Help me figure out kitchen grinds

[jawilder]

I am in the process of finishing my first Gyuto (chef) and Pearing knife and did them both with a full flat grind with distil taper, but would like to try something different with my next kitchen blades

I would very much like to practice traditional Japanese grinds and need to be educated.

Here is a diagram I just drew and would like to know which to use for which knives

Unless I am mistaken I should have used the type of grind in figure A which begins with a full flat grind to about 1/3 of the thickness on either side, then a second bevel that begins about 1/3 from the edge. Does this make sense?

I was looking at Stacy's BBQ WIP and think that figure B is more in line of what he made except for the hallow grind rather than flat.

My next project will be a Nikiri but am not sure which grind to use? I'd love to hear your thoughts, and please correct me if I mislabeled these grinds

Thanks,
Jason

 

[watercrawl]

A full flat grind, a very thin slight convex grind, or a blend of the two will be your best bets for a nakiri. A nakiri shape, but ground like your figure B with a hollow back is basically a usuba and is used nothing like a nakiri is really.

The saber grind I'd only use for a heavy duty knife like a western deba or some such where edge support is needed.

The Chisel Grind you drew would be for a left handed knife. Opposite for a right handed knife. Typically not used all that much except in cases like a honesuki, garasuki, perhaps a hankotsu where the knife is ground 10/90 or stronger upto 1/99.

"A" I don't know why you'd use unless you made the shoulder area convex otherwise I don't think it would be a good cutter....that shoulder will want to wedge.

"B" would be used with an urasaki (hollow back) in yanagi's, deba's, usuba's, and a million other "traditional" Japanese knife variants. IMHO, you won't want to use this for anything used in western cooking unless it's to play with. They are very task specific.

A lot of Japanese western knives like gyuto's, sujihiki's, petty's, etc. are ground asymetrically. Kind of like your Chisel Grind but not flat on the one side. More like 40/60 or 30/70 with more steel on the right side of the blade than the left. It's why some left handed user complain that their gyuto's turn on them.

 

[cbr900son]

I do something close to B but convex it and blend it in. Ive done chisel and double sided like that.

 

[Mike Davis]

I will completely second Adam's suggestions. What you want to shoot for is similar to "A" but with a convex blend. You want a flatter convex on the opposite side of the knife than the user hand ( if right handed knife, the left side will be closer to flat than the right hand) and the more blended bevel will be on the right hand side. I will sketch up a couple pics in a minute and hope it helps with the explanation.

 

[jawilder]

Thanks Adam, William, and Mike.

Mike, I would like to see what you come up with.

Here are my first two kitchen knives. The Gyuto is 8.25" and the Petty is 4"
Both have Smokey Quilted Maple and Nickel Silver corby/peened & soldered bolsters
Steel is O1 tempered at 400

Jason