How long does your edge last?

How long does your edge last?

Please indicate if your using it either on a pro kitchen or at home.... What kind of steel... Or any other additional info you think might be significant... such as stones used, etc...

Thanks.. Just curious...

Karlo :thumbsup:

I use my Hiro AS about 90% of the time in a pro kitchen for 5 days a week. It takes a beating, so in order to keep my edges fresh I strop daily on my Takenoko and a leather hone with .25 DS. With this routine, I can go for about a full work week between sharpenings. The full sharpening process includes a 500, 1000, and 6000 (Takenoko is supposed to be 6k now, right?) then honing as listed above.

That's a hard question to answer, especially because unless you have a wire edge or sharpen at an angle too acute for what you're doing with the knife, your edge doesn't really fail - it just gets duller and duller until it fails to meet your particular standards for sharpness. My edges dull noticeably in the first couple minutes of use after sharpening, but that's because they are quite sharp coming off the stones. They still easily shave arm hair for weeks.

Generally, I sharpen my main knife about once every 2 or 3 weeks. Usually just a touch up. It never gets dull enough that it doesn't shave arm hair easily - i just find that the easiest way to maintain an edge that I like is with fairly frequent touchups on a medium or high grit stone. My main knife is a sakai yusuke, in white #2 steel. I am a lowly home cook, though I do put my knives through a harder workout every once in a while with the rare catering event or the slightly-less-rare homespun cooking competition. After those sessions, I often sharpen, though again the knife isn't really what people would consider dull. I'd hazard to guess that if I didn't strop or touch up at all, the edge would fail to shave after... maybe 4-6 months (?), but it's hard to say.

I used for years a hirmoto AS as my main knife. The edge retention on that knife was longer, but I'd have a hard time quantifying how much longer. At that time, I would usually let the knife get much duller before breaking out the stones. I probably sharpened 3 times a year with that one. But different sharpening strategies, so tough to compare.

BTW, I finish most sharpening sessions on an 8k SS followed by newspaper stropping. I sometimes strop on chrome ox loaded leather as quick maintenance.

Depends on how busy it is at work. On a busy day, it'll go from sharpened Tuesday night to annoying Thursday morning. I mean, it really is hard to guess because my job fluctuates so much. I have been working 7 hour days with $4-500 in sales for 3 weeks, but a month ago, I had a week of 4 13s and an 18. My edge(vg-10) didn't survive a day of single handedly prepping food to feed 800 people over 5 different 2-4 course services. If I'm super busy at work, I won't make it to the end of the week, but usually I just do it on my day off. Slow time like now, I just do it whenever I feel like it.

At home, I sharpen about once a month, that way I don't have to take it down to a 1k.

I use mine in school. I figure I get about 30-40 hours on each knife before I sharpen again. I only use a ceramic rod in between. Main knives are a Nenox Type G petty. 9" Sab Nogent, 8" Lamson Sharp. (I did just add a 10" Ashi but too soon to report on it). I really sharpen them at the end of the quarter whether they need it or not just so they are fresh. As mentioned above, the knives are still sharper than everyone elses, but not that zing zing fresh sharpness. I use a 1000/6000 king stone and ceramic rod. No stropping. I go down to 400 maybe once per year or if I want to try a new angle, otherwise always the 1000/6000 combo.

-AJ

The knives I use most at work are a 270mm DT ITK gyuto (AEB-L), 270mm Aritsugu A-type Gyuto (Aritsugu's proprietary stainless), 240mm Miyabi Birchwood Gyuto (SG2), 300mm Hiro AS Suji (Blue Super), 140mm Gekko Petty (VG10), and a 150mm Tojiro DP Honesuki (Swedish Stainless). I have a few more in my kit but they hardly get used. I don't use each one every week, usually I pick one gyuto and use it for the week. Some weeks I wont use my suji or honesuki at all. Whatever I used the last week, I sharpen on monday while at work. My edge's aren't bad by any means, I can usually start on a Rika 5k and bring them right back. I usually do not feel the need to strop or touch up on a ceramic rod during the week.

I use white steel watanabe deba on cutting through chicken and duck bones, and any donkey cut mirepoix or whatever... I really have been using the hell out of that knife, it takes abuse great. I touch it up once or twice a day for a few seconds. I have a suisin white steel usuba that I use for fine veg cuts... I do not do that very often, so I touch it up after any long / rough tasks, used to get some micro chipping but it's been looking nice. and my masamoto yanagi in white steel I use for portioning fillets of fish, fabricating tenderloins into nice cylinders and portions And after I get the breast off of a duck I trim it into a nice rectangle and then slice small dice size cross hatch marks just in the skin; unconditional for a yanagi I know, but I really enjoy seeing nicely shaped meats and in these specific tasks, the yanagi allows me to do so. The beef is kind of rough on it and so is the greasiness of the duck skin. Deepening on what kind of volume, I would saw I could fabricate and portion 8-10 psmos or 12 duck breasts before having to touch up. usually do beef first, touch it up, then duck, touch it up again and put it away for the day.

My main knives are my Hiromoto AS 240 gyuto (Blue Super) and a Fujiwara FKM petty.. That's basically the knife set up that I use at work. The edge on my gyuto lasts longer then the edge on my petty. Maybe that's cause I'm using my petty more but I can usually get by by going to my stones on my off day, unless it's a damn busy week. Usually, I'd give a few light passes on my 6k Arashiyama when I get home after work.

AnxiousCowboy said:

I use white steel watanabe deba on cutting through chicken and duck bones, and any donkey cut mirepoix or whatever... I really have been using the hell out of that knife, it takes abuse great. I touch it up once or twice a day for a few seconds. I have a suisin white steel usuba that I use for fine veg cuts... I do not do that very often, so I touch it up after any long / rough tasks, used to get some micro chipping but it's been looking nice. and my masamoto yanagi in white steel I use for portioning fillets of fish, fabricating tenderloins into nice cylinders and portions And after I get the breast off of a duck I trim it into a nice rectangle and then slice small dice size cross hatch marks just in the skin; unconditional for a yanagi I know, but I really enjoy seeing nicely shaped meats and in these specific tasks, the yanagi allows me to do so. The beef is kind of rough on it and so is the greasiness of the duck skin. Deepening on what kind of volume, I would saw I could fabricate and portion 8-10 psmos or 12 duck breasts before having to touch up. usually do beef first, touch it up, then duck, touch it up again and put it away for the day.

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after reading dave's deburr 101 thread... do you guys think I have a wire edge based on what I said?

AnxiousCowboy said:

after reading dave's deburr 101 thread... do you guys think I have a wire edge based on what I said?

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I was just thinking exactly the same thing. I'm about 99% sure that I've been using a wire edge (albeit a very sharp one...for a day...). Considering how much touching up we both do, I'm thinking we might have them Mr. Cowboy.

I'm pretty sure most everyone has some amount of wire edge. The quesiton is really how far you're willing to go to try to minimize it. How long do my edges last? That is so impossible to answer. My main knife will probably last a couple of months at home before it drives me insane. At that point, some parts will shave and some really won't. I tend to use my tip area a lot more than the heel area. Still it depends on what I'm cooking (one barbecue session and an edge is toast), what I'm cutting on, what kind of edge I put on it, what knife it is and how you decided the edge is done and I'm sure I've forgotten some significant factors, too.

The discussion of edge retention on the Kramer thread, has got me thinking, how long does an edge have to last, to be considered great?

Curtis Chung, C-Dawg on ITK, mentioned on one of his posts that his Mizuno cleaver's edge would last two days in a pro kitchen. Mizuno blue steel, is by far the toughest steel that I've seen. It's edge will last a long time, a few months if not more, in my home kitchen.

Does any knife have great edge retention in a pro kitchen?

Jay

I would consider 2 days on an edge in my kitchen poor, unless maybe I was in a place that slung some serious hash and required metric tons of prep. A week is acceptable for me, 3-5 days is decent (The Zwilling Kramer falls in this range).

I would say my one of my best for edge retention is my Hiromoto AS Suji, but then again it sees less use than my gyutos, and on different items, so it is hard to judge. Best for me is probably my DT ITK in AEB-L. It's not that it stays razor sharp forever, but it diminishes a bit and then plateau's at about 90% sharpness and stays there for a long time. Other knives I feel continue to diminish at an equal rate, so while they may get sharper initially, they become unacceptable faster as well. My Aritsugu A-type might give the Devin a run for it's money but it is much more difficult to sharpen and the geometry isn't as nice so I don't use it as much either.

And I am almost always impressed at the edge on my Tojiro DP honesuki, but it is a unitasker that obviously isn't as universal as a chefs knife or used as much. It gets beat on and still holds up though.

Also, there was this thread from awhile back.

My hiro As gyuto beats the hell out of my FKM petty and Henkels 5*... Probably plateau at about ~80% and stays there pretty much all week.. Btw, my basic prep is about 5 kg of tomatoes diced, 20kg of chicken leg butterflied, 3kg of carrots juillianed and 4 kg of cabbage per day, 6 days a week.

My vote goes to the ITK. I got mine with the recent batch CKTG had, and I haven't had to fully sharpen it yet. I just gave it some touch ups on a 3k and 5k chosera, and its amazing. Before that my vote would have gone to either the Hiromoto AS or the Aritsugu A. All three have exceptional edge retention, and honestly once you get into the realm of edge retention that those knives have... it's just arguing semantics.

You also have to realize that the overall edge retention of a knife has a lot to do with how you sharpen it, and how refined the edge is. I find that if I take a knife all the way up to a .25 micron strop, that the edge will only hold for about one day; however, it's easy to bring it back with some more stropping. I find if I sharpen a knife to the 5k-10k range, it'll hold it's edge much longer but as we mentioned before it'll dull slightly and "plateau" at about 90% of it's original sharpness.

I use real crap plastic boards in work and I sorta rock chop so my edges would last about a day I say with no stropping or anything, but with my Mac hone I say 2-3 weeks they are still acceptable

stevenStefano said:

I use real crap plastic boards in work and I sorta rock chop so my edges would last about a day I say with no stropping or anything, but with my Mac hone I say 2-3 weeks they are still acceptable

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I use crappy poly boards too. Only diff is probably I don't rock that much unless it's fine chopping herbs... Still, I can go pretty much the whole week with just some light touches on my 6k every other day or so..

home and pro kitchens can be a bit deceiving. It depends on so many factors, and for someone who does seasonal work at a convention center feeding 8-18,000 people, and have tested knife edges with these animal preps, I have not seen one steel go beyond one shift without having to hone, or strop throughout. I'm sorry, but I do not buy this 4-6 weeks sharp bit. When I mention this to them, they laugh. I know an edge loses it's keenness and then keeps it at a certain level for a time, but lets be more descriptive on what we mean by sharp, what has been cut, how much, what style cutting, what surface, etc. etc.

chefofthefuture said:

...

You also have to realize that the overall edge retention of a knife has a lot to do with how you sharpen it, and how refined the edge is. I find that if I take a knife all the way up to a .25 micron strop, that the edge will only hold for about one day; however, it's easy to bring it back with some more stropping. I find if I sharpen a knife to the 5k-10k range, it'll hold it's edge much longer but as we mentioned before it'll dull slightly and "plateau" at about 90% of it's original sharpness.

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This.

So much of edge retention is based on making sure that you have completely removed the wire edge (which a lot of us haven't even if we think we have) as well as the geometry that we sharpen the knife to, as well as the finish we put on the knife. There are so many factors that it's very hard for me to use anecdotal evidence from other members as justification for one knife's edge retention over another. I think that we really have to go with the metallurgists perspective here. Edge retention will be based on the steel type and HT from one knife to the next. Actual performance will be determined solely by the enduser.