German vs Japanese sharpening angles - I'm confused.

[peanutaxis]

Hi,

So I have started buying some Japanese knives after only really owning Wusthof. People seem to be saying that the Japanese steels - particularly the high carbon ones - can take much steeper angles, and then they tend to state that 13° is common. But Wusthof says they do their regular blades at 14° and their Japanese style knives at 10°. So....wut?

Unless the 13° people state for Japanese knives is NOT per side??


Thanks,
p

p.s. this is now relevant to me because one of the Japanese knives I bought is a Hatsukokoro ("seconds") knife and didn't come very sharp at all.

 

[Papilio]

13° must be per side. 6.5° per side would give you a very fragile edge.

You could use a Sharpie and mark the secondary bevel to get a feel for the correct angle.

 

[UncleBoots]

This Williams-Sonoma document clears up some of the confusion.

It touts the Wusthof 28 degree inclusive/14 degree per side bevel angle that you mention, but also strongly implies that this is something new for Wusthof. They even give the "technology" a fancy new name. That accounts for the difference between this 14 degree claim, and my recollection that Wusthof and similar soft stainless knives are typically sharpened to 18-20 degrees. I assume they did this because they were trying to compete with Japanese-style knives. The implication is that they've changed something about the steel, or the steel process, to support these edges, while keeping the softer steel characteristics that people are used to.

13-14 degrees is where I keep my Japanese kitchen knives, generally. 10 is very low. I use it on very thin Japanese knives like Takamura, which are intended only for gentle slicing. I wouldn't use it on a knife that was going to have more vigorous cutting board impact.

 

[Diemaker]

I recently sharpened a Japanese knife for a friend with a HAP40 core, it was 10 degrees single bevel. It had been 3 years since it was last sharpened so whatever damage had been done was worn off by the time I got it.

 

[peanutaxis]

This Williams-Sonoma document clears up some of the confusion.

It touts the Wusthof 28 degree inclusive/14 degree per side bevel angle that you mention, but also strongly implies that this is something new for Wusthof. They even give the "technology" a fancy new name. That accounts for the difference between this 14 degree claim, and my recollection that Wusthof and similar soft stainless knives are typically sharpened to 18-20 degrees. I assume they did this because they were trying to compete with Japanese-style knives. The implication is that they've changed something about the steel, or the steel process, to support these edges, while keeping the softer steel characteristics that people are used to.

13-14 degrees is where I keep my Japanese kitchen knives, generally. 10 is very low. I use it on very thin Japanese knives like Takamura, which are intended only for gentle slicing. I wouldn't use it on a knife that was going to have more vigorous cutting board impact.

Right, thanks. Kind of disturbing, then, that the Wusthof [Classic] Santoku - my favourite knife of all time - has only 10 degrees per side. Though with their steel maybe it's more forgiving against chipping. Recently sharpened it. There were significant chips in it, but then I'd kept the factory edge for several years.

I've sharpened my Hatsukokoro to about 10 degrees or even less. I'll be interested in how it performs and survives.

 

[garry3]

Hi,

So I have started buying some Japanese knives after only really owning Wusthof. People seem to be saying that the Japanese steels - particularly the high carbon ones - can take much steeper angles, and then they tend to state that 13° is common. But Wusthof says they do their regular blades at 14° and their Japanese style knives at 10°. So....wut?

Unless the 13° people state for Japanese knives is NOT per side??


Thanks,
p

p.s. this is now relevant to me because one of the Japanese knives I bought is a Hatsukokoro ("seconds") knife and didn't come very sharp at all.

I've heard the ten degree per side isn't holding up that well, but I don't know that as a fact.

Ten per side and a micro bevel might work out pretty well...

 

[me2]

The biggest difference is those German angles are probably off one were to measure them. The Japanese angles seem likely to be accurate.