First kitchen knives, need help.

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Adam Reese

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Hello everyone,

I am currently in the middle of grinding my first two chef knives, and I had a question for more experieced knife makers than myself. I am starting with Aldo's 1095 in .09" thickness. I heat treated the blades first (with hamons;)) to try and avoid any warpage. They are currently at 63 rc and one is ground down to .011 behind the edge (haven't started grinding the other one yet). I am worried about them being to hard/chippy, so my question is should I leave the edge a little thicker, or temper them to a higher temperature and bring them down to about 61?



Thanks
Adam
 
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I personally have not used 1095 before and not sure that the hamon will make any difference, but when I would make chef/kitchen knives from O1 I would generally try to get them to 61.
 
Adam, I think the best thing to do in your situation is test the blades before putting handles on them. 1095 at 63 on a kitchen knife should be good to go without chipping, but if you're going to be going through bone and what have you....maybe bump it down to 60-61. If your testing shows that the edge is chippy, put it back into your tempering oven and add about 25 degrees more, and try from there. I think the only way to know is to test it.
 
Chris,
I know the hamon will not make any difference for this application, it is just for asthetics.

I am planning on testing the blades, but I wanted to first see if I was even in the right Rc for this application.

-Adam
 
I would not worry about a chippy edge. If it does happen the next sharpening will thicken the edge and should take care of it. I would not try to purposely leave the edge thicker because it will negatively impact cutting performance right from the start. Many japanese knives are ground thin and hard and after a few sharpenings, the users habits and the steel properties will work out how thin the edge ends up.
 
hardest part of making kitchen knives is knowig wht the buy will do with them. some will want a heavey hard user and others want a light fast and thin. makig stock knives for my retilers in some shapes i split the differance. for knives liek a nakiri or suji i grind thin due to the designed uses of the blade (i make chef knives mostly by orde so i can grind it to fit the b=uyer )
 
Butch that is exactly how I feel about this thing. I finished grinding one of the knives and I am not sure what the final edge ended up being, but it is pretty thin. Overall, I am pretty happy where it ended up. I think it will be a great general purpose chef. I'll try and get some pictures of it when I'm done polishing the hamon out. The biggest thing will be when someone really puts this thing through it's paces in the kitchen, then we will really see how I did!:)

-Adam
 
Good point about the geometry.


I re-sharpened several knives for a chef recently, and he said one went dull in a week of use. He brought it back for me to re-sharpen it.

It was a large sashimi style blade. He had been sharpening it for years with a Chef's choice style sharpener, and the blade had become a double bevel edge on a single bevel knife. The edge had walked back probably 1/4" with all the sharpening, and was quite thick. I had restored the single grind and set a very fine and extremely sharp edge on it.

The edge was now nothing but minute chips. I asked what he cut with it and his answer was, "everything!". He uses it to chop vegies, break down poultry, etc. I re-sharpened the blade with a small secondary edge on the primary single bevel (about 10 degrees higher than the main bevel), and made the edge thicker ...... he loves it now.
 
I have been making a lot of kitchen knives in 1095 lately. 8" chefs are out of 3/32" stock also, but from Jantz, even though I do like aldos 1095 also.

I have no idea what they Rockwell at as I don't have a tester, but a new 8" Nicholson mill bastard file will just skate on the tempered blade.

I like to grind them thin. my thoughts on that are that the buyer can always sharpen them back or put a steeper angle on fairly easily, but its not so easy for most to thin them out. as most folks don't have grinders, or the patience to thin them out on a stone.

I do spend as much time as I can in my kitchen using them to see how well they work for me, but im not even a good cook, much less a chef, so my kitchen knife skills are pretty basic.

the most recent one that ended up in my kitchen in ground about as thin as I will grind them. I like to take 3 measurements so I have more to compare with than just the edge and the spine. I take the thickness of the blade at the shoulder of the edge {where the sharpening marks stop}, then take another 1/4" behind the very edge, and then the spine. this one was .082" at the spine, .017-1/4"behind the edge, and .004 at the shoulder of the edge. this was a 7 1/2" blade santoku, 2" wide.

I started off pretty light, nice easy cuts through about 5 lbs of potatoes for French fries, then sliced 10 lbs of apples for dehydrated apple chips, next day was oven veggies, potatoes, carrots, celery, onions. it is really nice to just run the blade over a carrot and with very little pressure to have it cut to the board. there wasn't any edge damage or noticeable dulling after that.

so I got more abusive, cutting through avacados, pits included, slamming the edge onto the board, and then scraping the edge sideways to move the cut pieces to the side {horrible sound}, and after 7 avacados for guackamole, with the scraping, I noticed some bright spots on the edge. 2-3 strokes on each side with a diamond hone "steel" took care of those and back to good. It is pretty interesting to see how strong the steel is even at that thickness.

I would guess that most of the bigger chefs and santokus that I grind are .006-.008 at the shoulder of the edge, and .018-.025" 1/4" behind the edge, and .090"ish at the spine. unless someone orders one thicker.

I did do some destructive testing with her the other morning, I watched a youtube video of a maker chopping a 2x4 in half with one of his chef knives. at first I was horrified, as I figured that with one of mine that there was no way that the thin edge could take that without chipping. but, it being early in the morning and only halfway through the first cup of coffee, I grabbed that thin santoku and a 2x2, and with one light chop, chipped a 1/3" wide chip right out of the edge about 1/8" deep. so now I have 1/8" of edge on the rest of the edge to abuse before I sharpen the chip out to see what it will take.
 
All I can say is that you must test your knives on what they will be used for. I was talking to a maker and they had mentioned that they never tried cutting potatoes with their grind before to test for stiction. If you are going to make kitchen knives, test them on all manner of product, and no you don't have to be a chef to know if it cuts nicely. The best kitchen knives I have literally fall through product if used in a push cut manner and they are not lasers. The grind is so important as it dictates how well it cuts and how poorly food adheres to it. There's nothing worse than trying to slice onions or potatoes only to have each slice stick to the blade or god forbid, terrible wedging with root vegetables.

I love the fact that Joe Calton does so much testing and the results are apparent with my 10" chef's knife that I commissioned from him. His knife is an absolute pleasure to use no matter what product I happen to be cutting.

Another thing to mention is the importance of handle ergonomics, knuckle clearance and finally the profile of the blade. Too much belly is a bad thing in kitchen knives, yet so many new makers seem to think the opposite. Look at the master's of kitchen knives, the French (Sabatier) and the Japanese for inspiration. Don't try to reinvent the wheel as these knives are made for using and what works has already been discovered. When I look at some of the best U.S. kitchen knife makers (Bill Burke, Devin Thomas, Michael Rader, Kramer and Butch) they have preserved extremely functional profiles while still tweaking a few details here and there to create their own unique style. Stick with what works, that is the most important.

Last but not least, when it comes to gathering opinions on your design, don't assume a local chef knows what they are doing. I know many chef's at some really high-end restaurants in Chicago who have no idea what a good knife is. I would recommend doing a pass around with some kitchen knife experts, both in a professional environment and also some in a home environment. If you need help I would be glad to point you in the right direction.

Just my two cents...
 
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