly soft steel (regardless of the type of knife), I suspect because when you run them over the stone, instead of grinding off material at the very edge, it will actually just "push" and bend the (dull) existing edge over to the other side.. so instead of creating a burr and then taking it off, you end up actually just pushing the edge back and forth from one side to the other without actually ever making it any sharper...
@@foogod4237 that’s a good point. That back and forth motion likely weakens the steel at the edge, too, due to the stress (like how one breaks a paperclip by repeated bending). I can imagine a possible solution of running the blade through a deburring felt/block periodically and sharpening more gently to avoid that issue, or doing single stroke on each side and spending an absurd amount of time sharpening, but as a general rule poor steel has a much lower peak sharpness, like you mention. Important to note that some stones will do better with different steel types and hardnesses, too. For example, one of those super-expensive diamond stones (not plates) will always outperform something like a King stone on very high hardness supersteels, but will be an entirely worse experience when used on softer steels. But yeah, this style of knife (single bevel) will suffer a lot more from soft and cheap steels than many others.
@@Kumofan Propably some heat treatment would be the fist thing to do in the topic of fixing this blade but in he same time it is posible that there is so little carbon in it that it will be also just a waste of time...
4 года назад
Haha great video as always Ryky. Your video inspired me to buy a $15 Sekiryu yanagiba and to sharpen it. Its out of the box sharpness was very crappy but I finally managed to make it razor sharp (cutting perpendicularly with the grain of the paper effortlessly) thanks to your video. Please keep it up :)
Man, thanks to you and your amazing tutorials the knifes I use for my cooking are now even more dangerous than usual! I have to admit that I keep scratching the flat of the knife on the stone sometimes, and those scratches really ruin the look of the knives. However, I keep practicing with budget knifes, hoping that one day I'll get better at it :) Thanks for your wonderful videos!
Scratches are normal if it's uniform in direction, but some scratches are caused by unevenness of your sharpening stone, or stone edges not rounded off (edges of sharpening stones are harder than the surface side).
Tremulousnut is right...round slightly the edges of your stone and it will be much more forgiving. If the edges of your stones are slightly rounded...those inadvertent wobbles in your stroke usually won't result in a scratch.
This is probably one of my favorite videos you've done. Sure, it's fun to watch you sharpen knives that I dream of owning, but it is more interesting to see how you deal with the really tough ones. Most people wouldn't even make a serious try at sharpening that knife,, let alone put it up on RU-vid. Then to take what is, albeit a minor failure, with a smile, that is why we all watch. You are a true craftsman. Keep on sharpening.
I truly appreciate you posting the video even though the results may not have been as hoped for. Experiments that have no negative results are not experiments at all. I get a little curious when I see shows when nothing ever goes wrong. Sure the host is likely an expert, but even experts make mistakes. Keep keeping it real!
I just wrote you a long message on Patreon. While typing that I listened to your discussion of the burglary (by the way, that is the proper term, but when I taught college criminal law, I had to teach my students that "robbery," is a theft involving an assault or threat of assault). As I listened, my heart ached for you. You are so generous in spirit and deed, so that it got to me pretty hard, and, believe me, in my career, burglary and robbery were usually routine.
Most of my other sources for knife sharpening knowledge have told me to put more pressure on edge-leading strokes than on the edge-trailing stroke. Murray Carter is like a hybrid because he sharpens with edge-leading pressure on the first stone and does only stropping-like motions on the polishing stone (ie edge-trailing stroke with no edge leading stroke). I really like your channel by the way. I started with DMT diamond stones and moved on to this stone combo as suggested by Murray Carter, then I moved on to Chosera stones (the 1000 and 3000) and I love them. Seeing your stone reviews has pretty much convinced me that I made the right choice. You are saving me the money I would have spent trying out other stones. Lastly, I should comment that if the experiment is meant to demonstrate the results that you can get with a budget stone and budget knife, then the choice of a 12$ yanagiba was not great. With your skill, I'm sure you could have gotten a budget Tramontina knife to cut just as well as your good yanagiba (just not for more than a couple days).
A very good video. I am just starting to get into 'Serious' sharpening. Mainly wood chisels and plane blades. Your video has just shown me that trying to turn a 'Sow's ear into a silk purse' is a folly.... Good steel is good for a reason. Many thanks for sharing your efforts.
I found the heels were not as sharp on some of my knives and I think i havent been consistently keeping my thumb on the heel for pressure. Thank you for the tips!
I bought a practice yanagiba for $30 and I highly doubt it's rated on the HRC either but as long as you can see where it is or isn't sharpening it is good practice like you said. I bought it mainly because I struggle at the tip of my yanagiba. I get to the edge, but getting high enough to the shinogi line is my downfall so the $30 knife has really helped
Thanks for the great reviews on budget items. I have noticed with hair scissors some of the cheaper ones sharpen real nice and compare to scissors almost 10 times the price.
yeah, at some point, the law of diminishing returns really applies. most of the time, items at the highest end of the price bracket are there for people who CAN, or WANT to spend a lot of money. for most of us, budget friendly items will do
Really learn alot on this guy, especially on how to properly sharpen a knife as i don't have any idea how to properly sharpen one.. I'm just a newbie sushi chef at a small sushiya, i don't even have my own knife. Planning to buy a budget knife but i changed my mind, will probably invest more with an entry real yanagiba knife like tojiro zen 3 ... again this is really fun and give a newbie like me an insight..
Hi there! thanks for your great videos. I have improved the quality of all my knives a lot since watching you. I have to admit to having bought an absolutely budget yanagiba knife when still a student and now I know why I can't cut sashimi with it properly. What knife would you suggest for someone who only occasionally makes sushi and would spend between 50-100USD on a yanagiba knife? Also, how come you don't polish your yanagiba knifes like you do with normal knives with just trailing edge strokes? Regards! anak
I bought a budget Narihira Yanagiba 210mm off Ebay for $21.00 to hone my sharpening skills not expecting too much turned out not too bad it could cut paper out of the box used it cutting veggies and slicing meat they are tricky little devills to use, not ready to tackle a Salmon yet, It had a double bevel and a micro bevel making it very hard to sharpen after watching this video and a couple of others I decided to take out the compound shape that took quite some time using a 300 grit King stone so now the blade has a nice polished bevel and a micro bevel and is very sharp, A really good learning experience for not a big outlay, The stones I used are the 300 King, 1000 King DX , 4000 Naniwa Hayabusa , 6000 King, 8000 Kitayama and a home made leather strop, Just checked Ebay the price has gone up to $38.00 still a good deal I think, Thanks for your videos I really learn a lot from them.
I have a "yanagiba" like this one. After sharpening this knife a few times I have found that keeping a consistent direction on both sides of the blade will bring the blades sharpness to a keener edge. So instead of an angular direction on the facing side, try keeping it straight across the stone as done on the back side of the blade. Also, keeping a consistent angle helps a great deal too. 😀
I just started watching your videos a couple weeks ago. Great stuff, man, thank you! I haven't researched all your videos yet, so I was wondering if you have reviewed any of the Yoshikane chefs knives. If you have, please send me a link. If you haven't I hope you do soon. Thanks again!
I have the same knife because I wanted to play around with it. I recently sharpened it with a Edge Pro Apex by reprofiling the right side to 15 degrees and a water stone on the back side. It's VERY sharp using this method.
I got some cheap Japanese style knives for practice ... one of them is a ~$10 yanagiba. It came with a second cutting bevel and was incredibly dull. So I basically redid the second bevel to be thinner -- that took a long time (2+ hours) -- then started polishing it, ending with an 8k stone. It became very, very sharp and it doesn't seem like a particularly fragile edge. Anyway, I suspect the knife here could have been got to a much sharper state with a proper second bevel, even with the cheap stone. Then, given that these knives should be used only to cut jello-like materials, even if the steel isn't that great, the cheap yanagibas should still be suitable for home use without sharpening for quite some time. Just my $.02.
The funny part is that: with that second bevel you changed your cheap yanagiba into cheap chef knife...😁 On top of that for $10 i can easly find European style chef knife made out of X50CrMoV15 steel. Just bought 20cm knife for training with blade that is 54HRC an not so wide as a chef knife and i paid 35PLN for it on allegro webpage=>7.36USD. Chef knife would be exactly $10.
@@Bialy_1 No, I made my chef's knife "yanagiba" into an actual yanagiba, more or less. A yanagiba has one bevel, along with a tiny bevel (just to polish/refine the edge) on the otherwise flat/concave back.
I have this stone I don't get that much stuff coming off the stone. I got it because I'm a beginner it was recommended. i like that you explained Edge trailing and Edge leading at 12mins in. that really helped me out
When sharperning this kind of knife, should you really lay flat the uraoshi opposite side on the stone? I always watch your videos but i can’t really tell if the blade is flat on the stone
I do have a question, in one video you made a set of stones with aluminum and sand paper, my question is can you make a lapping stone with the same set up to flatten a water stone?
I have a single bevel broadhead. I just purchased the kitayama from burrfection store, I think is the name. Being a different steel and use of the edge, should I still create the bur from the flat side first then move to the bevel side?
hmmm. it really depends if you want to get another combo stone, or a premium sharpening, or polishing stone. just got to any of my videos and scroll down the Description, and you'll see all of the stones i like for each grit rating. drop me a line if you have another other questions.
Hey man! love your videos. I got a problem. when I first started in sushi and in sharppening knives I bought my first yanagiba, not an expensive one but a mid range one (wasabi black) but as I never sharpened a yanagiba i had no idea so I started sharpening like a regular 2 edge knife.. now the cut is not the same. you think if I sharpen it like this now will it get the yanagiba cut back? or is it ruined?
I just bought 3 well used shigemetsu knives, a well used gold coin cleaver, and a 205 mm gyuto whose manufacturer name begins with "Go". All are fairly old, or at least look like it. I have a few questions. Perhaps this group can point me in the right direction. I'd like to know how I should clean the knives and remove any surface rust. Also, where to go to have the blades sharpened? Will any professional blade sharpener know how to do a japanese style knife correctly?
I have a question, is the king kw65 1000/6000 almost the same as the king kds 1000/6000 except it's much more softer because it way lower/cheaper grade whetstone? thanks!
I have another question with knives with convex edge Or all knives where i gotta find my angle I do it like this i take the knife set to a 25 - 30 angle then i slowly go down with the angle till the knife stops like cutting into the stone thats my angle when im not sure i controll it with a sharpy i also tested that with a tip of a syringe because its bigger and if i m right it works (btw. Sry for the bad english but greetings from switzerland 🇨🇭)
Hi Ricky, loving your channel :) Did you get around to testing out the budget Premium Knife Sharpener Stone Kit Grits 1000/6000 from Love This Kitchen?
iam not sure but in my opinion the surface wasnt completely touched by the stone on both sides + the knive had a microbevel!? that's irritating me, otherwise i really enjoy watching your videos!
Great video. I have a $30 king stone, 6000/1000, and can never get a razor sharp edge on my Benchmade pocket knife. I've been at it for years. Could it be my stone? What if you used your expensive stone on that cheap knife, could you get a razor sharp cutting edge? Thanks.
i have done my $10/Rs.700 knife by silicon carbide whetstone $2/Rs.150 with 400 and 1000 grit and directly to the strop in green polishing compound. It is shaving sharp.
Would have been useful to use a loupe and see what actually happened to the edge. Almost any steel can be ground to an edge that will cut through paper, may only do it once and it may not get much sharper but even soft kitchen grade steel can form that edge.
What I would like to see, is a review with your viewpoint for minimalist stones to have for bush knives, something to carry with you with one of your great lessons.
Those knives are made for people to use them until the factory edge loses its sharpness. I've tried honing cheap steel before and the edge just keeps rolling over like tin foil. As far as using one of these for practicing I think it will give people bad data and probably not something to learn on. Perhaps ok to practice strokes but thats it.
Joe Bruno I agree that cheap knives are not for the beginner. Beginners need to build up their confidence and they should start with really good steel and good sharpening stones. That’s what I did.
Curious as to whether you ever use power tools like a grinding wheel to sharpen your knives, if you have a lot of them to do (then finish with polishing compound on leather strop).
Ryky, you must work on your technique to become a master! That steel was priceless........well almost, I’m betting a dollar or two. After watching 30 hours of your videos in the last couple weeks, I am now ashamed to be such a fan. 😂
Flat side is actually concave. Keeping it straight will go with the profile of the knife. The video before this one he sharpened the real version of the knife, with much better explanation
No questions here, just a 'thank you' rant. This was the first video if yours I saw...I had a cheap yanagiba from an old job that I needed to be sharp, but came out of the box with the sharpness of a knife done with about 1000 grit without stropping. When I started sharpening, I couldn't get it as sharp as it came out of the box. I've seen probably all of your videos and have a couple hundred hours of practice, and I can get this knife to go through magazine paper almost silently. I haven't seen any videos that were nearly as thoughtful and comprehensive as yours. Not to mention most others make mistakes but still try to force their sharpening opinions on you in their videos... Which makes me not want to watch them. Being able to get my knives scary sharp has made me able to make a lot of extra cash on weekend sushi jobs, and provided me with a fairly inexpensive but also useful hobby that's also taken my cooking to a new level. I guess I just wanted to say thank you for helping make this all possible.
Hey ryky, is it necessary to flatten a whetstone before sharpening a yanagiba on it? I have the budget King whetstone and I've been using it for quite a while. It has developed a minute concave and I'm trying to apply murray Carter's method by using the high points to sharpen. Now with normal knives this is fine, but with yanagibas having a flat side almost like a chisel, will this affect it in anyway? Thanks
it usually is, but because i know that most people buying a $20 stone, and $12 knife would not buy a $30-$100 flatten plate, i didn't want to bother with it. it would me the test even more unrealistic.
Absolutely necessary. While you will be able to put an edge on knife using an uneven stone, being able to do the uraoshi is a different story. Doing the uraoshi on an uneven stone, especially at an angle, will ruin the uraoshi over time, causing it to lose the hollow.
Noob here: Are there Kitchen-knifes that are as easy to sharpen as this one? Like one side flat and on the other side just use the big bevel which is the edge too? It looks soooo easy to maintain.
what do you think of the king kw-65 1k /6k stone? just ordered from Amazon cause my wife was like it's prime but I wanted to go with the one you have selected. however happy wife happy life right man! hey you got a Shepherd, I have two they're my protectors.
Great video, but there is missing one important thing for a newbee like me. What about the angle of blade? 20, 30 or ... Can I use "Knife sharpening guide" from the market in case of such knifes?
Personally, I'm never too fussed about angles, or at least, I don't measure it and make sure it's exactly X degree. What's more important is to be consistent with the angle and consistent on every part of the edge (unless it's a deba). Clip on guard rails on knives do help some beginners, but personally I think a beginner could be able to make consistent passes by using reference points (putting coins/matchbox on top corner of stone to get angle) and doing it slowly (over time gaining speed).
I was looking to see if you tried putting it to the chosera stones... I didnt see it anywhere in your vids, did you even attempt to see if they made it have an edge of any worth? Or, could you have done it and tested it and gotten little to no improvement and figure not worth posting?
I almost wish you did the cut test in between stones. I almost think since the steel was so soft it would have come off cleaner after the 1k stone. The 6k stone might have actually been to much for the steel and caused edge weakness and thats why it wasn't as clean going through the paper.
unless you absolutely need a "yanagiba", consider a slicer like the 9" enso, like this one bit.ly/cutenso, awesome knife, and great value and build quality.
You're really comparing apples and oranges because you used expensive stones on the expensive knife and cheap stones on the cheap knife. Maybe you could try it the other way - use the King stone on the Tojiro and the Naniwa stones on the $12 knife. I have that King KW stone and it cuts & polishes metal okay but I've never gotten a sharp cutting edge with it and I'd like to see if you can do it.
Zyx, And you probably cringe when Ryky mangles the edges of expensive knives on his brick but somebody's gotta do it to advance the cause of science. As I said my King stone produces a pretty, shiny blade bevel but it never gives me a good sharp cutting performance. I'm curious to know if it's just my clumsy technique or if that's just the way it is for everyone.
i know what you mean. this really wasn't a comparison of cheap stone/knife vs pricey stone/knife. i was only showing the tojiro as an example of how i would like the cheaper yanagi to cut, but i know how it could have come across. i'm going to switch it up, as suggested for another video.
Zyx, My King stone is labeled KW-65P which is double sided 800/4000 grit. There's also a King 1000/6000 stone which, for some reason, is also called KW-65. Anyhow it's the only Japanese waterstone I've used so I'm no expert...but from my experience I have better results from my Arkansas stones. I plan to try a high end stone like a Chosera or a Shapton when I get the chance.
Zyx Yeah it's fine enough. The King 4000 leaves a finer scratch pattern than my black Arkansas stone yet the Arkansas gives me a razor sharp cutting edge while the King won't. Maybe it's just me but that's my experience.
There are many factors. I like to make sure the edge is hair cutting before move from the 400 to the 1k. So... I had a chinese cheap outdoor knife that was very dull and thick in the edge. It took me four sharpening sections. I had it to about a year before finally made it sharp. Probably the edge was just too thick. So it took too long to finally grind it down to the minimun angle to be paper.Or the steel in the edge could be kind of burned. I don't really know. But now it's very sharp. Most of the times those things happen to me it's for not been enough time in the course stone. I'm not very patient and go to the next stone. And make sure your stone is not too concave. Specially with sigle beveled like scandi knifes. I do like to maintain my stones flat. As I don't have a stone to flatten them, I make in piece of marble... it works.
this does create a quandry for those of us who are practicing sharpening with inexpensive knives and inexpensive stones. Which is/are the critical variables that allow us to evaluate our technique, the knife, the stone, or both? Followup videos to help resolve this puzzle would be appreciated.
The way I look at it is that the stone will do it's job, I also have the exact same king stone, and I also bought a budget yanagiba, along with a couple not so cheap and I do mean cheap as in quality wise knives, and the stone sharpened all my other knives, so the stone works, unless it's compacted soft mud that someone is selling, but even then it's rare to find rubbish that easily. That yanagiba that I bought must of been the same brand he bought because that thing will not sharpen or cut for the life of me, hell I doubt it'd even go through something if I stabbed it, but I don't want to test it out. So if you're worried about the quality of the knife read up about it, I'm sure there are reviews out there for knife buffs around the world, same thing for the stones, someone's bound to of tested it out, so don't go buying unheard of products that no one knows about that will leave you with a 30/70 chance of being happy or dissatisfied with your purchase, unless you want to experiment for funsies.
haha. yeah i know .i'm going to do a couple of follow up videos for this one. switching stones, and maybe throw in some newspaper stropping and see. thanks
I think it's all technique - You adapt to the stone/knife at hand, whether it's a soft stone, or a long knife. There are some different skillsets to using certain types of stones, or certain types of knives (really long, or really heavy knives), but the main principles remain the same. 1. The ability to maintain the shape of a knife. A lot of people think chefs are good sharpeners, but the reality is most aren't - Many could put an edge on their blade, but over the years their mistakes will accumulate on the blade and it will lose it's shape and original bevel (if it's not intentional). A few yanagiba and deba at one of my previous workplace that have lost their shinogi line and become metallic chicken breasts. 2. The ability to maintain a flat stone, as well as the frequency of needing to flatten your stone (I'm not talking about laziness, but how long until your stone becomes too dished to use). Good technique means you would be able to use a stone longer until the "dishing" of the stone becomes noticeable, because you use as much of the surface as possible.
I have the same cheap knife. It arrived bent, making it useless for precise fish cuts. So, I ground it down to a bunka shape utility knife. Trims steaks like a boss
Slightly bent knives are normal, even for some genuine yanagiba/takobiki. Sometimes it happens out of the box, sometimes it happens over time. When a laminated/kasumi knife is heat treated, the differential between the two steels used cause the knife to bend during quenching. Most knife makers pre-bend their knives so that it will correct itself during quenching (and double check afterwards), some fix the bend afterwards. Regardless, over time most kasumi knife will experience some bending overtime. You correct the bend by using a wooden block with a groove, or simply put it down on the edge of a table and bend it back straight. Fixing bent knives is one of the tasks of a knife sharpener in Japan, though you can try to fix the bend yourself.
+Burrfection you didn't get a "sharp" knife because you didn't clean off the burr after using the fine stone. If you would have taken the burr off ever so slightly it would have been polished and cut clean. and you can still do micro bevels on cheap knives. my knife I was gifted for Christmas was some cheap seinko/seiko/something, but it's really cheap like $25 and it got me into knives -- I cook for a living, and used to cut meat, and was always against buying my own knives because you can just sharpen the ones at work, but after getting this knife i've fallen in love with having my own knife and maintaining sharpness. But I have gotten this cheap ole thing the sharpest anyone at work has seen, it took some getting used to, but I Am able to put a micro bevel and polish the edge and make it glide through paper no problem. Taking off the burr should be done ever so gently i've discovered, and as korin has shown... and yeah I just rewatched the end to make sure, you didn't clean your burr from the finishing/fine stone, that was the reason why you couldn't cut paper. I had the same problem when I first my got my king stone (the one in this video actually) and none of my knives would cut smooth, and it was because I had a burr on them; once I got the burr cleaned, they cut through paper like a knife in butter. peace and love brother
Enjoying the vids, but......(grin) From a Japanese woodworking tool background slurry is indeed a good and desirable thing on a softer true waterstone. I've found myself nearly shouting 'why ?' when you persistantly rinse it away in your videos. One of the primary purposes of a nagura is to actually create slurry. Amongst many other authorities, check out Toshio Odate, author of the classic book Japanese Woodworking Tools.
Indeed. It's a trait of softer stones - Softer means more slurry made and quickly, which also cuts/sharpen faster. This is why some people put great effort in getting a high quality nagura.
I enjoyed the video, don't listen the critics, it need to have courage to upload a video where sharpening isnt perfect, + an example what really depends on your skill and accesories, with cheap stone even you can't do miracle.
haha. just keeping it real. thanks for the Thanks, though. i just got my first leather strops made, so i'm going to play with them this weekend. should have a video up in a week, or so with my first time playing with the.
