Nakiri shape question.

Here’s the finish on the Takeda: definitely stuck scale. Pardon the fuzz on the handle. I wiped the whole thing with acetone and paper towel to remove the oil for the foto. DOH!

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That’s not too bad, at least the scale is off. I did a couple and left a forge finish, but pickled them till they were clean.
When I finally made a couple of knives with the "forge finish" on the flats (VERY narrow flats mind you) I soaked then in vinegar and then gave the rough part a fishing of sorts with a quick run on the scotch bright belt. Crevsses were still crusty, but the tops looked kind of like what I have seen on the interwebs when people use a wire wheel.
 
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This is as "rustic" as I am comfortable with. Sorry for the ugly pre-handle buff picture. And yes, that is hammer/press finish, not mill scale like some "forged" blades you see. ;)
 

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This is as "rustic" as I am comfortable with. Sorry for the ugly pre-handle buff picture. And yes, that is hammer/press finish, not mill scale like some "forged" blades you see. ;)
That looks pretty nice. I’ll use ferric chloride, and then some cold blueing to turn it black again. I don’t have a picture, but it looks pretty nice without having the risk of flakes of scale coming off
 
That looks pretty nice. I’ll use ferric chloride, and then some cold blueing to turn it black again. I don’t have a picture, but it looks pretty nice without having the risk of flakes of scale coming off
No ferric on that. That is a "cleaned" finish. As I previously mentioned, I will be looking into the tradtional rust blueing. Actually, I plan to first try its slightly faster cousin "express' or "Belgian" bluing. The only real difference is that you heat the metal up to like 150-200F and then wipe on the solution. The heat makes it rust right away instead of having ot hand it in a humidity cabinet. A coffee finish is about as close as I have seen to old school blue, but coffee won't hide scratches finer than 320-400 like rust blue and I suspect that it isn't very durable. In my experience, cold bluing kinda sucks. I have used it to get wht I would call a "french gray" finish, but I insist on carding after applying the blue and that removes most of the color. That tells me that the color is not going to stay on there under stress. Plus cold blue is nasty ass selenium compound. I want to use bluing on kitchen knives, so good old fashioned "black rust" is probably the solution.
 
Here’s the finish on the Takeda: definitely stuck scale. Pardon the fuzz on the handle. I wiped the whole thing with acetone and paper towel to remove the oil for the foto. DOH!

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Just for grins, I took both a screwdriver and a wood chisel to the finish. Not coming off, no flakes...
I'm not surprised. This particular knife shop is third generation, I believe. They know what they're doing. I trust it in our kitchen.
 
Full flat grind on a blade as tall as a nakiri will suck ito food release, unless you have a fairly pronounced edge bevel… which sucks ito ease of cutting… so having the bevel somewhat convexed os useful for food release, however less expensive japanese knives probably have a somewhat hollow bevel as they are ground with large diameter grinding wheels. It gets rolled out to be almost flat as pride dictates, you the. Over time make the edge convex, if asymmetrical grind you make ot clamshell or hamaguriba… on nakiri i like a 40:60 grind… Nd i like to thin the grind out towards the til, by pulling the grindline (shinogi) up a bit towards the tip, this is for flat stock, tapering starting stock, i keep the grind parallel to the edges
 
That's an interesting observation that FFG are bad for food to stick. I think I might try a saber grind next time to see if it really makes much difference. Of course to tell I'd have to use the same design and thickness of blade.

I mentioned before ya'll got me interested in a Nikiri - well, I finished it a couple weeks ago. Been using in kitchen and think I like it. I used a bit of junk rosewood for handle and ebony for bolster. So, the knife isn't anything fancy at all, just a "user" for the kitchen.
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That's an interesting observation that FFG are bad for food to stick. I think I might try a saber grind next time to see if it really makes much difference. Of course to tell I'd have to use the same design and thickness of blade.

I mentioned before ya'll got me interested in a Nikiri - well, I finished it a couple weeks ago. Been using in kitchen and think I like it. I used a bit of junk rosewood for handle and ebony for bolster. So, the knife isn't anything fancy at all, just a "user" for the kitchen.
IMG-4425.jpg
I have a thin 2mm knife in the kitchen with some pronounced flats and angles as a test blade, including asymmetrical grind for food release… the flats just stick to foodof the right size. Will convex the twobevels soon
 
I have found that the bevel and the surface finish have more effect on food sticking than whether it is a full height flat grind. When I went through my mirror finish phase I discovered that everything sticks to a mirror finish. A 600 grit satin finish is better. Of course, some foods simply stick more than others.

A single bevel knife is obviously going to be better than anything else for slicing very soft foods because of the pronounced wedge and short bevel height, but single bevels come with their own problems.

I prefer flat grinds with a convex edge. It works best, in most cases, for me as a general purpose knife.
 
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