difrence in grinds between German and Japanese kitchen knives?

[bronyblacksmith]

I have made a Japanese kitchen knife recently with semi correct a semetrical convex grinds. But l have never made any other style of kitchen knife And wanted to know if there is any difrence between the way a German style kitchen knife should be ground? And how thick should it be at the spine? Any other advice is appreciated

 

[viral]

The actual grind, I'm not sure. Maybe Stacy will weigh in on the topic. As for profiles. German knives are usually a bit thicker and heavier where as Japanese are much thinner and delicate. If you look up German/American knives there is only a handful of different true profiles. Butcher, chef, paring, cleaver. But with Japanese knives, there is literally a knife made for each and every task. So Japanese knives are made for 1 purpose whereas German are made to encompass more than one. That being said, a German chef must be thicker to accommodate for what it has to accomplish. I hope this helps some. I'll follow this and see what comes of it.
Great question.
-joe

 

[javand]

Most higher end European kitchen knives I've seen are *FULL* flat grinds with a total distal taper. Many tapering from heel to tip. Thickness varies from manufacturer or maker, and depends on taper. If you start at 1/8 and barely taper distally, it's going to act a lot different than if you taper it completely. Many of the lower end factory German knives may be less aggressively tapered, and have blunter edge geometry, but that's usually a result of warranty concerns and pandering to lack of customer education. Some are integrals, some are not. Many are plungeless with compound grinds.


I've seen some higher end European knives, especially older ones, that were just as thin as many of the Japanese knives, thinner even than many of the styles, like the chisel ground types. (Sorry I'm not an expert on the different styles and names of Japanese knives) Some of the nicer custom Japanese blades are quite thin, but less aggressively tapered.

Many of the current Japanese styles are interpretations of Western style knives, and the same is true of many of the currently produced European knives, being interpretations of Japanese style knives. It's really all quite vague and intertwined, and heavily compounded with a pretty huge lack of consumer education.

 

[jdm61]

A goodly number of the double bevel Japanese knives like the gyuto are "interpretations" of the classic French kitchen knives like the Sabatiers, but without the thick bolster. A lot of the differences come down to steel choice and hardness. That allows the Japanese knives to be thinner.