Thread: Help honing kamisori

Thanks everyone, I'm happy to report progress! I did try a bit more with my natural 1000, but in the end I switched to a synthetic, the Binsui-do Tokkyu-hin sold by Namikawa Heibei. It's definitely a bit faster. It's softer than most synths, so I like to use it for more delicate work. It's not ideal for polishing because the green colour sometimes gives a weird hue to soft metal (on differentially hardened blades).

Anyway, with that, the 8000 Ohira, the 10000 Okudo, GSSixGun's technique, and the leather strop, I managed to get half the blade shaving sharp! I realized that while I was torquing, I'm tending to sharpen one side more than the other. I need to use the three fingers to even the pressure on the edge like Onimaru55 says. The microscope pictures on the good side look just like the good ones on your post, the bad side looks like the bad pictures! So I think I'm pretty close. Need some more bevel work, but I think I have a much better grasp on what I'm doing. I think the microscope pictures also helped a lot. I'll report back once I get everything sorted. Appreciate all the help!

Glad you are making progress. That said, I always felt that all you needed was a good 10X colour corrected flat field loupe to see what you need when honing.

Bob

Originally Posted by Larason2

Thanks everyone, I'm happy to report progress! I did try a bit more with my natural 1000, but in the end I switched to a synthetic, the Binsui-do Tokkyu-hin sold by Namikawa Heibei. It's definitely a bit faster. It's softer than most synths, so I like to use it for more delicate work. It's not ideal for polishing because the green colour sometimes gives a weird hue to soft metal (on differentially hardened blades).

Anyway, with that, the 8000 Ohira, the 10000 Okudo, GSSixGun's technique, and the leather strop, I managed to get half the blade shaving sharp! I realized that while I was torquing, I'm tending to sharpen one side more than the other. I need to use the three fingers to even the pressure on the edge like Onimaru55 says. The microscope pictures on the good side look just like the good ones on your post, the bad side looks like the bad pictures! So I think I'm pretty close. Need some more bevel work, but I think I have a much better grasp on what I'm doing. I think the microscope pictures also helped a lot. I'll report back once I get everything sorted. Appreciate all the help!

The ura, having the harder metal can be deceptive , as I found, to get a clean bevel. Also take care to keep even pressure on the edge as the spine is the soft iron.
Once established you'll be able to keep a small bevel size there as most work will happen on the omote.