Thank you Iyademo Kireru.
Please Tell Me About This Kamisori
- Thread starter mjclark
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- #102
Had a truly great shave with this Azuma Yasuki Steel yesterday:
These Azumas seem to be like the Kropps of the kamisori world.
There are lots of them so they are relatively easy to acquire,they are well made, well balanced and also excellent shavers made from excellent steel.
These Azumas seem to be like the Kropps of the kamisori world.
There are lots of them so they are relatively easy to acquire,they are well made, well balanced and also excellent shavers made from excellent steel.
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- #103
Big lesson learned with this Yahata Maru.
Guess what? With this old steel the ratio of Omote laps to Ura laps when honing really DOES make a difference.
When there's bad steel to be removed a 2:1 ratio as Mizuochi-San recommends for the new blades is simply too much and creates too narrow an angle leading to chipping in the old steel.
For these venerable blades a much higher ratio works to give a good edge - 10:3 or 10:2 is best.
The kamisori journey gets more and more and more interesting.
Guess what? With this old steel the ratio of Omote laps to Ura laps when honing really DOES make a difference.
When there's bad steel to be removed a 2:1 ratio as Mizuochi-San recommends for the new blades is simply too much and creates too narrow an angle leading to chipping in the old steel.
For these venerable blades a much higher ratio works to give a good edge - 10:3 or 10:2 is best.
The kamisori journey gets more and more and more interesting.
I have come to my own conclusion that a bevel setting ratio will differ from a refining ratio or even a touch up ratio. On new kamisori or really dinged up ones a 1:1 ratio may work well, but once the bevels are satisfactory the ratios can go 2:1, 5:1 etc. The asymmetrical bevel and soft spine keeps things interesting!
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- #105
Very interesting - there is much much more to these kamisori than meets the eye eh?
Just the fact that the Omote:Ura lap ratio makes a difference is significant, and then finding an appropriate ratio for each blade takes things to a whole new level.
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- Thread starter
- #106
So can anybody translate this stamp:
It says: 特級　剪刀高
It says: 特級　剪刀高
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- #107
Ha ha - in fact one of the by issues with these kamisori is getting a translation of the mpre obscure blade stamps.
The Japanese sellers can be understandably reticent (though alway very courteous and helpful) so I just plough through eBay at the moment matching blade stamps in my collection to named stamps in eBay listings.
The other issue is edge tearing - a lot of these venerable bimetallic blades are prone to edge tearing if I use circles or strop on the stone or, indeed use too low an Omote:Ura lap ratio.
So it's forward laps only, 10:2 or 10:3 or 10:4.
But the beauty of it is that it's so easy to take the chips and tears out quickly with some harsh laps on the bevel setter, and there's always a good edge waiting in there to reward perserverance.
The Japanese sellers can be understandably reticent (though alway very courteous and helpful) so I just plough through eBay at the moment matching blade stamps in my collection to named stamps in eBay listings.
The other issue is edge tearing - a lot of these venerable bimetallic blades are prone to edge tearing if I use circles or strop on the stone or, indeed use too low an Omote:Ura lap ratio.
So it's forward laps only, 10:2 or 10:3 or 10:4.
But the beauty of it is that it's so easy to take the chips and tears out quickly with some harsh laps on the bevel setter, and there's always a good edge waiting in there to reward perserverance.
I recently got started with Kamisori shaving, a new Shegeki Tanaka Damascus. I sent it off to Nelson because I did not want to kill the Omote on a new razor. I intend to do all of the touchup and future honing on this razor.
What do you mean by "edge tearing?" Do you mean a separation of the Jigane (soft metal) from the Hagane (hardened high carbon steel)? Or do you just mean the Hagane as chipped away?
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- #109
A lot of the kamisori I'm honing are over 60 years old and have been neglected along the way.
There can be tearing and disintegration of the Jigane, chopping and micropitting of the Hagane.
And those that have vintage Tamahagane steel (not Iwasaki's revised version)behave quite oddly for it is a brittle and quirky material.
There's also some interference effects between the Hagane and Jigane and sometimes a disintegration there too, but there is always a beautiful shaving razor under there waiting to be discovered through care and hard work [emoji3]
Most of these issues will simply not be encountered with a modern kami that has been looked after.
My Swedish Steel Iwasaki is a joy from start to finish.
Thank you so much for this expanded explanation.
Since you work on older razors, I want to ask another question. Once the Omote is ground to the point where it no longer is hollow ground (turned into flat ground with honing) do you consider the razor to have seen its useful life, or do you continue to shave with it. My experience with knives (admittedly apples to oranges comparison) I will eventually grind a hollow ground knife into a flat ground knife because I thin the secondary bevel (where the hollow is) at each sharpening so that the cutting bevel geometry is maintained throughout the live of the knife. Some people think my knives are ugly because of this, but they work well over their entire lifetime. Once the hollow ground secondary bevel of the knife becomes flat ground on a knife has no indication of the live left in the knife, but then again this angle is not part of the cutting bevel as it is in the Kamisori.
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- #111
That's very interesting how you go with your knives.
Yeah flattening of the Omote is a real issue with the older kamis.
Ryoichi Mizuochi suggests a much smaller Omote:Ura ratio is best to avoid this, 2:1 for the new Iwasakis.
With the flat Omotes I just lift the spine slightly and hone freehand as I would with a true wedge.
Ha ha, the "distressed" look kinda suits them.
The ones I discard are the ones where the blade has been overhoned to less than 7/16 width or is not parallel to the spine, more for aesthetic reasons than anything else.
Yeah flattening of the Omote is a real issue with the older kamis.
Ryoichi Mizuochi suggests a much smaller Omote:Ura ratio is best to avoid this, 2:1 for the new Iwasakis.
With the flat Omotes I just lift the spine slightly and hone freehand as I would with a true wedge.
Ha ha, the "distressed" look kinda suits them.
The ones I discard are the ones where the blade has been overhoned to less than 7/16 width or is not parallel to the spine, more for aesthetic reasons than anything else.
- Thread starter
- #112
A great shave with this unknown Tamahagane blade last night:
The vintage Tamahagane does have a weird light feel to it, like ceramic and it takes a wickedly sharp, surgical edge, especially coming if this Trans Ark:
My biggest problem with kamisori is reading the stamps - I don't speak Japanese and those Japanese speakers I know often have difficulty deciphering these specialist marks.
Sometimes I ask the people I've acquired the razors from but most of the time they don't know either.
So I've taken to just watching and recording all the names kamis which show up on eBay and matching their stamps to my blades!
Ha ha - I suppose it adds an extra air of mystery!
The vintage Tamahagane does have a weird light feel to it, like ceramic and it takes a wickedly sharp, surgical edge, especially coming if this Trans Ark:
My biggest problem with kamisori is reading the stamps - I don't speak Japanese and those Japanese speakers I know often have difficulty deciphering these specialist marks.
Sometimes I ask the people I've acquired the razors from but most of the time they don't know either.
So I've taken to just watching and recording all the names kamis which show up on eBay and matching their stamps to my blades!
Ha ha - I suppose it adds an extra air of mystery!
I have a small vintage Iwasaki Tamahagane kamisori, with Kanji stamps for Kobayashi in between the Iwasaki and Tamahagane stamps; supposedly produced as a commemorative piece, I should love to find out more about it from the Iwasaki/Sanjo works or elsewhere. I have seen many Iwasaki kamisori on eBay purporting to be tamahagane, but not bearing the tamahagane Kanji stamps.
I'd bet that if they don't have the Tamahagane stamp and it's not extremely old, as in pre-war at least, then it's not Tamahagane.
Before the modern era, most steel used by an able bladesmith would likely have been Tamahagane because that was simply the metal available to them back then. As in it was what a correct blade was expected to be made of. But in the modern era, with the availability of other quality steels that result from modern industrial processes, the name of any specialty steel is generally stamped along with the makers mark. And Tamahagane, being a very special traditional process, would be specified or marked as such because of its uniqueness and its value.
This is just my opinion that I have developed over years of much research and use of vintage and antique Japanese blades of all kinds.
I have a few quite old Japanese kitchen knives that have no stamps at all and I'm fairly sure they're Tamahagane. But they have no maker stamp, nothing. No proof they were made by human hands actually. They look like an artifact from outer space and honestly they cut like it too. Unreal!
I believe that anyone trying to sell a Kamisori that's not somewhat ancient that has makers marks but no Tamahagane mark is either ignorant or lying. Or both. Because an accident that consistently benefits one party at the expense of the other is likely no accident.
It is not just on eBay that one sees Iwasaki kamisori advertised as being Tamahagane, but without the Tamahagane stamps - a major company based in an EU country, selling shaving products online world-wide, advertises Iwasaki kamisori in Shirogami, Swedish Steel (out of stock) and Tamahagane (out of stock), all three (from the photographs) bearing only the Iwasaki stamps.
I do not know if anyone else has previously posted this link to an excellent historyrazors.wordpress.com article on Japanese marking, kanji, symbols: Japanese markings, kanji, symbols - https://historyrazors.wordpress.com/2016/07/14/kanji-or-japanese-markings-symbols/
There is also an interesting article on Sanjo Seisakusho and the Iwasaki family at Iwasaki - https://historyrazors.wordpress.com/2016/12/08/iwasaki/
There is also an interesting article on Sanjo Seisakusho and the Iwasaki family at Iwasaki - https://historyrazors.wordpress.com/2016/12/08/iwasaki/
Good info. Thanks!
Glad to see this topic revived. I have two kamisoris on the way. The one with the wrap is a Yamamasa and the other is a NOS Henkotsu, or at least that is what I am told. Any information would be helpful. I would like to know when these "blademasters" lived and worked. I am also curious about wrapping. The wrapped Yamamasa is done in waxed thread with a beeswax coating. I see many wrapped in rattan. But I think that wrapping would eventually trap moisture and cause rusting. So I am thinking of leaving the Henkotsu unwrapped.
Again, any good info or tips will be appreciated.
Again, any good info or tips will be appreciated.
