Leo: Amazing that you should mention radishes. This week I was slicing veggies for a salad and I grabbed a very cheap Chicago 8″ chef’s knife to try out a convex edge I’d put in a few weeks ago. When I tried to take very thin slices, I was stunned to see that the knife simply wouldn’t work! As the knife proceeded downward, the edge would be forced to the “thin” side, making it almost impossible to cut a truly thin slice. It was obvious that the thickness of the blade at the shoulders of the bevels was the culprit. Aha! Finally an opportunity to tackle a thinning job.
I have a Rikon 6X48″ belt sander and I installed a 400-grit belt to start with. After some truly awful first stabs at it, I settled in on lying the blade flat on the belt, edge trailing, with the point angled upstream at about 45 degrees. I applied pressure with my fingers along the back of the edge and as I felt heat, I’d take the blade to a pan of cold water, where I had a Bounty paper towel soaking. I’d wipe the blade down to cool it, then return to the belt. I did this on both sides and was amazed at how quickly and how uniformly the process went. In less than ten minutes, the edge was down to about 0.020″ just behind the bevels. I cleaned the blade up with polishing wheels of 400 and 600 grit and finished with Ken Schwartz’s 16 and 4 micron diamond wheels. The finish is better than the factory finish . I put on a 15-dps edge with the WEPS and cutting radishes is now an unreal experience. If the blade doesn’t stand up very well with the 15 dps edge, I’ll put on a micro-bevel of about 20 dps.
Now I know that doing this to a Japanese knife would subject me to banishment from the forum, 😛 but for the millions of cheap kitchen knives out there, there is hope. You needn’t invest a week of effort to achieve your goals.
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