Need some guidance for thinning behind the edge

I have an Aritsugu Type A gyuto that has a very noticeable thickening of the blade just behind the edge. Visually from the choil it doesn't look that bad, to my untrained eye anyway. But when you run your fingers from the edge up a few mm towards the spine it's really noticeable. I feels like a little ramp. This knife is almost brand new, I've used it a couple of times, and came presharpened. I really want to love this knife, but even though it's very sharp, when I dice onions or potatoes it wedges enough that it's annoying to use.

Besides my XXC, which I think is too coarse, I also have an Omura 150, Beston 500, Bester 1.2k and an assortment of 3k to 10k polishing stones. I believe in using the least destructive method possible and backing up if needed until I start getting results but I also don't want to waste a bunch of time.

So how coarse of a stone should I start with? How much of the thinning should be done with the coarsest before moving on to the finer stones? Are there any "gotchas" that I need to be aware of, I'm a firm believer in the "You don't know what don't you know" quote.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Your DMT should work just fine. You need to do pretty much all your thinning with it. The other stones are just to improve the finish.

Use the Omura to take out the scratches from the DMT before you move on to your Beston.

Or, get a belt sander...

Pensacola Tiger said:

Or, get a belt sander...

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I vote for this one, although I know Tinh used stones to thin a blade or two (as mentioned in another thread) and he mentioned that it was quite a learning experience. You can't tell me that you don't get a better understanding of blade geometry through a belt sander, though. It's just a different type of learning.

If you do this it'll be the most painful thing you've ever done to yourself unless you've done some crazy stuff in the past like belly flopping off a porch onto concrete twelve times in a row.

My best advice is to find a thinner knife but if that isn't an option then get out the coarsest thing you've got and get to scratching away some steel, you'll quickly figure out what to do - trust me on this.

Option 1 -- DMT :scratchhead:

Option 2 -- belt sander :slaphead:

Option 3 -- send it to Dave Martell :happy1:

WildBoar said:

Option 3 -- send it to Dave Martell :happy1:

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I didn't think Dave was taking these any more!

BTW, this is the sole reason I never bought one of these.

What I had in mind was just working on the first 5 or 6 mm of the blade behind the edge and not thinning the whole blade. Kind of like knocking off the leading edge arch of a speed bump and turning it into a wedge shaped ramp. Is this not a good idea?

Adam is right - Dave hates Aritsugu A-types. I'll sharpen them, fix chips & broken tips but nothing else.

I should have done this instead:

Option 3 -- send it to Dave Martell :scared2:

Thanks for saving me from a moment. Maybe I can trade for a Kono HD. :whistling:

WildBoar said:

I should have done this instead:

Option 3 -- send it to Dave Martell :scared2:

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Yeah!

Grinding the shoulder off of the blade will help a lot, actually but there's no getting around the wedging without some major thinning.

I agree. Easing the shoulders makes quite a big difference. Give that a try, and if it doesn't work, send it to me to play with on my sander

tk59 said:

Grinding the shoulder off of the blade will help a lot, ...

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That's what I'm thinking. I thought by eliminating the abruptness of the shoulder then the knife should work just fine. If it turns out that my efforts are fruitless, I'll be taking somebody up on their offer.