# Deba restoration WIP



## bieniek (Oct 21, 2012)

OK so I bought myself a little project. 

Im in the process of selling my other two debas, and so I needed something I could use in the mean time when Im deciding what Im going to get in their place. 

The original plan was to hit Shigefusa but its kind of expensive for a knife that supposed to chip and cut bones and generally have hard life.

This one is "Special made by Yukimitsu" - I thank Kevin [CuttySharp] for encoding this one for me. I couldnt find any info about the maker, only something about the original guy lived something like 1000 years ago.

So of we go this is the blade when it came




















And so I took it to my grinder, cleaned the choil and spine, rounded it a bit, and ground new bevel roughly. 
The shinogi for now is not the straightest line on earth but Im going to fix that by hand with my diamond. 

On the from side and back side, because they are concave, i only grind by hand with a 40 grit sanding paper on a piece of wood. My goal there is to remove all those wheel marks and have nice paralell scratch pattern. 





















And so from this point on theres no more machine involved into the process. 
The whole grinding and polishing is done by hand and carefully. 
Now the back side is little in mess, but I wouldnt expect anything else really. It takes time but its possible to make it look prettier with patient sanding. 

The front is finished and I will not polish it further, at the end of the day its working knife not a showpiece. The sharpness of the steel doesnt get any far from any other carbon. Lucky me.




















to be continued


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## eaglerock (Oct 21, 2012)

Can't wait to see the final results. so far you have done a great job getting back in shape.


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## heirkb (Oct 21, 2012)

Dude, you are a bada** for taking on these types of jobs. Every time I do some restoration/modification work, I realize how much work you put in to do these things (mostly) by hand.


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## bieniek (Oct 21, 2012)

Hehe cheers. It is lot to do in fact but one thing I dont have to pay for is my time. 

I also think its not a black magic, you just have to try hard and watch results carefully.

But small update. Made a quick handle for that one. It is little plumpier than regular D Im experimenting with whats better for a heavy duty knife. You can also see some scratches left, I dont want to have it smooth. Its handmade
I dont have a clue what woods are those I ordered some cheapos from dictum.


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## heirkb (Oct 21, 2012)

Nice work again. Did you use a drill press for the handle? How'd you make that tang hole?


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## bieniek (Oct 22, 2012)

All with handheld drill. 

Remember I make stuff for myself, not for sale.


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## heirkb (Oct 22, 2012)

Woah that's pretty cool. Drilling the handle slot is the only thing holding me back from trying to make handles. Did you use a vice or did you actually manage it without even a vice? I'm asking all this because I only have the bare minimum with regards to tools


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## bieniek (Oct 23, 2012)

Im quite in the saem situation. I have 45 m2 flat to share for three so I work outside only. 

The only mechanized tools I have are drill and belt grinder. 
Dont use any vice, theres some drawbacks though, like if you dont try ultra-hard, you will get funky- too big holes. Plus all takes much longer than it would with proper tools.

But as I said, you want to do that for yourself, it will be good aenough.


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