No ricasso

Matt Rochester

Matt Rochester

Joined
Nov 28, 2014
Messages
1,864
So I have seen some chef knives that appear to not have a ricasso. They go straight from the handle to the flat grind with no plunge cut. Do you flat grind the tang also? Is it just that thin of stock and then a convex grind? Or am I just missing something? This is a pic of what I'm talking about.
 
I'm no kitchen knife expert but I keep the tang flat. I make a gentle radius from the spine down to the cutting edge and blend it gently into the flat of the tang just forward of the handle. It's not noticeable.





 
I have a fairly expensive Japanese sujihiki. It is a Hattori from one of the In The Kitchen subforum over at Knife Forums. That was supposedly the place to be before some big blowup drove people to multiple new forums.. The members designed the knife and it is beveled all the way to the butt like a Japanese sword. I have another Japanese gyuto that is done in the more traditional western manner with no taper to the tang either way. Both have weld on bolsters, but the gyuto is ground like an European integral knife, so the "plunge" is ground into the bolsters' front and the blade is beveled at the front of the transition. When I made a couple of knives with traditional wa handles, I used a compound grind so the blade was still fairly flat up near the spine as as you know on a wa knife, the "riches" is rather narrow. I just blended it all together to the point where you really could see he transition.
 
Those are beautiful and what I'm looking to try. What size and type steel did you use? What is the handle material on the top one? So is it a convex grind?

i4Marc said:
I'm no kitchen knife expert but I keep the tang flat. I make a gentle radius from the spine down to the cutting edge and blend it gently into the flat of the tang just forward of the handle. It's not noticeable.





Click to expand...
 
The top one is 1084 at about .085 thickness at the spine with figured Walnut handle scales and 416 pins. Sanded to 2500x.

The bottom one is AEB-L at about .09 thickness at the spine with stabilized California Redwood handle scales and 416 pins. Sanded to 800x.


Both are convex ground after the blank is drilled and heat treated. I start with a flat grind that goes maybe 3/4 of the way up the blade. Then I begin gently and carefully rocking the bevel back and forth on the belt to start the convex and to remove any hard plunge line. This is just to give a general curve to blend the flat grind into the flat above the bevel and to get the edge close to final thickness before sharpening. The rest happens during hand sanding. That is where I dial in the convex curve and blend the transition in front of the handle.
 
Thanks Marc. Makes sense now. I am going to give it a try on my next chef knife. 2 inch wide? 7inch blade?
 
I've done it both ways that you describe. Butch has a video on how he grinds plunge less. I think most of us who do lungless knives do them similar to how butch does his in his video.
 
Willie, I was just searching You Tube for that video but couldn't find it. Can you post a link if you know where to find it?
 
I'm hoping someone will remember where the video is because I couldn't find it either.
 
That is a great video. It's shows how easily one can grind and communicate what they are doing by pointing and motioning without actually talking.
 
That's it! Watch that video, then again, then again. We can tell you all you want, but until I saw that video it never clicked.
 
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