what do you think of this knife is it garbage or
is it a knife worth owning yes i just finished a restoration of a sun toku and it is beautiful
this is the finished product so last week i bought a thousand dollars worth of old vintage japanese
knives ranging from sentokus to debus to yanagi buzz and i am restoring them one at a time there
is no particular order that you have to do this restoration or any restoration in
i broke the restoration down based on level of difficulty or the amount of time i would have
to spend on a particular step all in all it took about two hours to do and i took that santoku that
rusted santoku and turned it into this knife right here so first up was removing the chip
and i had to use my atoma 140 for that the atomic 140 is something i use whenever i have
a chip on a blade or i need to grind down a lot of material fairly quickly by hand
[Music]
the cutting profile of this knife had a concave sectioning it right in the one third section or
basically middle section of the knife and so for the first i would say the first 10-15
minutes of reprofiling the cutting edge i only did the tip and the heel
once i was more happy with the overall cutting profile i went
more of a crescent stroke as opposed to a push and pull
and so with the crescent stroke you go from tip to heel and back and forth in a smooth motion
[Music]
so once i was happy with the overall profile i had to remove the handle of the knife
once the handle was removed i soaked the blade in white vinegar for about an hour and then to
remove the heart rust buildup i used a steel brush on the profile and the tang of the blade
now it was time to re-polish the profile i used sandpaper the reason i use sandpaper is because
you can control every single step with different grit ratings for very little money so you can go
from 140 grit all the way up to 10 000 grit if you wanted to for as little as 20
when i'm doing either a large knife or a knife that has a lot of material that i do need to
remove i will cut the sheets into like one and a half inch by eight inch or so and i wrap a
rod so when i was using 240 grit 320 grits uh 400 grit that's the process i use and not have
to worry about re-cutting new sheets out and i would just basically flip the rod and remove
that section of paper that has been used up and then once i got to the 600
800 and 1000 grit ratings i basically just cut out little rectangular sheets and did it by hand
now at every step i also remember to polish the choil in the spine of the knife
and once i was happy with the overall profile then it was time to install the handle we have ebony
with turquoise we have uh this is a maple and it's a stabilized maple with the red stabilized maple
ring and then we have red maple with turquoise i ended up going with the charcoal handle with
the red maple ring this color combination matched the blade the best because it has that really nice
rustic look if you have a blade that doesn't fit into a particular handle you can either
grind down the tang which generally will require you to have a bastard file or a grinding wheel
that usually requires a lot of money or you can use the burn-in method now this method here
you just have to be careful you got to know what you're doing but
if you do it right it's a very effective way to install a tang into a handle
all you need is a torch to heat up the tang you can do it in steps you don't have to do
it all at one time you basically heat up the tang at the widest part and then install it to
the handle now some people like to super heat their tang and where it becomes red and then
you install the blade into the handle just once that's fine except it can heat your blade up as
well and begin that this is such an old blade i wasn't sure if it can handle that sort of heat
so that's why i didn't let the tank heat up to where it's super red now once the tang is inserted
to the depth where you want it to be or roughly 90 of where you want it to be i use a spare
piece of wood laying around and that will seat the tang into the handle really nice and tight
after i let the blade cool down for about 10 minutes i took some silicone sealant and fill
in the little gaps on the sides between the tang hole and the tang now after that your blade is now
seated and sealed in the handle normally you guys don't hear me talk about thinning knives all that
often but this here is a three to four decade old knife so it did needed a little bit of thinning
now this knife doesn't have a tsushima finish necessarily but it does have a kuriochi finish
a lot of the original hammer marks are still there and that's very apparent on this knife
as i was thinning this knife out there was a lot of really cool marks that was appearing along the
cutting edge normally where you see the cladding line you are seeing kind of this really cool hazy
finish developing now in some cases people will polish it out as they go up the grid range this
is not a hormone okay hormone is something very different than a cladding line and definitely very
different from scratch marks left by wet stones but these scratch marks kind of has a jamon look
to it so i just left them there i thought they looked really cool and i didn't want to polish
it out and it gives a knife a very aggressive look so after thinning was done i sharpened
the blade on the imanishi 400 naniwa pro 800 and then i polished the knife on a nanowire pro 3000
and then after polishing the blade on the nanobot pro 3000 i stropped it on raw equine
now i like using the raw equine because it has a high concentration of silicate and it doesn't
require me to load up the straw before using it um when i'm short in time i go for the raw
equine once i was done with strap it was time to finish the handle and put some oil on the blade
even when i buy a brand new knife i like to put either a mineral oil finish on it or a beeswax
finish it seals the handles up it also reassures me that there is a finish on the handle i make my
own board wax and so i use that for the handle it works perfectly well and then for the blade
i use some tsubaki oil you can use mineral oil if you wanted to and the tsupaki oil does something
really nice it actually forms a nice little glaze a really thin glaze around the blade and
so when i ship it it's still going to be protected even though it may be weeks away or months away
and two hours later we have a knife that was going to be thrown out that is now exactly what you see
right here it's a beauty tell me this is not one of the sexiest sentokus you've seen in a long time
it's beautiful it's a really nice knife this knife here can be used in any kitchen now
any chef would be proud to own and use this knife a lot of you guys have already reached
out and asked me what i want to charge for these knives i don't think it's fair to put a price on
these knives because i don't know what steel they are i don't know who made them i don't
know like what they've been through so for me to put a price in these knives it's not going
to be very accurate and it just wouldn't be fair so i auction them off to my patreon supporters
it's a way for me to say thank you to those who support me every single month i don't need the
money the money i raise from these auctions goes towards charity and buying more knives
i want to answer a few questions that was brought up in some previous videos and so the
first question is why do it why do it at all for me this is kind of a whole ecosystem it's not just
one knife or a person getting a knife it's about taking a knife that normally would
be discarded and giving it new life it's about charities who would be benefiting from my sales
it's about the new owners who can get a knife that is vintage that is cool that's been restored
that's beautiful that they can be proud to own i would be proud to own and to use this
knife i mean look at it it's beautiful for me it's a win-win on so many different levels
and this next question is why do everything by hand wanna buy a belt grinder why not buy a tormek
why not buy a power sander whatever it is people always ask me the same question and i tell
them every single time the reason i'm doing this by hand is i can show you guys who are watching
you can do it yourself so let's say you bought a knife for ten dollars or maybe up to fifty dollars
a torment will cost you eight hundred to a thousand dollars or even two thousand dollars
a belt grinder can cost you 300 to a really good one can cost you two thousand dollars
to fix a ten dollar knife i mean it just makes no sense unless you have the aspirations of making a
business out of restoring knives you probably shouldn't go out and buy a thousand dollars
worth of equipment but if you do then good on you i wanted to show you the result you can get
using just your hands some sandpaper some wet stones if you want to earn a living restoring
knives i'm sure this is a whole business you can do i don't want to do it as a business i'm
doing this for fun and for you guys to see some great content and for me to to learn and to just
enjoy the process um every time i do one of these knives i learn something new i learn how to become
more efficient i learn how to sharpen better i learned how to work with different steels
so for me this is a learning process i get messages from you guys all the time that you guys
are starting your own sharpening business after watching my videos and that's awesome like being
able to be a part of that i'm so proud of that i mean i'm so happy when you guys write me and tell
me hey i've just sharpened a knife here's a photo and like you guys are doing a better job than i am
when it comes to sharpening and polishing knives now for those of you guys and for me too if you
want a knife that has a nice vintage look that has a lot of character you can't just buy a new knife
you have to find a knife that's been aged through use through decades of use to have
these qualities in them but to find a knife that has this sort of character this sort of look and
feel to it you can't buy it you have to make it there's a great story behind this knife already
it's been used for three or four decades going from a rusted knife to becoming restored and going
to a new owner and then the story continues on from there for me to be able to help these knives
continue their journey continue their story it's really special thumbs up if you enjoyed the video
and if you want to see more like it for the next three or four months these are the videos i'll
be doing so remember to subscribe and hit the notification bell if you want to see all the
upcoming videos and be updated on the auctions all the restoration knives will either be auctioned at
the end or the beginning of the month i don't know exactly when hopefully i'll have at least two or
three to auction off instead of just one and so that's why depending on how soon i can get these
restored i will put them up for auction all right and i'll post a link in the video description
below to my patreon and thank you guys for being here and i'll catch you in the next video
this the paper will sit straight i know it can cut i just have to
[Music]
get the right angle there we go
check that out