Thread: Any opinions on this Kamisori?

I don't think the spine was taped, as I've never heard of anyone doing that when sharpening a Japanese razor.

If the "weird" bevel you're talking about is the bevel that appears on one side of the blade and not the other, that's actually what a kamisori is supposed to look like when sharpened properly. The bevel is assymetric -- very wide on the side without the writing and very, very narrow on the side with the writing. (I know one is the ura and the other is the omote, but I still can't remember which is which.)

Anyway, it doesn't look like a bad blade, and certainly hasn't been mistreated based on these photos, so I hope it ends up in your collection! --Jeff

There was one person honing them with tape and I hope he's got to his senses and stopped messing up perfectly good razors this way. The geometry of these razors makes using tape a terrible idea.

It's hard to tell how this one was honed, but doesn't look particularly unusual.
Still, I've found that honing out chips on these is a very serious job. I am currently working on one and it'll end up taking 10 hours.
So my advise is before you buy it make sure you are prepared to learn to and hone it, or have somebody who has agreed to do it for you.

Originally Posted by JeffE

I don't think the spine was taped, as I've never heard of anyone doing that when sharpening a Japanese razor.

If the "weird" bevel you're talking about is the bevel that appears on one side of the blade and not the other, that's actually what a kamisori is supposed to look like when sharpened properly. The bevel is assymetric -- very wide on the side without the writing and very, very narrow on the side with the writing. (I know one is the ura and the other is the omote, but I still can't remember which is which.)

Anyway, it doesn't look like a bad blade, and certainly hasn't been mistreated based on these photos, so I hope it ends up in your collection! --Jeff

No, I know that the bevel is really only supposed to be on one side.
I guess the reason I called it weird was that there was no hone wear to accompany the nearly perfectly even bevel. Where'd that bevel come from?

Originally Posted by gugi

There was one person honing them with tape and I hope he's got to his senses and stopped messing up perfectly good razors this way. The geometry of these razors makes using tape a terrible idea.

It's hard to tell how this one was honed, but doesn't look particularly unusual.
Still, I've found that honing out chips on these is a very serious job. I am currently working on one and it'll end up taking 10 hours.
So my advise is before you buy it make sure you are prepared to learn to and hone it, or have somebody who has agreed to do it for you.

Gugi, I've found that a little bit of pressure goes a long way in speeding up the chip-repair on these. I took one to my aoto using circles with firm pressure and it only took about 10 minutes to take out a .5mm chip.

Originally Posted by heirkb

No, I know that the bevel is really only supposed to be on one side.
I guess the reason I called it weird was that there was no hone wear to accompany the nearly perfectly even bevel. Where'd that bevel come from?

I can offer two possible explanations. The first being that the razor was sharpened in the regular way and the corresponding flat on the shinogi-ji is obscured in whatever filmy residue covers the surface, or it was ground with the spine elevated.

The bevel appears to consist of very coarse striations- not those of a polish stone. As well, the width of the bevel is something one would typically not associate with NOS, as the very first bevels are usually very narrow. If this was done on purpose originally to help produce a certain desirable effect I cannot say

Jim, I've used various hones and yes quite a bit of pressure to make it happen, it's still 10 hours. May be the razor was messed up previously, but the chip is finally gone and the razor is now a microtome.

Here's a photo (sorry for the blur - low light):