# Saving private Hattori



## romanas (Jan 28, 2012)

Might be of interest to someone.

A couple of years ago a friend of mine received three knives a gift. Petty, carver and suji. Unfortunately, he didn't know anything about j-knives and didn't even imagine their value. So he put knives in a kitchen and his wife used them, let say, quite liberally. Hard bones, frozen foods, can opening - these knives saw everything. And the only "care" was a dishwasher. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/smile.gif

After about an year, when knives were in a terrible condition, a friend of mine had found out something about his knives. Right, he found that the knives are Hattori HD and found their price. Here I have to say that the price for Hattori in Moscow is more than double the price in US. So the total price of these knives was around 1 000 USD or even more. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/smile.gif

No need to say that my friend was very impressed. He took knives away from kitchen and put them in protective plastic cover. He decided that one day he will find someone who will restore the knives. Unfortunately, he didn't wipe knives well, so a nice rust begun to develop. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/smile.gif It's not easy to find reliable sharpening service for j-knives here, so the knives have spent one more year in plastic.

After all, I could not stand seeing this story and offered my help.

This is how the knives looked when I took them:





  








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I've reprofiled blades, cleaned rust, sharpened (70/30, around 15 degrees with microbevel) and covered handles with mineral oil. I used 1k and 6k King stones to sharpen and 240 Suntiger stone to reprofile.

Also, I used "GOI" polishing paste to remove rust and polish sides of knives. This kind of paste was developed long time ago in USSR and was used to polish military optics ("GOI" stands for "State Institute of Optics"). Real cold-war stuff. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/smile.gif

Here is the result:





  








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One side of suji was seriously eaten by rust and some traces remained even after polishing, so I decided to mask this defect with… etching. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/smile.gif Actually, I etched "damascus" for the first time and it took quite a lot of hours to get contrast pattern. This is suji's look after etching:





  








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So, what's the moral of this story? /img/vbsmilies/smilies/smile.gif Now I think that:

1. It's not always a good idea to gift expensive j-knife. Especially to someone who doesn't know how to care nor willing to do it.

2. It's not that difficult to repair knives.

3. It's always good to share knowledge about knives and how to care about knives. The more people know about knives, the less knives will become victims of careless.

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## boar_d_laze (Feb 13, 2008)

Молодец!

BDL


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## culinairezaken (Jul 11, 2013)

Nice project! (Only a shame it had to be done...)


Pieter.

I love to cook with wine, sometimes i even put it in the food...


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## mostadonte2 (Jun 11, 2013)

Good job there. How much time did you spend per knife aprox?


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## chrisbelgium (Oct 2, 2010)

Congratulations, romanas, for such a perfectly executed restoration. I have a few Hattori HD knives myself. My heart bleeds when I see such horrible damage done to such fantastic knives.


> So, what's the moral of this story?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Very true!


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## harlock0083 (Feb 11, 2013)

romanas said:


> A couple of years ago a friend of mine received three knives a gift. Petty, carver and suji. Unfortunately, he didn't know anything about j-knives and didn't even imagine their value. So he put knives in a kitchen and his wife used them, let say, quite liberally. Hard bones, frozen foods, can opening - these knives saw everything. And the only "care" was a dishwasher. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/smile.gif


That part really saddens me. I'd be bit upset if a gift I gave was abused in such a way. I part of me thinks that the wife should really learn proper knife care another says "Hey! Its their property now they can do as they please".


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## franzb69 (Jul 9, 2012)

any self respecting knife maker who would see their knives end up looking like this would want their knives back and scold the hell out of those people.


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## romanas (Jan 28, 2012)

boar_d_laze said:


> Молодец!


Большое спасибо. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/smile.gif


CulinaireZaken said:


> Nice project! (Only a shame it had to be done...)





ChrisBelgium said:


> Congratulations, romanas, for such a perfectly executed restoration.


Thanks!


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## romanas (Jan 28, 2012)

mostadonte2 said:


> Good job there. How much time did you spend per knife aprox?


Thanks! I was working with all knives at more or less the same time, so it's hard to tell how much time it took to repair one knife. I think that basic repair (reprofiling, removing rust and sharpening) didn't take much time. Something around 1-1,5 hours per knife.

But all project took much more time due to polishing and etching. I was etching knives for the firs time, so it took a lot of time to buy chemicals, take all necessary precautions, etch, clean everything, realize that one side needs additional etching, repeat everything several more times. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/biggrin.gif


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## trooper (Jan 21, 2011)

I've found most people don't care and won't learn how to maintain any kind of cutlery.. I'll sharpen people's knives, but stopped reprofiling and repairing obvious neglect and damage. Most home owners in US will be just as happy spending $70 every other year on a new set of crap knives from WalMart. 

I do appreciate your good stewardship of these knives, and am as happy you were able to educate the owners. It appears that both knife and owner are in balance now. You did a good service.


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## romanas (Jan 28, 2012)

FranzB69 said:


> any self respecting knife maker who would see their knives end up looking like this would want their knives back and scold the hell out of those people.


Honestly saying, I afraid that most of good knives in this word share the fate of these hattori. Sooner or later.

When I look around, I see that lots of people get j-knives without any idea on how to care about them. It's shame, but it's business. Makers and distributors of j-knives need to keep sales.


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## sparkys44 (Jul 16, 2013)

I felt a pain in my stomach when I saw the "before" pictures and read the story behind them…

Kudos to you for the time and work you spent restoring these fine pieces of cutlery… and I mean pieces of art… for damascus steel is an art in itself… ;-)


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## vic cardenas (Nov 11, 2012)

/img/vbsmilies/smilies/eek.gif


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