sharpening misono swedish knives

Hey, ive been having trouble getting a satisfactory edge on a misono swedish carbon paring and hankotsu.

The first thing I noticed on opening these knives was a highly polished bevel and the rather "slippery" edge. On running either blade along my fingernail or pen there is a distinct lack of bite which I can obtain rather easily on my white yusuke suji and skd yoshikane gyuto (among other knives). Doing the three finger test I feel like the knife would barely cut my skin at all.

I decided to get to work on the paring with a 500 beston to get started, followed by 1k super stone to raise the burr and deburring on a sigma power 6k (spine from the heel raised about 5mm). At this stage there is a bit of bite left, cut some paper and the edge feels slippery again. I decide to drop back to a naniwa super stone 2k to finish. Edge felt bitier at first but lost it fairly quickly.

I have gone through similar processes with my yoshikane and yusuke and havent encountered this problem. I have taken the suji to a sigma 13k before and found the edge to still have more bite than im obtaining from the paring and hankotsu (though usually I stop around 5kish)

The knives are still certainly usable but I'm not sure whether I should be experiencing more bite with these knives and perhaps my technique is a bit off as the paring is rather small and id never sharpened a hankotsu previously. Should I be trying to go with a lower or higher angle? Should I maybe spend more time on the coarser stones? Am I going too high in grit?

Any advice would be appreciated. I just find it odd that I only feel like I have trouble sharpening these knives over several others.

What do ya know...
[video=youtube;FqEkSHJkQaQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqEkSHJkQaQ[/video]

I just got a misono Swedish hankotsu last week and while it wasn't difficult to sharpen, it took longer than I expected for a new knife to raise a burr.

I have no hankotsu from this series, but others come overly convexed and slightly overheated by factory buffering. I wouldn't ever stick with that weak edge. Perhaps you can take the middle of the bevel as a reference point for the sharpening angle and put straight bevels on it. If you have a coarse stone, fine, but even with a 800 or so I won't take a lot of time to have it done as it sharpens very easily.

Alright sweet.. I'll just go back to the coarse stone and play around a bit and hopefully it sharpens up alright.

Be careful when de-burring on a stone not to lift the spine and round over the edge. It's my worst habit, I get sloppy sometimes and it only takes one high angle wipe on a stone to remove the edge....

Peter

That's what we call a microbevel.

Well, only if it's actually sharp!

How did this knife turn out?

I did a fair bit of coarse work on it only recently actually. I thinned out the paring knife behind the edge a bit and set new bevels on the bester. It seemed to help but there still seems to be a pretty significant lack of bite compared to some of my other knives. In saying that, I would like to try a gyuto some day to confirm this as maybe im just being retarded when I sharpen the paring knife. In the interim, I'm going to play around with finishing stones etc and try to find something that seems appropriate. I recently bought a 2k bester which might be pretty good for this knife (been sharpening most knives with this stone now- its pretty underrated)

I have used a 270 Misono swedish at work, and it's decent, but nothing special IMHO

At the moment I would say I actually prefer the fujiwara carbons I have used over the mmisono. Plenty of bite in them not to mention they are quite a bit cheaper. I am going to play around with what I have though and maybe I can find a niche for them

masibu said:

At the moment I would say I actually prefer the fujiwara carbons I have used over the mmisono. Plenty of bite in them not to mention they are quite a bit cheaper. I am going to play around with what I have though and maybe I can find a niche for them

Click to expand...

I dunno Misono Sweds have a better grind and F&F. But thats also part of the reason why theyre more expensive. Im not really too crazy about the steel in either knife, but I suppose youre right Fujiwara steel can attain a toothy edge quickly. Which is why I use a Fujiwara suji at work for proteins, also its so cheap and I dont have to freak out every time a co worker knocks it off the table once a month.

Maybe you're spending too much time on higher grit with misono, try just taking it to 1k and then strop. I have a kikuichi carbon which should be similar quality steel, and I only like to take it to 2k.

IIRC the Kikuichi Elite is made of SK steel. The Misono is much finer grained.

Pretty much the reason why I bought the misono was the expectation of being able to take a higher level finish. Swedish carbon steel could possibly be anything I guess and im wondering whether its actually a little bit softer than jck states and maybe a coarser stone is the best option here. I havent been taking it to as high a grit now which helps moderately but I have other knives which take toothier edges better so I'm wondering whether there really is a niche for these knives.

I suspect them of being a bit softer as well, and threat them accordingly, with a large one side microbevel, just as with soft French carbons.

You might want to invest on a magnifying device, say an 15x or 20x loupe to examine the difference between the edges of your knives to see what's going on.

Mabie you could send the knife away to be sharpened by someone else? Then if they can get an edge with more bite you'll know if it's something your doing wrong or the steel. Could shed some light on your problem.

I've got a missono Swedish suji it has plenty of bite after a 400, 1k , 3k progression (naniwa ss) and I've taken it to 5k before it was still reasonably toothy. Prefer the 3k edge though