# Thinning and and a sandpaper 'Migaki' finish on my TF gyuto



## bryantcw (May 14, 2020)

Made a project today of thinning a new Teruyasu Fujiwara Gyuto. This is his maboroshi version with wa handle, measured length is 185 at the edge. I have one of his Denka knives with the yo handle, but it's not my favorite. The handle is slippery, and it still smells really strong when it gets warm or wet, like curing epoxy or some weird finish. Never again.

*Goals:* Wanted to do a better job than the last few I've done. Set a goal of trying to have the bevel heights be even on both sides. Avoiding grinding on the flats as much as possible to preserve the look and the kanji. Wanted to make sure to achieve a convex bevel on both secondary bevels. I definitely did a better job this time, just being conscious of all my steps and what they were doing as I worked.

*Tools:* Shapton Glass stones. DMT extra coarse stone for flattening. DIY sink bridge. Packing tape. Straightedge. Sharpie. 1000grit wet/dry paper. Towels and water and all that.

*Method:* Taped off the area of the knife I wanted to protect. Wrapped the handle with plastic wrap to protect it from getting swarf in the pores of the wood. I used a rocking motion to make sure to end up with a convex bevel. When the thinning was done I used 1000 grit sand paper wet to apply the finish. I also *just* ground off the sharp "beak" as I call it at the heel of the knife when I was done since it always gets stuck on rags when cleaning.

Result: I'm really pleased. Great size for my tiny hands, finish is much better than previous attempts, bevels look great, preserved the original look more. Very excited to get working with this knife.

I'll include a few pictures here. If you'd like to see all of them with steps, I have an an album posted here.



Knife as it came to me:









Knife in work:








All done!


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## Helmore (May 14, 2020)

Just, no pics of how big of a mess your work area ended up being? Or did you manage to keep it all relatively clean?
Also, which Shapton glass stones did you use?

Finally, how does it perform now? A major difference?


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## ExistentialHero (May 14, 2020)

Thanks for the detailed notes! It's always useful to hear someone talk through these things start-to-finish.


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## Tristan (May 14, 2020)

Ever handled a TF, was the initial project also to thin out the knife a lot?
looks like very neat work. 
Just curious about mostTF users putting their knives through a strict weight loss regime


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## TSF415 (May 14, 2020)

This thing looks primed and ready for that naturals starter kit on bst


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## lemeneid (May 14, 2020)

OP, Just curious, why are you looking to thin it? In my experience with TFs, raising the bevels does not really improve the cutting power as much while making the food release less effective.



Tristan said:


> Ever handled a TF, was the initial project also to thin out the knife a lot?
> looks like very neat work.
> Just curious about mostTF users putting their knives through a strict weight loss regime


I don't, the knife OOTB works better than most knives I have and will work for most people 100% of the time. But I do thin to remove the low spots, as well as improve the food release by slightly convexing the primary bevels. People have this impression that TFs need to go on a diet, but thats hardly the case, its the one knife I have which needed to lose weight the least by comparison to my other knives.


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## Ruso (May 14, 2020)

OP how long did it take you?


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## bryantcw (May 14, 2020)

Helmore said:


> Just, no pics of how big of a mess your work area ended up being? Or did you manage to keep it all relatively clean?
> Also, which Shapton glass stones did you use?
> 
> Finally, how does it perform now? A major difference?



Really there wasn't much of a mess. I cleaned as I went. If you look at the picture of my setup in the album it pretty much looked like that as I was working. There was some grit in the sink and the sink bridge, but other than that it wasn't much.

I used a Shapton Glass 220 and 500 for thinning. 1k and 2k for bevel setting and sharpening. Compound loaded strop to touch up to screaming sharp.

Performance before? Honestly I have no idea. Yesterday I opened the box from the mail, cut a lime and put it away. Today after I finished I made some nachos so lots of little things to chop up. The performance was probably the best of the knives I currently own. Didn't cut anything like carrots that wedge, so I can't speak to that, but it was really comfortable and fun to use.



TSF415 said:


> This thing looks primed and ready for that naturals starter kit on bst



Why.....would you say this. My poor bank account. *off to the BST!*




lemeneid said:


> OP, Just curious, why are you looking to thin it? In my experience with TFs, raising the bevels does not really improve the cutting power as much while making the food release less effective.
> 
> I don't, the knife OOTB works better than most knives I have and will work for most people 100% of the time. But I do thin to remove the low spots, as well as improve the food release by slightly convexing the primary bevels. People have this impression that TFs need to go on a diet, but thats hardly the case, its the one knife I have which needed to lose weight the least by comparison to my other knives.



I did it for the same reasons you just listed. I really had no desire to "thin" it per se, I just wanted to get the convex on the bevels and remove low spots so the finish is more maintainable in the future. If you look at the choil and scale pictures; I really didn't remove that much metal. As you can see, one side was fairly hollow, the other side was pretty close to good right out of the box. It was ground better than the denka that I own, although I ground that down as well. In terms of needing to be thinned or go on a diet, I agree. It's thin enough without being fragile, and at 115grams or so for a 185mm knife it's far from heavy!



Ruso said:


> OP how long did it take you?



About 5 hours, with a few breaks.


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## Phip (May 15, 2020)

Yep, did something similar w/ my newest TF Denka a few months ago for same reasons. And it took 5 hours.


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## Felix Jou Minowa (May 18, 2020)

OP I'd like to know how the Shapton Glass stones perform on thinning, I've used Shapton Kuromaku 120 for thinning but I heard the Glass stones cut faster, are they durable enough to do these heavy thinning works?


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## ian (May 18, 2020)

Shapton Glass 120 is just fine for this kind of work. It was primarily what i used to transform a kurouchi Watanabe gyuto into the one referenced in this thread:






Hand sandpapering in some concavity


Hi all, I've been tinkering for a while with this Watanabe 180, formerly kurouchi. It's been a fun project: I've ground in some more distal taper, and thinned it a bunch. Here are some current measurements. Distal Taper (spine width measurements) 3.5 mm above the heel, 1.5 in the middle of...




www.kitchenknifeforums.com





It’s pretty slow to dish imo, and I expect to get another couple jobs out of it for sure.


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## Felix Jou Minowa (May 18, 2020)

I see. For now I have the Pro 120 so when that wears out I think I'll try a Glass 120, thanks for the info!!


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## Helmore (May 18, 2020)

Felix Jou Minowa said:


> I see. For now I have the Pro 120 so when that wears out I think I'll try a Glass 120, thanks for the info!!


At that grit, between the two I'd personally choose the cheaper of the two.


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## bryantcw (May 18, 2020)

I’m using the 240 so far, but I’d like to add a 120. My gut feeling is that the performance is so close, I’d rather buy the thicker stone. I’ve thinned three knives on the glass 240 and I’m about halfway through the stone. This was probably because the first knife I did I wasn’t using enough water to rinse the stone, there was a mountain of slurry, and the stone got really soft. I think the abrasive slurry was eating into the stone more than the knife. Now I use it only on my sink bridge with a little dribble of water going the whole time. It seems to cut much faster and dish more slowly with no slurry. Only at the end of the thinning on this stone do I allow a little slurry and lighten the pressure to even out the scratch marks before moving up to the next stone.

Just my technique, hope something useful was in it.


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## Felix Jou Minowa (May 18, 2020)

Good to know, my Kuromaku will arrive soon, I'll experiment with your technique


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## Rotem Shoshani (May 19, 2020)

bryantcw said:


> Really there wasn't much of a mess. I cleaned as I went. If you look at the picture of my setup in the album it pretty much looked like that as I was working. There was some grit in the sink and the sink bridge, but other than that it wasn't much.
> 
> I used a Shapton Glass 220 and 500 for thinning. 1k and 2k for bevel setting and sharpening. Compound loaded strop to touch up to screaming sharp.
> 
> ...



Damn bro, 5 hours 

Lately with the quarantine and kids getting crazier by the day, I've had the chance to.. like.. touch up the microbevel...? 

Mad props!!!


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## Ruso (May 19, 2020)

120 Pro is fast, really fast for the first 10-15 strokes. Then it clogs and does zilch. In order to make it work and enjoy it, the stone has to be dressed constantly. For my last thinning I had a glass plate with 90grit SiC powder beside me. 10-15 strokes on a stone, 3 seconds lapping with SiC, back to strokes. Worked pretty good and the stone kept cutting like a hungry beaver.


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## Rotem Shoshani (May 19, 2020)

Ruso said:


> 120 Pro is fast, really fast for the first 10-15 strokes. Then it clogs and does zilch. In order to make it work and enjoy it, the stone has to be dressed constantly. For my last thinning I had a glass plate with 90grit SiC powder beside me. 10-15 strokes on a stone, 3 seconds lapping with SiC, back to strokes. Worked pretty good and the stone kept cutting like a hungry beaver.


I've heard a lot of people with the same experience, Try working some stainless steel on it to open it up (although I suspect it just might stink with iron clad), it might sound weird, but this stone does wonders in thinning ***** ass SS, found that it takes very light pressure to get it working and it's really really fast.


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## ian (May 19, 2020)

I think you’re right that it depends on the steel. I’ve used mine for 2 projects, one iron clad and one SS clad. It was such a pain to use on the iron clad, exactly as @Ruso describes. But on the stainless clad knife, I never once had that problem. I don’t know if there’s something more subtle going on, but that was my experience in those two situations.


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## Rotem Shoshani (May 19, 2020)

Spot on Ian.
Just one experience with iron cladding, I had to work some mud using SS, otherwise I just fiddled with it too much for it to start working. Some Cho 400 mud (really small amount, just like 10-20 seconds just the way you would flatten a stone) worked well too and gave me a good 15-20 minutes of getting work done. Getting the thing to cut iron cladding by its own wasn't very good.


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## Ruso (May 19, 2020)

Stainless clad is next on the list of knives to work on, will see if I notice any difference.
So far I only used the 120 on a carbon clad and semi-stainless monosteel. My experiences were very similar on both.


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## M1k3 (May 19, 2020)

The softness+wear resistance of stainless cladding helps release grit from the stone. Iron cladding, hard steel and mono stainless can be a pain on the pro 120.


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## ExistentialHero (May 19, 2020)

Any recommendations for a better stone for ripping a lot of metal off an iron-clad knife? I've had this same experience with my Shapton Pro 120 and would be thrilled to find a better way.


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## ian (May 19, 2020)

ExistentialHero said:


> Any recommendations for a better stone for ripping a lot of metal off an iron-clad knife? I've had this same experience with my Shapton Pro 120 and would be thrilled to find a better way.



I want to get a Gesshin 220.


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## M1k3 (May 19, 2020)

ExistentialHero said:


> Any recommendations for a better stone for ripping a lot of metal off an iron-clad knife? I've had this same experience with my Shapton Pro 120 and would be thrilled to find a better way.


Work a little slurry up. Or the 220. Or Sigma Oribest 120 or Power 220? If I were to buy another coarse stone, I'd probably get the Sigma Power or Gesshin. But I haven't used those yet.


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