Good morning to you all. I hope you can tolerate an enthusiastic newcomer.
I used to own a sushi restaurant. It didnt survive long the cost of the head chefs salary pretty well put us out of business. During our short time together, Shunji San taught me to sharpen Japanese style, on a wet-stone, under a trickle of water. His own knives were devastatingly sharp, and so they should have been too: his 12 sushi knife cost a huge fortune, even in Japan. He reported that hed had it for nearly twenty years. Before we all parted company, he went to and from Japan, and at my request, brought back a top quality sushi knife and a heavy deba type for me. He also gave me an M15 Shapton wet-stone. When the knives arrived, he told me to go and sharpen them. They already felt sharp to me. Anyway, I spent three or four hours making them sharp enough to cut with nary but a glance in their direction, and took them back to Shunji San. Not sharp, he said, and took them away to do them properly for me. So thats my short apprenticeship described, in a nutshell.
To my innocent mind, sharpening a deep, flat bevel (or bevels) is a sensible way of maintaining an edge, and ensuring that it is always at a constant angle. Obviously, the two Japanese knives were single bevelled. So, when it came to selecting a new knife for field dressing deer, I chose a two-flat bevelled knife a high quality Finnish puukko. This is now almost too sharp to be taken out of its sheath.
BUT as many of you will be saying at this point, field dressing a big deer almost always requires that the knife be given a stroke or two on the stone. Thats fine with some knives, but a quick stroke or two with anything, on a finely honed straight bevel edge just screws it up disastrously. Sharpening these things is not really a field job. Did I choose the wrong knife?
Another question: where the blade thins, towards the point, how does one maintain that essential flat-to-the-stone angle on a wet-stone, when the flat is diving away?
I look forward to hearing from you experts.
I used to own a sushi restaurant. It didnt survive long the cost of the head chefs salary pretty well put us out of business. During our short time together, Shunji San taught me to sharpen Japanese style, on a wet-stone, under a trickle of water. His own knives were devastatingly sharp, and so they should have been too: his 12 sushi knife cost a huge fortune, even in Japan. He reported that hed had it for nearly twenty years. Before we all parted company, he went to and from Japan, and at my request, brought back a top quality sushi knife and a heavy deba type for me. He also gave me an M15 Shapton wet-stone. When the knives arrived, he told me to go and sharpen them. They already felt sharp to me. Anyway, I spent three or four hours making them sharp enough to cut with nary but a glance in their direction, and took them back to Shunji San. Not sharp, he said, and took them away to do them properly for me. So thats my short apprenticeship described, in a nutshell.
To my innocent mind, sharpening a deep, flat bevel (or bevels) is a sensible way of maintaining an edge, and ensuring that it is always at a constant angle. Obviously, the two Japanese knives were single bevelled. So, when it came to selecting a new knife for field dressing deer, I chose a two-flat bevelled knife a high quality Finnish puukko. This is now almost too sharp to be taken out of its sheath.
BUT as many of you will be saying at this point, field dressing a big deer almost always requires that the knife be given a stroke or two on the stone. Thats fine with some knives, but a quick stroke or two with anything, on a finely honed straight bevel edge just screws it up disastrously. Sharpening these things is not really a field job. Did I choose the wrong knife?
Another question: where the blade thins, towards the point, how does one maintain that essential flat-to-the-stone angle on a wet-stone, when the flat is diving away?
I look forward to hearing from you experts.
