Dual Vise “Big Rig” setup on a difficult knife

[Marc H]

I sharpened my Takeda NAS tall 210mm Wa Gyuto today. It’s the thinnest bladed Japanese Chef’s knife in my kitchen at less than 1.5mm thick in the heel at the handle.  It’s made of high carbon Aogami Super, HRc 63-64.  It’s sharpened at 11º per side.  The thinness and the flexibility of the blade steel make it challenging to sharpen this knife in my single center vise WE130 setup.  The dual vises stabilize the blade to overcome the flexing.  The center vise-less carriage with its square bar holds the guide rods centrally where conflict with the jaws due to low bevel angle is not an issue.

I sharpened it with whetstones because that’s what I prefer to use, although this high carbon steel will sharpen nicely with diamond stones.  I use Naniwa Super S2 Stones 400- 3000 grit.

I was not intentionally looking to apply a polish to the edge although it came up nicely polished with the 4µ/2µ strops I finished with.

With the thin blade steel and the narrow bevels I expected a good sharpening result. I was very pleased with the BESS Scores.

Marc
(MarcH's Rack-Its)

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2 users thanked author for this post.

Mike, 000Robert

[000Robert]

Wow! That is a thin blade.

[tcmeyer]

Very impressive, Marc:  Do you mean the thickness of the blade where it enters the handle is 1.5mm?  Is it fairly constant along the spine?  What is the thickness at the shoulders?

I made a couple of simple kitchen knives out of 0.093″ steel with the blades about 7″ long and 0.015″ across the shoulders and I think they’re way too thick.  I’m regrinding them and am curious as to how thin I should go along the spines.

[Marc H]

I measured 1.2mm at the shoulder on the heel.  He describes it nicely:

 

Marc
(MarcH's Rack-Its)

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