I have a quite embarrassing story behind this one. I flew to the States to spend my exchange year and when the school started there I noticed that one of my tools actually wasn't mine. I must have put this in my tool box at our school studio back in Helsinki. So I technically, accidentally, stole this one. Along the year me and the knife, we grew liking each other very much. Despite it's suspicious look, it's great for cutting clay, making sharp thin lines and detailed textures. It's the best knife I could ever wish for.
I feel bad thinking that somebody else might still miss their best knife. So if the original owner can prove that I stole their 'throatslitter' I guess I owe the person a dinner to try to make things even. Although, I remember that during that very year I lost an awesome brush, almost as an exchange to the clay universe.
During a wheel throwing workshop by visiting professor Motokazu Ichino at Aalto University I learned something about rusty knives. The reason why Japanese potters keep their knives rusty is that the tool could take a better grip of the clay. I believe this doesn't work that well with the whitest porcelain, though. For the very same reason why newspaper isn't that great idea when working with porcelain bodies - the iron.