Sharpening angle?

[Rusty Shackelford]

I have a 1095 carbon steel blade 1/16" thick that only gets used for food prep, I went to sharpen it and noticed it's factory edge is ~45-47°. On the manufacturers website they claim to have their grinders set at 25°, this seems like a pretty wide angle for such a knife. Is there any good reason not to take it down to 40°? I don't want to mess it up if there's some specific reason why they would use such an angle. I use a guided sharpening system that'll do both 20 and 25° angles but the factory recommended 25 is not hitting the full grind and the 20° setting hits the shoulder, I put a very light 25° edge on it for now until I figure out what would be best. I think the knife will perform best with a 40° edge but I figured I'd get some opinions on here first.

 

[Rhinoknives1]

I have a 1095 carbon steel blade 1/16" thick that only gets used for food prep, I went to sharpen it and noticed it's factory edge is ~45-47°. On the manufacturers website they claim to have their grinders set at 25°, this seems like a pretty wide angle for such a knife. Is there any good reason not to take it down to 40°? I don't want to mess it up if there's some specific reason why they would use such an angle. I use a guided sharpening system that'll do both 20 and 25° angles but the factory recommended 25 is not hitting the full grind and the 20° setting hits the shoulder, I put a very light 25° edge on it for now until I figure out what would be best. I think the knife will perform best with a 40° edge but I figured I'd get some opinions on here first.

No pics so o don’t know the brand, length or profile of your blade? Still I go 15-20 on most culinary knives and to 11 on some Japanese knives. For a Clean slicer/chopper go 20 or less per side. Also throw out any plastic boards. They dull your knives quickly and your eating the plastic from those grooves . Walnut, Maple, Ash like Grandma used is best..

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

40° will be fine and 30° would be even better. Most any knife for simple kitchen use will handle edge angles down to 30° (inclusive) at least, so long as tasks aren't abusive, like chopping bones, etc. I favor most of my kitchen knives in the 25°-30° inclusive (12.5° - 15° per side) ballpark.

 

[Rusty Shackelford]

No pics so o don’t know the brand, length or profile of your blade? Still I go 15-20 on most culinary knives and to 11 on some Japanese knives. For a Clean slicer/copper go 20 or less per side. Also throw out any plastic boards. They dull your knives quickly and your eating the plastic from those grooves . Walnut, Maple, Ash like Grandma used is best..

5.25" blade.

 

[bucketstove]

I have a 1095 carbon steel blade 1/16" thick that only gets used for food prep, I went to sharpen it and noticed it's factory edge is ~45-47°. On the manufacturers website they claim to have their grinders set at 25°, this seems like a pretty wide angle for such a knife. Is there any good reason not to take it down to 40°? I don't want to mess it up if there's some specific reason why they would use such an angle. I use a guided sharpening system that'll do both 20 and 25° angles but the factory recommended 25 is not hitting the full grind and the 20° setting hits the shoulder, I put a very light 25° edge on it for now until I figure out what would be best. I think the knife will perform best with a 40° edge but I figured I'd get some opinions on here first.

Hi,
How wide are the bevels?
Judging by the picture on tops website, it seems you've got a
a sillybuilt +

over 1+mm thick edge at over 20 degree angle

I imagine the only reason to do that is
because of warranty claims
as any actual fishmonger will regrind that cleaver thinner if needed

 

[Rusty Shackelford]

Hi,
How wide are the bevels?
Judging by the picture on tops website, it seems you've got a
a sillybuilt +

over 1+mm thick edge at over 20 degree angle

I imagine the only reason to do that is
because of warranty claims
as any actual fishmonger will regrind that cleaver thinner if needed

Not really sure what you mean by bevel width, in any case I went with the good ol' tried and true 40° for now. Hard to mess up and leaves you with options later on if you don't like how it is, in any case it's a large improvement over what it was. I apologize for my ignorance but I am new to any kind of re-profiling or serious sharpening, always just followed factory angles as closely as I could with a stone but never stuck with it long enough so I could get consistently good results.

 

[me2]

Keep lowering the angle a little each time you sharpen. You'll eventually get to the lowest angle for your use of that knife. If you're not that into it then 40 degrees per side (dps) will work fine.

 

[bucketstove]

Not really sure what you mean by bevel width, in any case I went with the good ol' tried and true 40° for now. Hard to mess up and leaves you with options later on if you don't like how it is, in any case it's a large improvement over what it was. I apologize for my ignorance but I am new to any kind of re-profiling or serious sharpening, always just followed factory angles as closely as I could with a stone but never stuck with it long enough so I could get consistently good results.

40° is good
like me2 says, as long as you're having fun, thats whats important





by bevel width, i meant edge bevel width,
combined with sharpening angle, its a way to calculate edge thickness...

 

[ToddS]

There is an important point that is always missed when discussing the minimum angle. You can make a fairly robust blade at an angle of say 5 degrees per side PROVIDED you break off the apex to leave an essentially squared off edge. This should be done with coarse abrasives to leave relatively ragged edge that can slice.

If you are making a refined, polished, razor-like edge, you cannot go below 10 degrees per side as the apex will not even cut paper without folding. For example, a straight razor at 8 dps is destroyed by cutting printer paper.