Blade angle...

dougcrann

Folks that sharpen your own blades...what angle do you use? Been using an Edge Pro Apex for a while now. Was using 15*, while the knives were super sharp I was struggling cutting meat. Backed off to 21* have yet to use any of them yet...other than for slicing some onions.....

The Cen-Tex Smoker

17.5 for my Japanese steel and 20 for everything else. 

The Cen-Tex Smoker

the shuns are my chef knives (17.5) and I use a bunch of cheap stuff from Costco to victorinox (all at 20) for the heavy lifting. I love them all.  

nolaegghead

I keep the factory angle on everything.  Like Cen-Tex said.  I match the angle - changing it on an Edge Pro Apex is a lot of work.  I have a Tormek (German clone water stone) for that, but I only change the angle for pairing and filet knives.

SGH

dougcrann said:

Folks that sharpen your own blades...what angle do you use? 

Brother Crann, that just depends. What should determine your angle more so than anything else is how and what the knife will be used for. Followed closely by how hard the blade material is. These two things determine what is the best angle for the blade in question. With that said, for general meat cutting use, 20-22 degrees on a double beveled blade will provide both adequate sharpness and edge durability for general use in the meat cutting arena. As with most things, there are certainly exceptions to this rule. One being some of the "harder" blades which will benefit from a 17 degree angle. Here is a good rule of thumb for meat cutting knives. If you paid $100.00 or less for the knife, chances are it will work best with a 20-22 degree double bevel. The exception to this $100.00 dollar rule is fillet knives. Even the cheapest ones need a 17 degree angle due to the "throat" of the blade. Hope this helps my friend. 

1move

15° on my Japanese knives, 20° on my German knives

bigbadben

I think factory shuns are 16 degrees. I went to 17 degrees on my lansky setup. 

I think my knives stay sharp because I am militant about use and handeling. 

hondabbq

I was taught to go flat by a very respected Japanese chef I worked for. I tried it and I have never looked back. It took some time to change all my knives to this but its well worth it.  All my work knives are completely flat no bevel at all.

gdenby

dougcrann said:

Folks that sharpen your own blades...what angle do you use? Been using an Edge Pro Apex for a while now. Was using 15*, while the knives were super sharp I was struggling cutting meat. Backed off to 21* have yet to use any of them yet...other than for slicing some onions.....

When I first got my Edge Pro, I practiced on a bunch of knives I bought from 2nd hand stores. I found that a lot of the edges that I took down to 18 or lower would role after 4 -5 cuts. My guess is that the steel you have isn't hard enough to hold 15. Get a magnifying glass, and inspect the edges and see if they are wobbly after a few cuts.

Depending on what you are cutting, the fineness of the grit used to finish the bevel can make a difference. For nice clean tearless onion cutting, go all the way to 1200 grit or higher. Tough meats are easier to cut for me when I go to around 600 grit.

gdenby

hondabbq said:

I was taught to go flat by a very respected Japanese chef I worked for. I tried it and I have never looked back. It took some time to change all my knives to this but its well worth it.  All my work knives are completely flat no bevel at all.

In other word, the whole blade is the bevel? It just taper continuously from spine to edge?

hondabbq

gdenby said:

hondabbq said:

I was taught to go flat by a very respected Japanese chef I worked for. I tried it and I have never looked back. It took some time to change all my knives to this but its well worth it.  All my work knives are completely flat no bevel at all.

In other word, the whole blade is the bevel? It just taper continuously from spine to edge?

Yes sir.

I just lay my knives on my stones. I only need to stone them a couple times a year. My steel keeps them in check daily.

I used a 400 all the way up to 8000 grit stones, to get them where they are. My knives are work knives not pretty kitchen knives. I have several that I use for certain jobs/tasks, ie Glestain, Victoraknox, Trident, Giesser and CCI.

dougcrann

We worked with a guy that sold knives. My wife,has always wanted Henckels, Paul sold us a complete set at cost. Was less than half of retail. Would have to dig thru the box with my old Lansky in it, think the literature they came with said 21*. Would you folks considerhere knives to be of a harder steel? 
@hondabbq..."go flat"? Would you mind mind explaining please?
At the suggestion of a knife maker I changed the angles on the kitchen knifes to 15*. While they were very sharp they didn't cut all that well, if that makes sense. First time Ernestina used one of them she complained of thints clinging to the blade. Think the knife builder called it stiction (?). 
I wish I had got the other sharpener that Ben offers. Ernie sews. Ernie has at least14 pairs of scissors.  The other sharpener does scissors. 
Have seen folks sharpen blades "freehand". Wish I had the touch for it. 

fishlessman

the japanese blades are usually harder, have less rock to them when cutting, and you use more of a slicing motion, they need a sharper grind. the german knifes are generally softer, easier to sharpen, the cut is by rocking and pushing downward into the board, you want the duller angle in general for something like a chef knife. you need to decide how your going to use it

hondabbq

dougcrann said:
@hondabbq..."go flat"? Would you mind mind explaining please?

Get a stone. Lay blade on said stone. Sharpen.

I only use Japanese wet stones as well.

As I said I went up 5 stones starting with a 400 and ended up with an 8000 grit stone. The 8000 put it back to being shiny and nice, now I don't bother.

dougcrann

@hondabbq...Thank you