The polished edge vs micro serration again.

D

deruitem

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Oct 30, 2010
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I am trying to decide what the best way is to sharpen my kitchen knives. I mainly use a Shun chef knife and a cheap ikea santuko. I also have a Global paring knife.

I am thinking that for slicing it would make sense to have a more micro serrated blade. The question is what grit stone should I use. I am thinking that it would make sense to go to 600 grit but not 1000. And for a slicer it would not make sense to go to a highly polished knife up to 7000 grit.

Now for a push cut like I do with the santuko it would make sense to use a highly polished edge

Thoughts?
 
i have knives by phillip dodson & murray carter , certainly quality kitchen tools. i like a certain amount of toothiness because when cutting veges & fruits in quantity one tends to be moving along at a good pace. the 1st contact of blade on the surface means the edge should immediately grab & hold. any initial slippage could spell loss of knife control with unhappy results for knife user.i'm not talking about a carborundum toothiness but i find the edge put on by the white spydie to be fairly ideal. having worked years back as a cook & marrying a woman whom was great but could.nt fry an egg i've cooked most of my life & SUFFERED SOME BAD CUTS FROM LOSS OF KNIFE CONTROL.
dennis
 
Generally, the Japanese are the only ones who truly polish edges on kitchen knives as a normal process. The reason is that they value not only the precision of the cut but the finish left on the cut pieces as well. We Westerners aren't generally concerned with the finish left on the product after the cut so we can generally ignore polishing edges.
 
Anyone else, what I am looking for is to what grit you all might suggest. I am using the edgepro apex. I was thinking 600 grit might be the right amount of "toothiness" I want. Maybe go all the way up to the 6000 for my push cutting knives
 
Knife Outlet said:
The reason is that they value not only the precision of the cut but the finish left on the cut pieces as well. We Westerners aren't generally concerned with the finish left on the product after the cut so we can generally ignore polishing edges.
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I disagree. As a person who used both types of knives in the kitchen, and in fact I used to prefer rough (600-800) grit knives for kitchen use.
Rough finish is not only finish, but the rough edge too. There is a huge difference in cutting ability of 800 grit final edge and 10K-12K or if you use finer abrasives, 0.25mic translates roughly into 100K finish. It just cuts that much better and as such requires less force too.

Also, it wouldn't do justice to Japanese knives to say they merely have polished edges. They (Japanese knives) are considerably harder compared to western knives and because of that can have much thinner working edges compared to western knives. Not that western knives need 40+ inclusive edges though, most of them can do fine at 30...
Anyway, if the steel can take thin edge, it makes much more sense to have fine polished edge. And it lasts longer too if properly used.
 
Have you had issue with such a polished edge that it wont slice through skin on a tomato?

I agree with the Japanese Knife comments.
 
deruitem said:
Have you had issue with such a polished edge that it wont slice through skin on a tomato?
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Nope. Even 15 per side high polish edge falls through the tomato under its own weight, with less than 2" slicing motion. And I don't mean the blade straight after stropping either.
In fact, that was the method I was using to observer edge degradation while testing kitchen knives. After 3-4 sessions, with about 12+lbs veggies per session, the knife was still able to slice tomatoes using just its own weight.

E.g. Henckels Miyabi 600D Fusion Moromoto edition gyuto review, and that's not the top perfomer either, Watanabe honyaki gyuto lasts considerably longer with that type of edge.
 
600?
Keep going. If you're in a professional kitchen you may find that stropping the blade is an excessive degree of maintenance but your Shun should have little trouble keeping up with you taken to grits in the thousands (what you may have - not everyone has a million gradations of stone)and some honing throughout the day. I don't think you need the "toothiness" at all. I think a very sharp (polished even)knife will serve you better.
However, I wonder if the ikea is worth the effort.
 
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I agree on the IKEA knife. It has become me knife just to play around with and not damage a good knife. I believe it is VG-1 steel
 
These days I have more knives than I can honestly use in a week but when I first started cooking all I had (and REALLY needed) was a 10 inch chef's knife, a pairing knife, and a bread knife. You always need a trash knife too however. There's always something to hack at that you don't want a polished edge anywhere near. The trash knife has changed over the years but I always keep it with me. Ikea would fit the bill for this job too.
But again, (with the Shun) we're not slicing rope in the kitchen (take the serrated) or other hard duty hacking so our polished edges should slice with the kind of REFINEMENT that our aesthetic standards dictate. A serrated tomato knife will never make the paper thin beautiful cuts that my Watanabe can. Simple.
Think surgeons not butchers.
 
If you're gonna mention Murray Carter, know that his edges aren't the most refined. It's polished but still toothy, which is the way I prefer most of my knives being. My opinion on this is go to 2000 (my grit referances are in japanese water stones... I think that EP stuff is on a different scale) on shun followed by a 6k microbevel. For the Ikea and the Global go ahead and stop at 1000-2000, just make sure you end with light single strokes on each side and remove the burr.

Me personally on good knives I use a couple Natty JP stones, I think they give the best edge you can get :)
 
Thanks for another opinion. I have seen some people that use a polished micro bevel with a micro serrated main bevel. Seems like it would make sense.

I have also heard some say that the polished edge seems to slip sometimes
 
The only reason it'd slip, if it was dull :)
Otherwise, sharp, 50-100K edge cuts those tomatoes and other "slippery" food better than rough 600 grit edges do. Even 50K is high, after 10K the edge is fine enough.

I think sometimes people forget that the polish is a side effect of the sharpening on very fine abrasives, not the cosmetic feature, although it does look better. If done properly the resulting edge is very narrow, microns or less, and has very high cutting ability and that's all to it.
 
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