Knife Sharpening

[Brooksie967]

I've been going to town on all my neighbours knives as of late and just wanted to hear if anyone else here has some tips/tricks for me.


First I tried my buddies Apex-Pro system but don't like that at all..

For repairs to edgers DMT 325 (There isn't a kitchen knife yet that hasn't had chipping and messed up edges).
DMT 600, DMT 1200 and then onto the big ozuku for a jnat treatment. I'm using slurry raised from my credit card sized DMT.

Essentially I'm chasing the burr at the 325 and 600 stage. Once a burr is formed along the edge I flip and reform the burr again. When I'm satisfied I'm doing 1 x stroke (one pass each side) to remove as much of the burr as possible.

I've been noticing that at the DMT1200 level I'm not getting much of a burr any more and even sometimes lose the 'grab' of the edge on my thumbnail.

Taking it up through a few refreshes with DMT slurry I'm getting beautiful mirrory bevels. At this point the grab usually comes back but not if I'm using alternate strokes; it's only realy hapenning when I stay on one side of the bevel for numerous strokes and then flip.

At the end of the day, last night I stropped a knife I had done for my neighbour that would have shaved my face if I had tries.

I'm just getting into this and was hoping for some walkthroughs on knife sharpening to help me on my way. I'm locking my wrists and fingers as best I can and trying to move back and forth at the shoulder and use body motion. I saw a video that showed 'Japanese vs. Western' blade honing and I'd say that I prefer the Japanese method that uses forward and back strokes as opposed to trying to hit the whole edge with every stroke and focus on one area at a time.

So far the only knife I've had an issue with is a 2lb meat cleaver.... The edge is coming along but I read that it needs a more obtuse angle than what I would put on a normal kitchen knife and that most people stop at the 1200 - 3k mark with cleavers as they are really meant to be used with destructive blows rather than fine strokes.

So far I've only honed peoples' junk: kitchen aid type crap, but would love to try to hone something high-end at some point

Any help is much appreciated!

 

[Steve56]

Jeremy,

Welcome to the knife world!

Sounds like you're on the right track. Keep the wrist and fingers stiff, swing as much as you can from the shoulder and elbow. You'll get so good at it you can freehand finishing strokes on a wedge - I'd have no problems doing that. You have to develop different muscles and coordination like I did going from knives to razors.

Laminated knives that have soft iron cladding is the one real reason to own Japanese natural stones, they separate the jigane (soft iron) steel from the higane (hard steel) in appearance. Image attached of a Takeda butcher knife - the "mountains and sky" pattern formed by the dark iron and hard steel would just be all polished with a synthetic, you'd see a faint line at the junction and everything else would be bright. The other reason is kasumi, the hazy finish that's traditional on Japanese cutlery, swords, planes and tools. Kasumi is really a finish that if you sight down a blade, it looks polished, but if you look head on, it looks hazy or foggy. The kasumi images attached are of a Masahiro I'm polishing. Only Japanese naturals will produce these two effects. BTW, the kanji on the Takedas read "Shosui (Takeda) loves Nimeii (his city).

I never had a really coarse stone until I did razors and wondered why razor people had all these coarse hones. The reason is you can't push nearly as hard on a razor as you can a kitchen knife. If you want more material off, you can just bear down with a knife on that 2k-3k hone and off it comes. Try that with a razor and the edge flexes.

Knives are harder on hones. You push harder on the hones, all knives smile a lot except for some traditional patterns, and if you really hone out to the tip (which you use a lot in the kitchen), you'll occasionally put a scratch in the hone face. I don't worry about the last few mm of the heel, you don't use it that much, and if you do you usually have a lot of pressure on it.

Kitchen knives in the Western world do get nicked and gnarly - they live in a world with acids, alkalis, and get beat up a lot. The knobby polyethylene cutting boards are particularly bad, they can microchip hard steel. Japanese knives in their native world fare better - the cuisine is different and they use very soft willow or spruce cutting boards that are soft enough to dent with a plate but keep the edges in good shape.

Many knives seem to have better steel than razors. The trend is to the very best steels to support very thin bevel angles not too much different from razors in the high end, a class of knives called "lasers" - the Ferraris of the knife world . Not too durable but boy do they cut and are light as a feather. You'll see Hitachi blue and white steels, Takefu steels, and the expensive and modern stainless and semi-stainless steels like ZDP and SLD. The VG10 that razor folks occasionally mention is old and "consumer grade" to knife people.

You can put a great edge on a kitchen knife with a mid-grit or razor pre-finisher. Even though modern knives are very good, they still get thicker behind the edge very quickly, so although finer hones will technically get them sharper, the increase in cutting ability doesn't seem to increase commensurate with the grit above say 6-8k. I do use finer hones because I enjoy seeing what's the best I can get.

If you buy knives, you're in for a shock. The difference between a $100 knife and a $1k knife is mostly fit and finish and $5k sushi knives are not uncommon. Well made mid-range Japanese knives start at around $350 and go up.

My favorite low end knives are Masahiros - they're sharpened 90/10 kind of like a microtome, and in the mid range I'm partial to Takeda. Takedas cut really well though they are rustic and occasionally a clunker gets by QC though I've never had one in the 4 I have. The sides are hammered concave to help keep food from sticking and the tangs are stainless so it doesn't rust in the handle. Ask around before buying, spending $500 doesn't mean you'll be getting a flat blade row (bevel) or a good cutter. Like razors, the person who makes them is everything. Arguably the best is a Shigefusa, handmade without power tools, beautiful, perfectly balanced and finished, but clad in soft iron which makes stunning damascus. With acidic Western foods, they can rust while you use them. Japanese chefs keep a damp towel folded by the cutting board and wipe the knife during use as needed. I love the one I have but doubt I'd buy another for routine use even though "curating" a patina (unpopular in Japan) helps.

Cheers, Steve

 

[drmatt357]

!!

 

[Brooksie967]

Steve, thanks a million for your reply! I actually got the email from JP and forgot to mail you back to get the conversation going PLUS I thought others might be interested here.

Your input is very appreciated and I'll keep in mind the elbow/shoulder thing.

As far as choosing bevel angles, is it really all that important? I've just been kind of basing my decision from the thickness of the blade but when you're talking 90/10 I'm not sure I understand.

I've been sharpening thinner blades with as low an angle as I can achieve without getting silly and as thickness of the blade increases, I put a more obsute angle on it.

I don't understand 'left and right' hand bevels and surely have a lot to learn. I was browsing at some forums and didn't really get a good feeling from what I was reading at them so I wanted experts here to get involved in the discussion. If you know of other places with a good knowledge base I'd be interested to hear from you.

Steve, when are you sending me that gorgeous knife?

 

[jpcwon]

Very cool, guys.... This seems like a whole new 'rabbit hole' that I could see myself jumping down!

Right now I don't have any 'nice' knives to sharpen, but I have a plan.... Maybe I'll buy Mrs. JP a few nice knives for Xmas; then she'll be able to use them for cooking and I'll have an excuse to sharpen them!! haha....

 

[Steve56]

Bevels can be important, but again, the guy that makes the knife is the most important. Traditional Japanese knives have different uses and are ground differently from Western knives. Attached is an end-on image of a right-handed usuba, a Japanese vegetable knife. BTW, don't buy one! It's ground kind of like a kamisori - back is slightly hollow, front is a flat huge "bevel". This blade is usually held in the left hand and a daikon radish, carrot, etc is "rolled" against it to cut paper-thin sheets used in Japanese cuisine. It is not a good Western style vegetable knife, it's too heavy, badly balanced using the handle and the edge is perfectly straight.

Knives like this and the more conventional 90/10 Masahiro (which is a good Western style knife) are intended to not put pressure on or "wedge" the food when cutting; the flat left side (on a right handed knife) doesn't wedge the left side of what you're cutting, and the right side kind of pushes off what you're cutting. The Japanese ideally would like the blade to cut only through a one-cell layer of food when it cuts; they say that heavy wedge-type grinds rupture a lot of the food and make a difference in the taste of delicate foods. True? Beats me but they evolved knives to meet their needs so probably yes to some extent. Does it make a difference? Not that much, maybe not at all for western foods but the edge is thinner because of the asymmetric grind - just like if you sliced a razor in half spine to edge you'd have half the bevel angle.

Most knives however are 50/50 just like most razors are.

Cheers, Steve

 

[deruitem]

First I tried my buddies Apex-Pro system but don't like that at all..

I love mine, I use it often. It takes some practice and the instructional video helps a lot. After that I can put an edge on a knife with no problems

 

[Brooksie967]

I love mine, I use it often. It takes some practice and the instructional video helps a lot. After that I can put an edge on a knife with no problems

I fooled around with it for a few hours. If there were the ability to 'clamp' the knife I think I might have liked it better. I'm really really enjoying doing this freehand though.

 

[inspiringK]

Sounds like you are doing well, and there is some good advice above already. Any time you are grabbing someone else’s knives and giving them a first sharpen it’s bound to take long and give some problems. For what it’s worth, it takes about 90% less time for me to sharpen my own Japanese and French knives than it does to sharpen a friend’s knives.

Here’s a thread I posted a long time ago when I first started. The info is still good, the only thing I have changed is picked up a big DMT for lapping and I use less strokes now that I am more efficient. There are also a few good video links scattered in with the rest.

http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/305785-All-I-know-about-sharpening-knives?highlight=

 

[inspiringK]

I fooled around with it for a few hours. If there were the ability to 'clamp' the knife I think I might have liked it better. I'm really really enjoying doing this freehand though.

I agree, there's something more enjoyable about going freehand.

 

[ouch]

Great posts, Steve56.

I agree than an usuba probably won't see too much use in a home kitchen, as they are so specialized. I would recommend a nakiri instead.

 

[Steve56]

Folks,

Chef's Knives to Go is a good place to learn about what's being made. Mark frequently puts up a little blurb for each brand, telling how it's made, a little about the maker, and what it's made of. You can get a good idea of what artisinal makers are doing. CKTG also offers some Japanese naturals cut for the Edge pro system, though I've never used a mechanical sharpening system, I like freehand too.

He also had those $70 Ozukus at one time and the one I got is a really good razor hone though harder than I'd optimally like. He has some good stones sporadically, but he's not an expert on razor hones.

http://www.chefknivestogo.com/kitchen-knives.html

Click on the "knife brands" tab at the top of the page to see them all.

Cheers, Steve

 

[Steve56]

Hey Jeremy,

Here's an image of that Takeda honesuki (chicken knife) slicing the wrinkles off a sheet of paper. Not bad for a blade that's 3/16" thick!

Sharpened freehand.

Cheers, Steve

 

[Brooksie967]

YES Steve! Not only is that a gorgeous knife that's pretty impressive!
Can you edit that image and show me the width of the bevel?
The rest of the edge is polished using fingerstones, no?

 

[Steve56]

Hi Jeremy,

That IS the bevel! I'll sometimes put a micro bevel on it with 4-6 light strokes at the end of final honing, but that's just insurance against a wire edge since you usually use more pressure with a knife.

Cheers, Steve

 

[jpcwon]

Beautiful! Is that the Jigane/Hagane line that runs parallel to the edge?

 

[Steve56]

Yep, that's it. the jigane is the dark metal on the bevel and the higane is the core hard steel that makes the edge, in this case Hitachi aogami (blue steel) super steel. Mountains and sky.

Cheers, Steve

 

[Brooksie967]

I imagine with a bevel that wide it's much easier to have that laying on your stones than say a bevel 2mm wide and trying to keep focus on it the whole time?

 

[LeftyT]

Nice. Takedas are good knives. There were far too many words in these posts, but feel free to hassle me about sharpening, or knife questions. Haha.

 

[Steve56]

Jeremy,

Yes, I do use Uchigumori fingerstones to touch up the bevel appearance sometimes, but it isn't that much different than what comes off a good JNat finisher. If you're traditional, you use TWO Uchigumori stones, a softer coarser hato for the hard steel and a finer, harder jito for the soft! It brings the polish a little closer but the stones vary widely and I like just using the hato given the particular Uchigumori I have.

Chers, Steve