Polishing sides of butcher knife

So as I've mentioned here a few times I am in search of a good knife for cutting steaks, I have several sujis that are great for smaller things but when portioning larger cuts they seem too delicate. When I last posted it was suggested that I get a vintage carbon butchers knife off eBay. I ended up getting an old gustav emerl ern bull nose butchers knife. I played around with this knife for a while and I liked both the shape and length but for the life of me I just couldn't get it to hold an edge. I would get one or two rib roasts into a butchering session and it would be too dull for easy cutting and I would swap it out for a suiji.
All this is to say I got another knife. This time I went with the CCK butchers knife. I love the steel. Sharpens well and holds the 3000 edge much better than the gustav. But when I go to portion steaks I have trouble getting the knife threw. As you can guess this knife is quite wide and the sides have a ruff finish. I'm thinking that if I polish them up it might more easily slide threw meat? Or is this knife just too large and needs thinning? If I were to polish the sides how would I go about doing it and what supplies would I need? Anyone have experience with this? Any advice is appreciated
Jesse

Which CCK Butcher's knife did you get? Often on CCk's the edge grind is a bit rough. I have thinned & polished out the scratches, did it with a table belt sander. Constantly dipping the blade in a tub of water.

yepp sounds like a wedgy problem

And what if I don't have a belt sander?

keithsaltydog said:

Which CCK Butcher's knife did you get? Often on CCk's the edge grind is a bit rough. I have thinned & polished out the scratches, did it with a table belt sander. Constantly dipping the blade in a tub of water.

Click to expand...

It's the CCK butchers knife, shaped almost like a big German chefs knife but it's over a foot long and thick.

It's a cool knife and I like the size and shape for breaking down meat but It still drags on its way threw the ribeyes. I'm thinking of taking the sides to my stones and thin/polish it but worry this will take forever and I will be unable to smooth the whole side out with a stone. Having tried to polish the sides of knives before with stones I know that knife sides are not dead flat and a stone won't polish the whole side until it is.
Any easy ways to tackle this? Taking into account I have no access to a workshop or power equipment. I'm not looking for a mirror polish or crazy thinning just enough to get the job done. I was hopping a trip to Home Depot and some elbow grease would do the trip. Any ideas?
I do have a small power drill somewhere if that helps?

Deff. take some elbow grease to do it by hand. Do you own a coarse diamond plate? Trying to do it on coarse stones will wear them down quite a bit. You can use the stones to take out the scratches from the plate.

One thing I tried that worked on my first hand thinning project was to get the 3-4" wide sanding belts for a handheld belt sander in a couple different grits (50, 80, 120) or something in that range. Cut the seam and clamp it to a 1x4 board and start thinning with that. It gives you a good 15" long sanding block that is 3" wide so you can get nice long strokes and the 1x4 give good stability. I used C-clamps so I could tighten them good and really lock in that sanding belt. Use water to rinse the belt of metal filings and keep the blade cool. After thinning on the low grit you use wet/dry sand paper 220, 320, 400, 600, 800, 1000, 2000, or whatever progression you want, all the way up until you are satisfied. I was most pleased with my results thinning a 7" Forgecraft bull nose.

My results with a sanding belt and sand paper.
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I think it's just the wrong knife for the job? I bet there are quite a few guys here that make the same cuts for a living, why not try to get the right tool first and then train the knife to your individual needs from there...just an opinion.

Too late to edit, but perhaps a scimitar? I believe you can get a Forschner/Victorinox fairly inexpensively.

I had a scimitar originally but couldn't get it to hold a good edge but part of me thinks it was the HT on the AEBL

Both these work, though the bottom one holds an edge better :groucho:

Those look nice. I've been looking around for custom made high carbon butchers knives and haven't found much. I guess I've just grown accustom to higher quality steel and I'm having trouble finding scimitars made with them. If anyone knows where I can find one please chime in

I worked as a proper butcher for two years and now work in a kitchen doing butchering. The industry standard is the victornox 10" breaking knife.




I use it to cut through bone in rib eye primals with ease.

I have four full time meat cutters and they all use the knife shown above.

If you are dead set on carbon these guys are making are making something close.

http://www.rmurphyknives.com/store/Cooking_Knives_Chefs_Select.html#

Otherwise I would get on Bloodroot's or Rader's list.