- Joined
- Jan 9, 2011
- Messages
- 16,368
I received some old Chef's knives recently for free and got a bit carried away while sharpening! 
This one was barely usable with an awful grind that ended short of the heel... hard to maintain and did not cut well. The handle was bleached out and blocky, the knife felt clunky and had very bad balance.
Now it is light, comfortable and slices like a straight razor!
I took the left bevel to a flat plugeless chisel grind and the right side has my kitchen knife grind on it... left unfinished besides where it counts, you can see the bevel geometry because of that. I ground the handle down a ton, shortened it and extended the choil to above the cutting edge. Tip dropped, spine rounded, choil rounded and moved forward so it can easily be sharpened, wood finished! I can't believe the difference in the wood finish. It has been thinned considerably and is much lighter.
This all took about an hour... looks rough but man is it sharp! The performance is far beyond any commercial knife I have ever used and I worked in kitchens for over 10 years.
Cheap knife to start = Cheap finished knife... the steel and wood was so soft it ground like butter. I'm not expecting much but now it is useful.
The below knife is pretty close to what I started with. The handle was the same bleached out wood and the grind was close but not to the heel.
You can see the chisel ground unblended bevels...
This one was barely usable with an awful grind that ended short of the heel... hard to maintain and did not cut well. The handle was bleached out and blocky, the knife felt clunky and had very bad balance.
Now it is light, comfortable and slices like a straight razor!
I took the left bevel to a flat plugeless chisel grind and the right side has my kitchen knife grind on it... left unfinished besides where it counts, you can see the bevel geometry because of that. I ground the handle down a ton, shortened it and extended the choil to above the cutting edge. Tip dropped, spine rounded, choil rounded and moved forward so it can easily be sharpened, wood finished! I can't believe the difference in the wood finish. It has been thinned considerably and is much lighter.
This all took about an hour... looks rough but man is it sharp! The performance is far beyond any commercial knife I have ever used and I worked in kitchens for over 10 years.
Cheap knife to start = Cheap finished knife... the steel and wood was so soft it ground like butter. I'm not expecting much but now it is useful.
The below knife is pretty close to what I started with. The handle was the same bleached out wood and the grind was close but not to the heel.
You can see the chisel ground unblended bevels...
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