Q: How to deal with thick heels?

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bdaabat

Joined
Jul 2, 2025
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Morning! Quick question for the community. How do you approach knives that have thick heels?

I've got a Wusthof that a customer just dropped off. Curious what approach you would suggest for dealing with a thick heel.
The thick heel makes it difficult to get an edge all the way to the bottom of the heel (at least for me using a belt grinder). Do you just go as far as you can? Do you grind down the heel a bit on both sides to thin it out? Thanks in advance!



 
From the scratch marks in your pics it looks like the blade was sharpened around the junction of the heel/bolster—blending the edge with the bolster.

Maybe someone else can tell you if/how that’s done on belt grinder.
 
In seeing your post, I immediately thought of an older post by member HeavyHanded HeavyHanded . He hasn't posted in a long while now, but searching out his old posts can be worthwhile. He modified the bolster on a Wusthof 6" chef's knife, with impressive results. In his mod, he ground the bolster down to a complete apex blended perfectly into the rest of the edge, so it can be fully sharpened. See the thread linked below.

HeavyHanded

Thread 'Bolstered kitchen knife mod'

Have been wanting to do this to a bolstered kitchen knife for a long time after seeing a similar feature on the Boye "Basic 3" fixed blade - the guard doubles as an edge guide.

I normally prefer stamped knives simply to avoid the dead space on the end and the need to grind back the bolster periodically, but the local foodie shop had a great deal on Wustoff 6" Chef knives - 1/2 price. So much for only buying measuring spoons...

Out of the box the bolster was already a slight bit proud of the edge so I decided to make it happen. I used my homebrew guided clamp and a XC DMT. Probably...
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I think others might have also dealt with the issue by grinding a sharpening choil just forward of the bolster, so all of the cutting edge can be fully sharpened.
 
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Usually the first thing I do with knives that sport a bolster like Wusthof’s is to make the bolster fit the blade. If the knife has been incorrectly ground, and the bolster sits proud of the bevel I carefully grind it even with the apex. Very easy to do. A 400/600 belt does a near perfect job of blending and matching the existing brush pattern. I grind all corrections at this time.
I intentionally dull that last 3/4 inch by the bolster. I mark on the blade with a sharpie just before the bolster and feather the grind into that mark. If I’m using a belt sander it works perfectly. You’ll need some practice with a Tormek.
 
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Flatten the front of the bolster to the blade, then grind it back at a slight relief angle. Then blend the flat bolster front into an attractive shape of your choice (typically roughly a thin appleseed shape) and resharpen the base of the blade. It should then have no clearance issues until a bunch of sharpening work has occurred over time again.
 
Are we not men?

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Obsessed with Edges said:
Disappointing, but not surprising. That's always the 'reality check' reminder for me, in realizing most of the rest of the knife-using world doesn't look at these things or care about them the way we do around here.
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That was sooo disappointing to discover. I get giddy with a perfect grind and hair splitting sharpness. Customers are like, “Can’t wait to try out my new titanium cutting board!”.
Facepalm…
 
I think the bolster area is supposed to be more obtuse so it can take the abuse of being used as a quickie cleaver, chop small bones etc. - but very few home users realize that or care.
 
Since the customer wants you to, "just sharpen it," just get as close as you can with the belt.
I hate how makers just taper it like that. Either grind the entire thing down to an edge, or if it is to be thick, then make it an abrubt angle in front. Either would give a more usable area than this waste of space.
 
fishface5 said:
I think the bolster area is supposed to be more obtuse so it can take the abuse of being used as a quickie cleaver, chop small bones etc. - but very few home users realize that or care.
Click to expand...
That makes perfect sense to me. Thanks for that! I will remember that going forward.
 
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