# Magic kasumi finish



## preizzo

Many members have already discussed this point but this time I want to ask you your secrets. 
How do you manage to leave that perfect shiny contrast between the primary edge and the secondary edge?? 
I have few secret I will reveal only after listen to o yours. 
Hope to hear something special &#128514;&#128514;&#128514;&#128514;&#128522;&#128522;&#128522;&#128522;


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## rick_english

I've tried a lot of fingerstones, and all too often they put tiny scratches on the blade. What I like to use now is fingerstone mud, wiped on the blade with a rag. Mud from a King 800 stone works too.


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## jklip13

Consistency, patience and love. They're are lots of little tricks and cheats to fix mistakes, but to do things properly it's a matter of time and practice. The bevels must be totally even and you can't make any mistakes


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## Pensacola Tiger

When you say, "...that perfect shiny contrast between the primary edge and the secondary edge...", are you referring to the contrast between the core steel and the cladding?







If so, then it is a matter of finding the right stone for the combination of core and cladding, then raising a good amount of mud and using minimal pressure.

The King 800 does a good job, but it is a little too coarse for some people. The JNS Red Aoto produced a really nice kasumi finish, but it's been unavailable for some time. I've been having some good luck with a natural aoto from JKI.

The best method, but also the most time consuming, is fingerstones.


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## preizzo

Patience seems to be the only way to get the perfect kasumi finish, but also a mix of good powder &#128521;


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## Kylej

Finding the right mix of stones to produce and keep the kasumi finish, flat even bevels, for me a very tight grit procession especially when sharpening a knife for the first time, and lighter pressure on finer stones.


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## YG420

All of these are spot on. Im going to be testing out polishing the core steel on a series of finishing stones, jnat and syn to compare in the near future. I guess the hard part would be to just polish the core steel and to not erase the nice contrast line between the soft and core steels.


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## TheDispossessed

Honestly I'm pretty ignorant about natural stones and the like. I use a synthetic 2k (Gesshin) and it leaves a beautiful contrast and consistent scratch pattern. Easy does it.


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## preizzo

Many people around here are scared to scratch the blade of there knives. 
A Japanese knives meant to be sharpened at really low angle. 
I use a mix of powdered stone to scrub off all the scratches using a rubber eraser and dipping it in to the mixture.
Using this method aloud me to give the knife a beautiful kasumi finish. To create a nice shiny cutting edge I am using a progression of sintetic and natural stone ( same stones I use for the powdered mixture).


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## Smurfmacaw

Polish the blade road to a mirror finish first and then use softer fingerstones that won't scratch the hagane.


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## YG420

Smurfmacaw said:


> Polish the blade road to a mirror finish first and then use softer fingerstones that won't scratch the hagane.


Have you had any experience with Maksims narutaki fingerstones? I have some from namikawa, just wondering how they compare.


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## chinacats

Multiple ways of getting to the same place depending on how much time/effort you are looking to put into it. Here's a rather quick and somewhat easy way of doing it. Started with Jon's 1k diamond (believe it or not) and it was pleasantly surprised how consistent the finish was...







followed by one run on a blue aoto (natural) from JKI for about 5 minutes...this stone leaves an almost matte finish on the core steel which I kind of like but I imagine others prefer a bit more shine...







Still needs a bit of effort, but won't take more than another 10-15 minutes to get a bit more consistent finish...


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## preizzo

Wow that aoto leave a beautiful results. 
I would have to buy one!! 
Love it


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## Dardeau

The Jinzo aoto leaves a better finish with about the same amount of time put in. The real advantage in JNATs is they will dish less and the edge quality is better than the synthetic aoto type stones.


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## Badgertooth

Squelchy soft stones and decreasing pressure


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## andur

Very nice!


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## preizzo

Perfect finish. 
Next week I will post some pictures also


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## Asteger

Everything said above so far sounds great to me. Despite having way too many stones around, getting that nifty finish isn't always my priority. But when I'm in the mood I'll try a number of these ways depending. The classic has to be what Smurf mentioned (shiny hagane first then non-scratch fingerstone - or powder - for the jigane) and is inherited from sword polishing. Not something I'd bother with all the time but fun to try.

Kasumi - people here here use the term in all sorts of ways. For what it's worth, 'kasumi' doesn't mean 'contrast'. It means 'haziness' or 'mistiness' and so maybe 'matte' is also suitable, even if as Chinacats said above you might not want a matte look all over. Kasumi's really for the softer cladding and you can polish all of that to a 'kasumi finish'. You can also talk about a darker kasumi and lighter mistier kasumi too.


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## panda

i really dont care about how the sides of my blades look, but if it were possible to make it very dark matte, like gunmetal, that would be something i'd be interested in trying.


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## brainsausage

Personally, I'm more concerned with how the finish feels when cutting, as opposed to how it looks when cutting.


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## panda

exactly! no added drag.


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## brainsausage

Awhile back I asked Jon to refinish my 240 Shig gyuto with a more 'traditional' kasumi finish, as I was not crazy about the stock finish based on purely aesthetics, and was kinda curious about the potential for 'clouds'. I also was rather flush at the time... The result was very nuanced and chaotic in spots. Fairly even finish at times, with areas that had more pronounced scratches. As an unexpected side result, it took a patina much faster than the stock finish. The random deeper scratches bugged me at first, but I grew to appreciate the contrast they presented, and far prefer their presence.


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## skewed

panda said:


> i really dont care about how the sides of my blades look, but if it were possible to make it very dark matte, like gunmetal, that would be something i'd be interested in trying.



JNS 800. Leaves a very uniform, very dark matte bead bast like finish. Definitely not a super slick polished feel. I like the look and the ease of use. The draw back for me is the hagane ends up not as polished as I would like. When I polish it on a finer stone the jigane gets scuffed up a little. Oh well.

Cheers,
rj


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## Kylej

I appreciate a good finish on a knife and I notice if I take the time and the effort to really work on a good consistent finish I have much better performance


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## labor of love

panda said:


> i really dont care about how the sides of my blades look, but if it were possible to make it very dark matte, like gunmetal, that would be something i'd be interested in trying.



Image is everything.


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## panda

labor of love said:


> Image is everything.


[video=youtube;WpuFEpbE0d0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpuFEpbE0d0[/video]


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