Your Preferred Angles - Kitchen to Axe

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Witterings

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Mar 13, 2012
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Almost a point of discussion as much as anything else as people will have different ideals but interested to see what people consider their preferred sharpening angle is varying from a general purpose, low maintenance kitchen knife they don't want to have to resharpen too often .... through to an EDC and a box opener. to an axe and a machete.

My own personal thoughts ... a knife, whilst a tool to do a job .... and you want it to do well ... it's the balance between doing it well with the least amount of maintenece as possible.

Really interested to see if there's a general consensus and if it vary's from master chef and professional garden maitenace to Joe Average who chops up the occasional vegetable and carves a roast every other week.
 
My kitchen knives are at 16 degrees per side approximately. I do not spaz out about the details, but I know from experience what angle I am sharpening at. I sometimes use an angle finder to confirm the accuracy of my perceptions. In the kitchen I have an 8" chef's knife, a Santoku, a paring knife, and a bread knife serrated. I do not sharpen the bread knife. My folders are all pretty close to 20 degrees per side. I do not need to worry about angle, getting a crisp edge works well for me at 20 degrees. While I have a hatchet and an axe, I have to admit that I pay no attention to angle. I use a 220 Norton stone to touch up each of these. They chop just fine.
 
My impression is that the experts are converging around 12 to 15 degrees per side for most knives where there is not a lot of risk of chipping or rolling:

Even for machetes:

I have measured the factory angles on about 100 knives (not counting kitchen and utility knives and scandi grinds), and only a few have had angles that narrow:
Code: 
Benchmade  CPM-S90V Arcane 490      15 15
Benchmade  CPM-S30V Bugout Blue     15 15
Benchmade  CPM-S30V Volli           15 15
Bradford   M390     Guardian 3      15 15
Spyderco   H1       Pacific Salt 2  14 15

On the other hand, lots of knives have angles wider than 20 degrees per side out of the box. Reprofiling a knife that's, say, 31 degrees on a side--like my Hogue Deka with Magnacut--down to even 20 degrees takes an awfully long time unless you use power tools, which I don't like to do except on cheap kitchen knives and machetes. It took me over an hour to get that Deka down to 20 DPS.

As a consequence, I do not have a lot of experience with knives at angles of 15 DPS or less. I can say the the knives in that list above cut extremely well. But I also have knives that are over 20 DPS that cut extremely well, such as a Civivi Cogent.

Edge retention is supposed to be better for narrower angles. The only knife that I have tested this on is a Spyderco Lil Native in S90V, which I reprofiled from 18 DPS to 15 DPS, which did not take long. But the edge retention seemed quite a bit worse at 15 DPS. Maybe it was having microscopic chipping.

So I have yet to see a major benefit from 15 DPS. Maybe that means I should spend more time cutting things.
 
Seems like the concensus is pretty much what I'm going to stick to for kitchen knives at 20 degress ... I'll probably use 25 for box openers / EDC's.

Another Shepherd said:
On the other hand, lots of knives have angles wider than 20 degrees per side out of the box. Reprofiling a knife that's, say, 31 degrees on a side--like my Hogue Deka with Magnacut--down to even 20 degrees takes an awfully long time unless you use power tools
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This is part of the reason I was asking .... I bought various sharpeners and thought they were totally useless and didn't realise they had a higher angle that was too much for some sharpeners to reprofile ... I've only just discovered this and used a 300 grit diamond stone to take them from 30 to 20 degrees .... I now have kitchen knives sharper than ever before but the main appeal is how easily I'll be able to put an edge on them in the future.

The one thing I haven't worked out is garden tools, the neigbours Billhook which went through my Xmas tree trunk in 1 easy swipe was so sharp it shocked me, I didn't think an edge on a tool used for that sort of purpose would last for 2 seconds ..... did one hell of a job when he needed it to though :D
 
Witterings said:
The one thing I haven't worked out is garden tools, the neigbours Billhook which went through my Xmas tree trunk in 1 easy swipe was so sharp it shocked me, I didn't think an edge on a tool used for that sort of purpose would last for 2 seconds ..... did one hell of a job when he needed it to though :D
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For billhooks and machetes, look for posts by FortyTwoBlades FortyTwoBlades
 
18-25 dps. A few folders at 18, most folders at 20, few slipjoints around 25. Chef knife and Chinese Santoku right around 20. I can be lazy about sharpening, so I usually just use the sharpmaker or lansky box along with a strop, so I try to keep them in the range for easy touch ups.
 
In most cases I think the answer is the most acute angle I can get away with. I double bevel most knives so that the shoulders are moved up and they are thinner behind the edge, it also makes touch ups quicker. An approximation of a convex edge without doing anything complicated but more robust than a micro bevel.
 
12 degrees per side (dps) with a 15 dps microbevel from the Sharpmaker for most. I have a Tanto folder from Schrade that I’m experimenting with using a DMT Aligner kit. It’s probably around 20-23 dps but I think I can go one notch lower before the guide rod hits the clamp. I have a Cold Steel Barong Machete sharpened at 17/20 dps. I was getting damage when belt sander sharpening but using hand stones I found I could lower the bevel and still avoid damage.
 
Glenn Goodlett said:
About 20 degrees. All I have is pocket knives.
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I would not and have not even ground axes at 20 Degrees Per Side. Now if you mean 20 Degrees INCLUSIVE, 10 DPS. ie., then I'd say that's about right for pocket knives with a 15 DPS micro-bevel. I will add to qualify that doesn't always hold true when you have super high carbide volume steels as they tend to need more meat behind the apex as they are NOT typically tough on a very small scale found at the apex. They may appear tough in some toughness testing methods but that's not at the cross section of an apex in those tests.

For chopping knives, etc, 15-17 DPS is a good range depending on the users skill and the difficulty of the wood that is cut (knots/twists/etc.). Generally when you get above 15 DPS w/ .035" thickness behind that 15 DPS bevel (where it meets the primary grind) the knife becomes invincible and it becomes very difficult to actually cause gross damage to the knife. Most pocket knives are ground this thick (or even more) which leaves me wondering what people are doing swinging pocket knives around like axes/swords/machetes?
 
Here is one at 23.5 degrees with a mirror edge, shaving sharp with a BESS of 120. The angle shown on the goniometer is within a degree of what my angle gauge on my Wicked Edge shows.
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Eighteen degrees is pretty much my lower limit for pocket knives. Kitchen knives, I might go lower. I just don't need any sharper.
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I reprofile my kitchen and higher-end folders to 15dps on a WEPS. When they stop being sticky-sharp, a couple light pulls on a 20DPS Sharpmaker creates a nanobevel that restores them to sticky. Don't have to truly re-sharpen more than once or twice a year for daily-use knives.
 
garry3 said:
In most cases I think the answer is the most acute angle I can get away with. I double bevel most knives so that the shoulders are moved up and they are thinner behind the edge, it also makes touch ups quicker. An approximation of a convex edge without doing anything complicated but more robust than a micro bevel.
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I relatively new to this ... do you mind if I clarify what you mean although I think this is something I was thinking would help make it easy to keep them maintained.

I'd start with say a 20 degree angle taking the shoulder higher and then finish with a 25 degree angle .... or 15 degrees 1st and 20 second ... depending what I want as the cutting edge?
 
Working on... Felling & chopping axes for clear wood 5/10 grind/bevel DPS (keen ~15 degrees bevel gauge where apex at center of hole), knotted wood 5/13 (stunt ~17*)
 
Since I freehand normal measured angles is somewhere at 12 degrees per side for most knives, axes I try to blend with primary, will have to measure, but if failure takes place I thicken it up.

Interesting piece from the: Razor Edge book of sharpening:

“Just to give you some idea, the total edge angle on the axwe used to set the world championship was 20°, while a knife we have used to shave with at sports shows has a total edge angle of 12°. No attempt was made to get an exact angle on either the ax or the knife, but rather “just what looked OK.” The reason we have a wider angle on the ax is because we also use it to chop with, and the edge must withstand shock. If it was tapered back too far, you would leave a chunk of your blade in some hardwood knot. Especially if it’s frozen.” Page 38

It always makes me think my angles are too acute. 🤔
 
"As thin as is possible for requisite strength" which varies depending on the tool's backing geometry (also made as thin as possible for requisite strength) and context of use. In general, efficiency and resilience are very nearly diametrically opposed. The more experienced you are at not damaging edges through use, the thinner you may go. A thinner edge improves edge retention in work experiencing abrasive wear. A thicker edge increases edge retention when experiencing torque and impact at the edge, but only when brought no further than the point necessary to prevent the plastic deformation that's responsible for that mode of blunting. I don't really sharpen anything we typically discuss on this forum thicker than 15° per side, and many of my tools are a good deal thinner than that. Thinnest are typically my scythes, at only 7-9° per side, but I have some pocket knives I've thinned to the point where the edge/backing geometry will flex under the pressure of a thumbnail.
 
Witterings said:
I relatively new to this ... do you mind if I clarify what you mean although I think this is something I was thinking would help make it easy to keep them maintained.

I'd start with say a 20 degree angle taking the shoulder higher and then finish with a 25 degree angle .... or 15 degrees 1st and 20 second ... depending what I want as the cutting edge?
Click to expand...
That's the gist of it, but I'm more in line with Fortytwo's angles, pretty sure a little less than 5 deg also, I have no way to measure the angle. Some of my kitchen knives do indeed flex under the pressure of a thumb nail. These are not workhorse type knives that will be cutting bbq ribs or deboning chicken even though I could probably get away with it for the most part. I wouldn't try to go that thin with the European kitchen knives in soft stainless.
 
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