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  1. #1
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    Feb 2012
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    Default New Yamamoto kanna advice

    Hi all,

    I'm looking at getting a new kanna, and thinking of trying one of Yamamoto's. Specifically, I'm considering the Kanna-Shijin. I don't normally like mokume, but Kana-Shijin appeals to me. Alternately, since I like White #1, the Enjaku, but I am leaning towards Kanna-Shijin. Since I have no idea what their heat treatment is like, I can't make the decision based on steel alone. If anyone has any experience with either plane, or any of Yamamoto's, I'd love to hear it.

    Cheers.

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  3. #2
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    Apr 2007
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    Adelaide Hills, South Australia
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    I've not had any experience with Yamamoto kannas, so can't comment on performance.

    On the decision between White #1 and Blue #1 steel, as you know the White #1 will be easier to sharpen and will do well on softwoods. Down this way we have a lot of very hard woods and Blue has its advantages on them, although a very well made White will do as well as a not so well made Blue.

    Your decision might be based on the type of wood you predominantly use.

    If I was living in Japan or Canada and using mostly local woods I would probably go with White #1.

    On the mokume, you always pay a premium for that, but it doesn't add anything to performance; it's just an aesthetic thing. In the end it comes down to your personal preference as to whether you like the appearance enough to pay the extra $s.

    Neil

  4. #3
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    The dilemma I'm having is that while I do work primarily with softwood, I do occasionally work harder woods like walnut and rosewood. Logically, Blue 1 would be the best compromise, and White 1 easier to sharpen and yielding better results on the softer woods, but the particular heat treatment of each steel could change that equation completely. Since I can't judge heat treatment prior to purchase, I've just got aesthetics and price to go on. In all honesty, I'm limited by my skillset far more than choice of plane, but I was hoping I could get some user reviews anyway.

    As far as mokume goes, I normally don't like it at all, but Kanna-Shijin appeals to me for some reason. I suppose because it looks rather humble, compared to something like a Tasai or Imai. I'd certainly never pay more for aesthetics, but Yamamoto is quite reasonable.

  5. #4
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    Mar 2010
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    Where did this end up? I've had three yamamoto kanna, but all of have had his blue cutting steel.

    Since then, I've had other steels of swedish (ogata), inukubi (nakano) and white #1 (mosaku).

    It's my opinion that the abrasion resistance that the highly alloyed steels provides is overblown in terms of making other steels inappropriate for hardwoods. I have used standard stanley blades in western planes to make hand planes out of cocobolo, dimensioning the billets entirely with them. Cocobolo is harder on plane irons than most rosewoods, and stanley irons don't match up to a good white steel iron.

    Long story short, my yamamoto kanna were good planes for the money, but I wish I'd have gotten them in white #1 or swedish instead of something so highly alloyed, despite the fact that I work almost entirely hardwoods.

  6. #5
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
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    Judging the durability of a blade is somewhat subjective. You are making a judgement about the point at which the blade no longer cuts efficiently 'for you'. In our home kitchen that point varies widely between my wife and myself on the same blade. She tolerates a much 'blunter' knife blade than I, and our guest freak out if they manage to get their hands on one of our knives that I consider sharp.... and I freak out when I see how they're using it...

    In my woodturning workshop I use an extensive range of turning blade steels that go from very good quality old carbon steel all the way up to powdered metal (PM) alloys with 15% vanadium, as well as various tungsten carbides. Woodturning is a very punishing use of blades where we cut many hundreds of meters of shavings in just minutes. In my experience, the sharpness and durability of the various steels becomes very obvious in this application. Your experience in your application may be different.

    With woodturning, very good quality carbon steel takes the keenest edge and produces the cleanest cut that remains so in use for just a few seconds. At the other end the 15% vanadium PM alloys and the tungsten carbides never get as sharp and never cut as cleanly, but cut in their way on and on. Durability is still subjective, but as measured by one person making decisions about when a tool is too blunt to keep using and that the effort and time required to resharpen it is less than continuing to try to use it is a measure of its duty cycle. After many hundreds of these duty cycles you develop a conviction about the durability of each of the steel types. The sweet spot for me in woodturning is about 10% PM vanadium for all but the final cuts, M42 cobalt for final cuts, and tungsten carbide tips for hogging down green and dirty woods.

    The treatment of each of these steels is also critical to its performance. In the case of high vanadium steels its cryogenic tempering, for the cobalt steel it is a nitrogen atmosphere that is then vacuumed way down to avoid contamination, while carbides have to do with the fineness of the carbide grain size in processes that I don't care to get my head around.

    At home in the kitchen I tend to go for Blue steel, but also have a J-made Swedish steel edge knife. I like that for heavy duty work. If well made, White steel is as good but you have to take your chances with that or pay a premium to ensure you get best quality.

    Hand planes and chisels are other applications all together. All of my J-chisels and J-plane blades are White steel, so I don't have a comparison of the differences between White and Blue steels for those applications. My intuition would be to go for a plane blade that took the keenest edge, at least for finishing cuts. If I was doing a lot of hand plane work I would be going for the best White steel I could afford for that, but would also have some general use Blue and HSS blades for doing the bulk of the work on our generally harder more abrasive woods.

    It would be interesting to hear from others on this.

    Neil

  7. #6
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    I can only summarize what I do, but I have more or less the same conclusion (at least for what I use). Knives to me need to hold a keen edge and be easy to sharpen. I don't like the german knives right now, they just are not quite hard enough for my taste. That does make them easy to sharpen, even an arkansas stone will cut them quickly, and they steel easily, but they're pretty lacking compared to something better. Blue #2 is my knife steel of choice, because it's easy for the makers to get right, and it's hard enough. For stainless, plain VG-10 is fine.

    HSS and above that for the lathe (if I had a pole lathe, I'd probably rather have carbon steel, but I only have an electron powered lathe). there is too much heat in a fast lathe cut for carbon steel.

    Carbon steel for razors. They see the strop every single day. There's no reason for them to be anything else.

    Carbon steel for planes and chisels. Most of my plane work is done with a coarse shaving, even penultimate work (our wood is softer here in the US) in cherry is with shaving thicknesses from 5 thousandths to a hundredth to get to a thickness mark or a jointed face or edge. After that, finish work is quick. Carbon steel lasts a long time employing that. The more experience I get, the more I like how it fits in the workflow. I started with blue and special blue steel planes, then tried super blue, and went toward carbon after that (for japanese planes). Admittedly, I only use japanese planes a few times a year now, but still prefer carbon steel. There's something more human and elemental feeling about it, and the flow of sharpen use sharpen use sharpen use, to me, is more pleasant and ultimately more productive.

    There are a lot of blacksmiths (or ad copy done on behalf of them) that recommend certain steels for certain woods, but I have never found white steel lacking on anything. I think it is a different story if one is trying to plane the most feet of a shaving 1/2 to 1 thousandth thick, which may occur if someone uses a smooth plane only in place of sanders after machine dimensioning.

    One other aside, I have only seen one stone of mine that cuts steels other than carbon steel well, and that is okudo suita. I haven't tried everything, but I have tried a whole lot of things. I don't know what makes okudo suita cut some of my blue and HSS steels well, but it will cut them - just not quite as fast as synthetic abrasives. When I was a beginner, I had the urge to get steels that held an edge longer (with those thin shavings), and as a non beginner now, I have the urge to make sure that my flow of time in sharpening is efficient. I could get along with carbon steel even on a powered lathe if I had to, I'd just focus on taking heavier cuts where possible and I already sharpen my gouges free hand on a belt grinder and touching up the edge with a diamond hone, so there'd be little change there. Carbon steel lathe tools would actually be fine just with a carborundum stone and two stones following that (no power grinder), they just wouldn't like thousands of feet of high heat high speed turning.

  8. #7
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    I should've clarified about the one stone that cut steels other than carbon steels. I meant to say there is only one *natural* stone that I have that cuts steels other than carbon steels well.

    The synthetics, of course, cut a wide range of stuff just fine. It just burns my eyeballs to see a nice wide japanese tool bevel with a bright finish on it. Really any steel, I don't like the super bright polish, though it is even inevitable with the finest of natural stones on tools that aren't laminated.

  9. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by D.W. View Post
    It just burns my eyeballs to see a nice wide japanese tool bevel with a bright finish on it.
    +1

    And, it's not just aesthetics. In my experience a natural stone gives a longer lasting edge, albeit at a hefty premium, $-wise.
    .
    Neil

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