TandyPro - 35mm Japanese Style Flat Knife - Any Good?

[CalgaryJim]

I just bought this knife, $95 CAD, about $70 US.

The handle is nice, the blade is 9rc13 stainless steel. It was sharp out of the box but I sharpened it with a 1000, then 4000 wet stone, then honed it with green rouge.

It doesn't seem to skive as easily as a Weaver 24mm blade I have. Unlike the Weaver, the edge looks the same as the rest of the blade, there's no shinier metal for a few millimetres back of the blade edge.

I'm thinking I should have instead purchased a skiving knife from Japan. Is anyone else familiar with the Tandy blade and what has your experience with it been?

 

 

 

[Arturomex]

 

A friend of mine bought that Tandy knife and he wasn't very happy with it. I tried it a couple of times and it didn't blow my skirt up either. It was fine for just cutting but it didn't seem to skive well at all. I don't know why.

I buy my knives here: https://leathercrafttools.com/tools/manufacture/knife/list/

I particularly like the Hidetsugu knives. You're getting a softer steel on top with, I think, Hitachi blue or something similar as the cutting edge. They come with unfinished handles and I put a couple of coats of water based Varathane on them. I sharpen starting with either 600 or 800 grit, work down to 2000 grit, strop with green compound and they're razor sharp. I'm pretty religious about stropping after every use and once these are in shape, they don't really need to see a stone again.

These are very similar to the Weaver knife you show but the price is a lot better, even after shipping. (FedEx - about one week to Alberta.)

Regards,

Arturo

 

Edited February 11 by Arturomex
Spelling

[DieselTech]

I recently bought the TandyPro Damascus trim knife. Super nice knife, but was the tip was dull out of the box. Kind of made me irritated, but I was expecting it. 

Whatever composition their damacus is, it's super hard. It should make for a nice knife once sharpened. 

[Simplejack1985]

I picked up a skiving knife from an old man making them in a back alley way in Tokyo. One of those once in a lifetime random scenarios. With that said they skive nice. I still prefer a French edger or the custom skiving knife my buddy made me.

[TomE]

One of my favorite skiving knives is this cheap knockoff https://a.co/d/58YIeFR.  I did reprofile the blade before we became friends.  It holds an edge reasonably well, especially for what it cost.  My other favorites are rounded blades including an Osborne #67 and a Dozier half round knife.  So my philosophy is there are a lot of tools that will do the job and I just need to work on the blade until I'm happy with it.

[Simplejack1985]

3 hours ago, TomE said:

One of my favorite skiving knives is this cheap knockoff https://a.co/d/58YIeFR.  I did reprofile the blade before we became friends.  It holds an edge reasonably well, especially for what it cost.  My other favorites are rounded blades including an Osborne #67 and a Dozier half round knife.  So my philosophy is there are a lot of tools that will do the job and I just need to work on the blade until I'm happy with it.

All true. I paid 2,000 yen for this

[Mablung]

Those kinds of high-ish carbon stainless steels generally benefit from a higher-grit polish before stropping. I don’t know exactly why, but the ones I have used respond better to one more polishing increment before stropping. So, I’d polish it on an 8000-grit stone before taking it to the green compound, as you’ll reduce the scratch size imparted by the 4000 and then be able to smooth them out better on the strop. Also check the bevel angle to make sure it’s consistent. A loupe is very helpful for an edge like this that needs to be uniform. 

[ljk]

Very good explanation from Mablung. The chemistry should allow for heat treating to a high hardness.   The tempering process will dictate the final hardness.  Producers play that game of hardness over 60rc vs.toughness 55-60rc.  Go through the sharpening process as described by Mablung than use the green stuff for touch-up.  The only way to check hardness is using RockwellC tester.  I think some of the boutique steels are nothing but a hustle.  What they sometimes do is use a bunch of letters and numbers to confuse the customer.  Plain old cheap 1095 high carbon steel heat treated properly will make a great knife, albeit poor corrosion resistance. 

[Mablung]

47 minutes ago, ljk said:

Very good explanation from Mablung. The chemistry should allow for heat treating to a high hardness.   The tempering process will dictate the final hardness.  Producers play that game of hardness over 60rc vs.toughness 55-60rc.  Go through the sharpening process as described by Mablung than use the green stuff for touch-up.  The only way to check hardness is using RockwellC tester.  I think some of the boutique steels are nothing but a hustle.  What they sometimes do is use a bunch of letters and numbers to confuse the customer.  Plain old cheap 1095 high carbon steel heat treated properly will make a great knife, albeit poor corrosion resistance. 

Appreciate the vote of confidence, and the point about the heat treatment is an important one that I omitted.  If the heat treatment is like that of my Stohlman-branded round knife from Tandy, it's a bit finicky.  That knife requires a great deal of polishing to get a really good edge.  I'm not sure whether it's 9Cr13MoV like the skiving knife you're looking at, @CalgaryJim, but the characteristics are very similar to a 8Cr13MoV folder I have (only slight differences in chemistry, but enough to make the 9 a bit tougher).

Something else I thought to add to my explanation, above, is to make sure you check the back side of the blade for a burr.  Be very consistent with the main bevel, but also be sure to remove the burr from the back of the blade.  Because the bevel is a chisel-grind, i.e., a single bevel, you won't take the burr off when you sharpen the other side of the bevel, because there isn't a second bevel.  Leaving that burr will cause issues swiftly.  As long as you're careful with the sharpening process, it ought to sharpen up decently.  Whether it retains the edge is a different matter, but smooth skiving seems to require a mirror-like polish on a carefully tapered edge.

Edited February 12 by Mablung

[CalgaryJim]

On 2/11/2024 at 12:41 PM, Arturomex said:

 

A friend of mine bought that Tandy knife and he wasn't very happy with it. I tried it a couple of times and it didn't blow my skirt up either. It was fine for just cutting but it didn't seem to skive well at all. I don't know why.

I buy my knives here: https://leathercrafttools.com/tools/manufacture/knife/list/

I particularly like the Hidetsugu knives. You're getting a softer steel on top with, I think, Hitachi blue or something similar as the cutting edge. They come with unfinished handles and I put a couple of coats of water based Varathane on them. I sharpen starting with either 600 or 800 grit, work down to 2000 grit, strop with green compound and they're razor sharp. I'm pretty religious about stropping after every use and once these are in shape, they don't really need to see a stone again.

These are very similar to the Weaver knife you show but the price is a lot better, even after shipping. (FedEx - about one week to Alberta.)

Regards,

Arturo

 

Thanks Arturo, I just placed an order for a Hidetsugu knive from that website. I skipped courier service and went with unregistered mail for the price since the knife was only 3,870 yen.

On 2/11/2024 at 3:56 PM, DieselTech said:

I recently bought the TandyPro Damascus trim knife. Super nice knife, but was the tip was dull out of the box. Kind of made me irritated, but I was expecting it. 

Whatever composition their damacus is, it's super hard. It should make for a nice knife once sharpened. 

Thanks, I looked at their Damascus steel knife, more money than I wanted to spend.

[CalgaryJim]

On 2/12/2024 at 7:36 AM, Mablung said:

Those kinds of high-ish carbon stainless steels generally benefit from a higher-grit polish before stropping. I don’t know exactly why, but the ones I have used respond better to one more polishing increment before stropping. So, I’d polish it on an 8000-grit stone before taking it to the green compound, as you’ll reduce the scratch size imparted by the 4000 and then be able to smooth them out better on the strop. Also check the bevel angle to make sure it’s consistent. A loupe is very helpful for an edge like this that needs to be uniform. 

Thankss, good to know. I have been using a 1000/4000 stone set but I'll source an 8000 now as well.

[CalgaryJim]

On 2/12/2024 at 2:38 PM, Mablung said:

Appreciate the vote of confidence, and the point about the heat treatment is an important one that I omitted.  If the heat treatment is like that of my Stohlman-branded round knife from Tandy, it's a bit finicky.  That knife requires a great deal of polishing to get a really good edge.  I'm not sure whether it's 9Cr13MoV like the skiving knife you're looking at, @CalgaryJim, but the characteristics are very similar to a 8Cr13MoV folder I have (only slight differences in chemistry, but enough to make the 9 a bit tougher).

Something else I thought to add to my explanation, above, is to make sure you check the back side of the blade for a burr.  Be very consistent with the main bevel, but also be sure to remove the burr from the back of the blade.  Because the bevel is a chisel-grind, i.e., a single bevel, you won't take the burr off when you sharpen the other side of the bevel, because there isn't a second bevel.  Leaving that burr will cause issues swiftly.  As long as you're careful with the sharpening process, it ought to sharpen up decently.  Whether it retains the edge is a different matter, but smooth skiving seems to require a mirror-like polish on a carefully tapered edge.

Thanks for this also. What are the pros for a single bevel, if any?

[Mablung]

11 hours ago, CalgaryJim said:

Thankss, good to know. I have been using a 1000/4000 stone set but I'll source an 8000 now as well.

Norton makes a good 8000-grit waterstone, which I use. You can also consider a hard Arkansas stone. I have a couple Arkansas stones as well, one of which is an Ultra-hard black stone I use for final polishing on blades I want exceptionally sharp. Those aren’t measured by grit but by specific gravity and separated into hardness grades that correspond to the specific gravity. 

11 hours ago, CalgaryJim said:

Thanks for this also. What are the pros for a single bevel, if any?

A single bevel is helpful for something like skiving, where the back of the blade can lie more flat to the surface of the leather and slide along it while the cutting bevel pushes the cut leather up and away. A double bevel pushes the leather away in two directions, which is also workable for skiving. However, some people like a single bevel for skiving for the reasons I mentioned. A single bevel can also make it easier to cut along a straight edge, arguably; I do fine with a double bevel along a straight edge, but some people like having the flat blade back to place along the straight edge. 

[MarshalWill]

I made two skiving knives. One with a single bevel and one with a double bevel. They both work great but the single bevel seems to work better pushed along an edge, although I can use either.

[CalgaryJim]

1 hour ago, MarshalWill said:

I made two skiving knives. One with a single bevel and one with a double bevel. They both work great but the single bevel seems to work better pushed along an edge, although I can use either.

Thanks, good to know.