# Deba Restoration



## gustav (Aug 2, 2021)

Project im working on



this is the original blade when it arrived (i had already removed the handle)

this is what it is looking like now, i couldnt help myself and sharpened it before finishing. previous owner over grinded the heal of the knife so im trying to figure out how to fix that since i dont have any power tools

the back of the knife (pre sharpening) havent realy done much to the back i dont want to mess up the uraoshi or urasuki but i do want to touch it up a bit. will some light sanding mess this up at all? it seems that the uraoshi is quite... "thick" most pictures ive seen have it a lot thinner but im no expert.

I'm making the Wa handle out of black walnut and maple with a copper spacer in between, well at least attempt it ill post pictures of the handle once i start working on them.


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## luuogle (Aug 2, 2021)

Does look like the uraoshi is mostly worn down and almost all the way gone. The way to fix it is on a water grinding wheel to bring the uraoshi to be more thin and the ura more concave,


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## tripleq (Aug 2, 2021)

I've re-ground uraski by calculating the circumference of the original grinding wheel (you can use modelling clay or similar to take an impression of the backside). Make a small section of the wheel fashioned from sheets of plywood glued together, cut to shape and then covered in sheet metal. Use double-sided tape to affix wet/dry sandpaper to the sheet metal and grid away. You just need to build a small section. 12 inches long or so.


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## natto (Aug 10, 2021)

gustav said:


> this is what it is looking like now, i couldnt help myself and sharpened it before finishing. previous owner over grinded the heal of the knife so im trying to figure out how to fix that since i dont have any power tools



Is the ura flat? The pic looks like one inch from the heel not touching the stone. But pics may misleading. 
Just in case: Grinding the kiriha with a non straight ura will cause trouble.


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## gustav (Aug 10, 2021)

natto said:


> Is the ura flat? The pic looks like one inch from the heel not touching the stone. But pics may misleading.
> Just in case: Grinding the kiriha with a non straight ura will cause trouble.


Its not flat but its deffinetly worn down a lot i did some very light sanding to get a better picture of what i was working with, i havent had much time to work on this lately but i am going to try what Tripleq mentioned and see how that goes


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## tripleq (Aug 10, 2021)

gustav said:


> Its not flat but its deffinetly worn down a lot i did some very light sanding to get a better picture of what i was working with, i havent had much time to work on this lately but i am going to try what Tripleq mentioned and see how that goes
> View attachment 137538



Looks like a good candidate. You should be able to make good progress. I've done decent restorations with worse knives than this with the rig I described. I used this technique to remove pitting here:

for-sale-sakai-takayuki-takohiki.49093


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