Tojiro Nakiri and Paring knife - first thoughts

[Cliff Stamp]

Lee Valley had a utility Japanese knife that I reviewed which was a fraction of the price.

-Cliff

 

[thombrogan]

Relatively amusing, I am getting knives primary regound because they are floating just above that level now. Paring knives can be under 0.005" with a full deep hollow. I'd want a flat grind on a general utility knife only if I intended to use it for boning, otherwise a similar profile as well. It is nice to just direct and not have to push. Funny to give such a knife to someone for the first time and watch them see how a knife is supposed to behave. A few years back though a 0.015/15 degree edge on a paring knife would have impressed me, now it is a heavy axe bevel.

The shoulders on the parer are higher now to sloppy sharpening technique, so the original profile is an unknown. My bevels often climb high up the primary grind, so maybe adding more dimensions would help. After all, 0.01" thick shoulders with a 0.04" thick bevel is different than the same with a 0.017" thick bevel. I'm also a complete caliper n00b. Who's Vernier?

alot of japanese knives do not come fully sharpened

When you say "a lot," could you please give some examples? KAI Shun, Tojiro, Takeda, Watanabe, Ryusen, Yoshikane, Masahiro, Hattori, Glestain, Hiromoto, Tosa, Misono, Masamoto, Suisin, and Korin (among others) all come with sharp edges. Which ones don't?

 

[Cliff Stamp]

My bevels often climb high up the primary grind, so maybe adding more dimensions would help.

Yeah, has to when you use and sharpen, that is why you have to regrind the primary often to thin the edges back down. I really need a hollow grinder.

-Cliff

 

[the possum]

I'm gonna side track this thread a bit here to tell you about one of the knives that has become a favorite in my kitchen. It's not Japanese, but a 100+ year old Sheffield carver that I fixed up. I use it daily to slice up apples, strawberries, and even grapes for my 2 year old (to reduce choking hazard) and it's just starting to get the faintest hint of blue to it. No rust or real staining to speak of. I used it again last night to slice up a bunch of potatoes for dinner, and it goes through 'em like they aren't even there. Even easier than cutting butter. I know this, because as soon as I was done slicing the potatoes, I used it to cut a stick of butter (the real stuff; not margarine) from the fridge for the frying pan, and felt slightly more resistance since it stuck to the sides of the blade.

I played around with the digital calipers at work, to get some numbers on the edge geometry. It's .005" thick at the top of the edge bevel, near as I can tell. This is right on the verge of my accuracy limit since it's hard to tell where the edge meets the main grind since it's convex ground, but near as I can figure it's between .004"-.006" where the sharpening stone makes contact. The edge bevel is .026" wide, and at .188" back from the edge (the general area where the convexity starts to level off into a thin flat grind) it's .026" thick.

I figure I'm sharpening it somewhere between 10-13 degrees. I initially started out thinner when I was cleaning it up on my belt sander, and then I took a scrap of hard mystery wood and started carving. Not just whittling off little slivers, but pressing enough to make cuts as deep as I could, and then turning the blade to bring it back out again. This rolled and rippled the very edge, so I sharpened it steeper on my stones & kept checking until the rolling stopped.

The point had been damaged and twisted, so I broke a couple inches off and reground it. I locked the blade in my vice with the tip protruding, and even after grinding some weakening notches in the edge and spine, it took several good whacks with a hammer to initiate a crack in the blade. A couple more finally tore it off.

I'm curious to know how durable the edges on the Japanese models discussed are at these dimensions.

On top of all that, it has a history, was completely hand made, including the steel itself, and has a nice sambar stag handle. And it only cost three bucks. So if you're wanting to experiment with kitchen blades, well, maybe this will give you some ideas.

 

[ryan9977]

thom-to answer your question....i was talking about traditional single bevelled knives form makers such as masamoto and aritsugu etc.....not really about knives like shun glestain etc.....even without a final edge on them ....these knives are much sharper than most......ryan

 

[thombrogan]

Thanks, Ryan9977! Serves me right for not eating enough seafood.

the possum,

Sambar stag for $3? With a knife attached? Too cool!