Cutting edge/sharpening

A

AustinS1234

Joined
Jun 8, 2018
Messages
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I think I know the answer to this but I’m still just guessing and would like more input. How do you make the secondary bevel (cutting edge) as short as possible without making the angle stout. Example: a chef knife I want a 17degree angle but as I’m sharpening on my wicked edge sharpener the edge is carrying further towards the spine than I would like. Is this a product of how thick my edge was before I started sharpening?
 
you're right on the money brother, I know most people sharpen their kitchen cutlery as a stage of the grinding and literally thin it out & convex it. This is how they get those CHOIL shots everyone does, but i'm curious how much give they have etc and how they hold up. The average user is an abuser of everything nice.
 
DustinY said:
you're right on the money brother, I know most people sharpen their kitchen cutlery as a stage of the grinding and literally thin it out & convex it. This is how they get those CHOIL shots everyone does, but i'm curious how much give they have etc and how they hold up. The average user is an abuser of everything nice.
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I was thinking about making my next chef knife like that but I thought the same thing! Sense it is for a customer I’m going to keep it just a tad thick on the edge. I have just been noticing that I don’t like how my sharpened edges look. Thanks for the input!!
 
DustinY said:
you're right on the money brother, I know most people sharpen their kitchen cutlery as a stage of the grinding and literally thin it out & convex it. This is how they get those CHOIL shots everyone does, but i'm curious how much give they have etc and how they hold up. The average user is an abuser of everything nice.
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This just made me think of something. Once sharpened and finished to a polish how would you re sharpen the blade later down the road if you sharpened it in the final stages of grinding the bevels? Won’t that ruin the finish?
 
AustinS1234 said:
I think I know the answer to this but I’m still just guessing and would like more input. How do you make the secondary bevel (cutting edge) as short as possible without making the angle stout. Example: a chef knife I want a 17degree angle but as I’m sharpening on my wicked edge sharpener the edge is carrying further towards the spine than I would like. Is this a product of how thick my edge was before I started sharpening?
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Yes it is. If you want a skinny bevel at a set angle you need to grind thin. The thinner the bevel BTE the smaller the bevel will be.
 
AustinS1234 said:
This just made me think of something. Once sharpened and finished to a polish how would you re sharpen the blade later down the road if you sharpened it in the final stages of grinding the bevels? Won’t that ruin the finish?
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Austin - i have fairly frequently chimed in here regarding original make versus long term “maintainability”. That had ... upset ... some people. But heck - here i go again. :-). Honestly, i think the answer is likely mixed. Others here have way more experience than me ... but my experience is that, as stacy said, with a really thin primary bevel, the actual edge is almost invisible. My guess is that with repeated sharpenings, a thin primary will keep that edge really small for quite a while. On the other hand, you need a harder steel to support that edge... which makes it harder to sharpen (for many users).
On the other, other hand, like you said, some customers may benefit from a thicker BTE to stand up to use ... but then you have the appearance you mention, and also the blade will lose the feel of achieving a nice clean slice. Depends on the user i guess? Are you able to talk through with the customer the pros and cons of either approach?

example: i have a rather nice commercially made Nakiri, Hitachi white steel. I sharpen to 15 degrees per side, and it achieves a really nice edge. BUT, it always had a really bad (thick) bte measure, and so it has the appearance you mention, and also had the feel more of “chopping” through food than “slicing”. I am actually planning to regrind it to improve the bte ... and will shortly be starting a thread with photos looking for thoughts from the forum before i start up with the belt...
 
Cushing H. said:
Austin - i have fairly frequently chimed in here regarding original make versus long term “maintainability”. That had ... upset ... some people. But heck - here i go again. :). Honestly, i think the answer is likely mixed. Others here have way more experience than me ... but my experience is that, as stacy said, with a really thin primary bevel, the actual edge is almost invisible. My guess is that with repeated sharpenings, a thin primary will keep that edge really small for quite a while. On the other hand, you need a harder steel to support that edge... which makes it harder to sharpen (for many users).
On the other, other hand, like you said, some customers may benefit from a thicker BTE to stand up to use ... but then you have the appearance you mention, and also the blade will lose the feel of achieving a nice clean slice. Depends on the user i guess? Are you able to talk through with the customer the pros and cons of either approach?

example: i have a rather nice commercially made Nakiri, Hitachi white steel. I sharpen to 15 degrees per side, and it achieves a really nice edge. BUT, it always had a really bad (thick) bte measure, and so it has the appearance you mention, and also had the feel more of “chopping” through food than “slicing”. I am actually planning to regrind it to improve the bte ... and will shortly be starting a thread with photos looking for thoughts from the forum before i start up with the belt...
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Generally my customers don’t exactly know the difference between stainless and high carbon and I try to make all this sound as simple as I can. I feel like if I brought up edge geometry it would be a whole thing haha. I’m just going have to experiment with a nice mix of thin and not too thin that the edge will chip or roll.
 
AustinS1234 said:
Generally my customers don’t exactly know the difference between stainless and high carbon and I try to make all this sound as simple as I can. I feel like if I brought up edge geometry it would be a whole thing haha. I’m just going have to experiment with a nice mix of thin and not too thin that the edge will chip or roll.
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There are steels like Cushings stated that are designed for this ultra thin geometry. BTE (behind the edge), it’s just nomenclature for the area behind the primary (sharpening bevel).

I’d really like to see the testing and knives I see online that are ULTRA thin and how they hold up.
 
be aware that the farther your edge is from the clamp jaws ( i am saying this because kitchen knives are much wider), the lower your angle will be. it says 17 degrees but 2 inches out from the clamp it might be 13 degrees. that would make the face of your secondary edge much wider. you might have to go to 25 degrees to get an actual 17 degrees 2 inches out from the clamp jaws.
 
AustinS1234 said:
I think I know the answer to this but I’m still just guessing and would like more input. How do you make the secondary bevel (cutting edge) as short as possible without making the angle stout. Example: a chef knife I want a 17degree angle but as I’m sharpening on my wicked edge sharpener the edge is carrying further towards the spine than I would like. Is this a product of how thick my edge was before I started sharpening?
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Grind the blade thinner behind the edge, thinner wedge, thinner edge.
 
john april said:
be aware that the farther your edge is from the clamp jaws ( i am saying this because kitchen knives are much wider), the lower your angle will be. it says 17 degrees but 2 inches out from the clamp it might be 13 degrees. that would make the face of your secondary edge much wider. you might have to go to 25 degrees to get an actual 17 degrees 2 inches out from the clamp jaws.
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Thats a good point. I have never thought of that. Ill have to put an angle finder on the stone and see what I get. Thanks!
 
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