What the hell did I do to my knife

wwwHey Guys:

My name is Claude long time lurker and first time poster from Kitchener, Ontario. In the last couple of months I have have been bitten by the Japanese knife bug. Up until the bite I have been using Wusthof knives which I must say that I still love. I have a chef's knife, a boning knife, bread knive and paring knive all of them being Wusthof Classic. Recently I bought a Takeda AS 240 and Tojiro DP 240 which I love as well. I personally don't see that much difference between the Tojiro (OOTB) and Wusthof chefs knife. The Takeda however was sharpened by Knife in Toronto and its ****ing insane. I have not used anything like it. It blows my mind. Its a freaking razor blade. Anyway enough about me and on to my problem.

I have been reading all of this great information about sharpening and pulled the trigger on a 1000 and 5000 Chosera stone from paulsfinest.com. It shipped overnight and I got it today. In past I have been using this Shun combo stone with a 1000 and 6000 grit stone. Anyway the Chosera stones came today and eager to use I pulled out my Wusthof paring knife and tried to sharpen it on the 1000. I have sharpened the paring knife with the Shun stone before with mixed results but I never did any damage to the face like today. Check out these pictures of the knife. *** did I do it. Did I not have enough angle and is it fixable? Man I suck at this. As soon as knife is offering their next class I am totally taking it.

Any help or suggestions would be very appreciated.

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Claude

I can't see the pictures, did you upload with the attachment manager option or just click the icon to insert inline? Or use a service like photobucket? I'm no expert in this regard.

Did you flatten the stones first, if you're angle was the same as before perhaps extra mud was built up which scratched the blade (presuming that is the issue, can't tell without pics).

My best guesses are 1) The finger guard at the heel is preventing you from keeping the edge even; you'll need to grind that down in order to sharpen evenly to the heel, and 2) you're probably wobbling a bit, which is pretty normal when starting out. And since the steel is so soft an inconsistant sharpening angle really shows up quickly at the edge.

Off topic: Are you near toronto? lucky! Next time you go in, if you haven't, go visit Tosho. Also I hear there's a CCK store at some mall if you want to try out a cck 1303 cleaver, the only CCK store in the western hemisphere maybe. They are crazy thin awesome cleavers that used to be cheap but the price has exploded online and now they're $70.

Also I agree about the finger guard/ bolster. I hate sharpening anything with those, it makes the last bit impossible. I dremel it off of old sabatiers..

Scratched blade faces are a part of sharpening knives. Some wet dry sandpaper and a little wd 40 will make the face nice. Pay more attention to the edge, and how the knife cuts than the cosmetic aspect. Once you get edges you are happy with the. You can climb the "making it pretty" mountain.

You guys are right about the bolster. Its BS and makes it tough to sharpen. I am more worried about the face. You can see on the face of the knife in the pictures. It almost looks like its mirror finish when the rest of it is satin. It pisses me off as it used to be fully satin before todays sharpening session.

Claude

Dardeau said:

Scratched blade faces are a part of sharpening knives. Some wet dry sandpaper and a little wd 40 will make the face nice. Pay more attention to the edge, and how the knife cuts than the cosmetic aspect. Once you get edges you are happy with the. You can climb the "making it pretty" mountain.

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That's good to know and makes me feel better. I am working on getting a burr and so forth but I think I need some lessons which I will get at either Tosho or Knife in Toronto. Knife is not having any more lessons until fall while Tosho's seem to run all year long. Not sure which is better.

May just mean that the knife requires a bit of thinning...close to what you did. Agreed, bolsters suck!

May want to try out the magic marker trick. Also, if you haven't seen any of Jon's videos (Japanese Knife Imports) I would suggest giving them a quick view--he actually does one showing how to use a magic marker. If you aren't familiar, just ask.

As to taking a class, sure would save beginners a bit of a headache, but you can learn equally well by yourself with a little patience (and some sandpaper to clean your mess).

Cheers and welcome!

Edit to add link here. IMO, the best of the best resource on this available on the interwebs.

I wouldn't worry too much about the scratches, they help you recognize your own knives when you bring the to your friends. (You will want to bring your own knives when you cook at your friends once you start sharpening your own knives, and no they won't think you are weird. )

I have the same problem with my paring, wasn't able to keep a consistent angle when I first started sharpening, so the knife was wobbling, sometime slips too low. Slow down, get use to getting a consistent angle first, and you will do fine. Once you start thinning your german knives on purpose, they will all be scratched.

BigK75 said:

You guys are right about the bolster. Its BS and makes it tough to sharpen. I am more worried about the face. You can see on the face of the knife in the pictures. It almost looks like its mirror finish when the rest of it is satin. It pisses me off as it used to be fully satin before todays sharpening session.

Claude

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The Tojiro will benefit from a proper sharpening and probably some thinning eventually, they tend to be a bit fat behind the edge and the factory sharpening is variable. Mine was very sharp out of the box, but is much better now that I've done a complete sharpening on it. this is not always true, sometimes Tojiro's have a very ho hum edge from the factory.

You may find you like the Japanese knives much more than the Wustofs as you get used to them, especially the fact that they stay sharp quite a bit longer. I greatly prefer mine to the western style knives I have.

Peter

if you got scratches on the bladeface from wobbling, your angle was very likely way too low to begin with, at least for German steel. Admittedly, a low angle makes much more sense on a parer than on a chef's knife because it normally won't touch the board.

Jon Broida (JKI) & Rick Theory, both KKF members have some extremely informative & good videos on sharpening. I highly suggest watching these before taking any classes. Welcome aboard & good luck. :cool2: You can find said videos on you tube.

cheflarge said:

Jon Broida (JKI) & Rick Theory, both KKF members have some extremely informative & good videos on sharpening. I highly suggest watching these before taking any classes. Welcome aboard & good luck. :cool2: You can find said videos on you tube.

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This is fantastic help guys. I will look through all of those videos and see if I can self learn before taking classes.

Claude

The videos from Korin are also very good. They cover pretty much every aspect of sharpening you can think of.