Angles for butcher knives

[Leo Barr]

Often thinning takes time and either using the weps or freehand it pays to thin in increments nothing ever goes well if you get bored an honyaki nakiri of mine took around 4 hours to thin but it needed it I think some of the clad paring or petty knives are often too thick Tojiro is one make in particular even though it means thinning away some of the damascus cladding then knife is better for it.
You are right you cannot put it back if you take too much away but bear in mind a steel spatular for spreading filler often cuts carrots exceedingly well unlike a razor sharp axe.
Thinning a low angles should be done slowly when the knife next needs attention search for micro chips that is often a sign of either misses or the blade reaching its limits.
I think the biggest decider on the matter is the user some people really mistreat their knives whilst a careful user can use a knife that sticks in the cutting board with made of very average steel with no blade damage.
In reality in both blade & edge geometry has no finite numbers the higher quality Japanese knives have no recommended angle since it is down to the user how they like their blade.

[mike]

when i get my system i plan on getting some knives at a thrift store to practice on. in my knife bag for work i also have a couple knives i can experiment with edge angles on. im just seriously curious how long a super low angle can last where i work. is it sensitive enough that a light tap with the edge on the cutting board will roll the edge over? i mean surely its not going to be tin foil.

[Austin Nelson]

That all depends on the steel and the hardness for sure.

Austin

[mike]

I’m not sure what steel victorinox uses, but.from experience it tends to be soft

I can’t use any of those expensive sushi knives either because I have to have an antibacterial handle for health code reasons

[Leo Barr]

You can still tune the blade so to speak by thinning behind the edge , then steepening at the edge.
I took a Chinese 2$ knife and did a zero grind on it I left a little thickness at the edge it cuts extremely well all things considered (razor sharp but not too delicate).

[tcmeyer]

I had the same experience. I bought a set of Chicago Cutlery for $20 from Bed, Bath & Beyond. It was cheap enough that I could experiment with. I took the chef’s knife and thinned it on my 400 grit 6X48 belt sander. I Held the handle with one hand and applied pressure along the edge with the fingers of my other hand. When it got pretty warm, I’d hold the knife over a bucket and wipe it down with a soaking wet wad of paper towels. It worked great, got the thickness of the edge to about 0.010″ at the base of the bevels. And wow, does it cut! Better than the best Wuesthofs we have. You don’t have to go down to razor thin and a foil edge to get great results.

Before the thinning, I noted that this knife could not cut thin slices of a radish. The inside shoulder would push the knife away from the radish. This is a fault with all thick chefs’ knives and demonstrates why some knives have chisel edges (beveled only on one side); left or right hand, depending on the user’s dominant hand.

[mike]

so by thinning the blade you actually mean taking it to a belt sander and making the blade itself thinner? i dont really have the resources to do that at the moment

[tcmeyer]

That’s right. It’s also what Josh at Razoredgeknives refers to as a “regrind.”

[Leo Barr]

This is Kenneth 123 doing the zero grind

IU thought this may be helpful

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