# Urasuki (hollow grind) on a yanagi-ba. Is it totally necessary?



## BT11 (Jul 11, 2016)

Hi all,

I'm about 80% of the way through making my first 270mm yanagi-ba (blade heat treated, post HT bevel ground to zero, hand sanded to 800 grit, handle dry fit etc).

My question is it really that necessary to have a urasuki grind on the back side of the blade? I understand the theory behind the grind and what it's supposed to achieve on most single bevel japanese blades, but am I going to notice that much of a difference leaving my blade as a normal chisel grind? I don't have a 10" + contact wheel to do the job and don't plan on buying one anytime soon...

Any input/thoughts would be great!

Cheers

BT


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## jklip13 (Jul 11, 2016)

I think on a brand new knife with a chisel grind having a tiny microbevel on the ura won't be so noticeably different from the traditional yanagiba in performance, the difficult part comes with time. As you continue to sharpen both sides of the yanagi (and the bevel one the ura side continues to widen) cutting performance will drop as the edge thickens. One of the beautiful things about Japanese single beveled knives is that when sharpened properly, the edge geometry stays the same throughout the life of the knife. Give it a go either way and let us know how it works out.


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## S-Line (Jul 11, 2016)

As a pro chef that uses a yanagi daily. A yanagi definitely needs a hollow back ura. Especially when doing task like uzusukuri. I would not even consider getting one without it no matter how beautiful it is, because without an ura.. It's a crippled knife.


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## brainsausage (Jul 11, 2016)

You could go without ura, but I wouldn't call it a yanagiba if that's the case...


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