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Don't get anything VG10. It will frustrate the heck out of ya. Most, not all of my VG10 's are such PITA 's to sharpen.
If you use white you might be spoiled be the ease of sharpening. When you switch to some other knives you may find that your edges are not what you expected. If you are only going to be sharpening carbon I think white is a good option. However, if in the future you plan on sharpening a mix of stainless (disregarding some high end ones like AEB-L) and carbon I would find something a bit more difficult to sharpen. my 2cents.
Drew
What were you cutting with before you found this place?
Also, you should think about what types of knives you want to sharpen. I wanted to get into single bevels, so I bought a $50 yanagi on ebay that supposedly had good steel, but bad fit & finish. It sharpens up nicely, but the grind will take a lot of work to even out.
I would look into sharpening steels that you plan to own, but get one that the fit and finish is poor if possible. Also keep in mind, these knives sometimes require the MOST skill to actually sharpen fully along the edge, but you should get some idea of what's going on if you use a sharpie and a medium grit stone.
Pick up a CCK-1303. It's basic carbon and incredibly easy to sharpen/deburr, it's got a simple, near-flat profile that isn't overly complicated, and it's like $30.
What about a Fujiwara FKM? Dead cheap and should fit the bill perfectly, $83 for a 240 gyuto
Pick up a CCK-1303. It's basic carbon and incredibly easy to sharpen/deburr, it's got a simple, near-flat profile that isn't overly complicated, and it's like $30.
The 1303 is honestly one of my favorite knives. The grind is a bit inconsistent from knife to knife, but as a whole they're exceptionally thin and fun to use. Sharpening them is easy and, once you're experienced, completely effortless--it only takes a few passes per stone to move the metal you need, and the burr generally abrades away with a few edge-trailing strokes. And as GlassEye mentioned, you could pretty much practice on it straight up to the kurouchi and still have a functional nakiri. As for it's performance in the kitchen, it's thin enough to impress and small and light enough to not be cumbersome; the only complaints I could muster would be that it doesn't really release food that well and that edge retention is mediocre. At the price though, it's hard to pass up (especially if your primary intent learning to sharpen).Hmmm...I'm just giving away a dexter cleaver, this seems rather different though...
+1 on everything Vertigo saysThe 1303 is honestly one of my favorite knives. The grind is a bit inconsistent from knife to knife, but as a whole they're exceptionally thin and fun to use. Sharpening them is easy and, once you're experienced, completely effortless--it only takes a few passes per stone to move the metal you need, and the burr generally abrades away with a few edge-trailing strokes. And as GlassEye mentioned, you could pretty much practice on it straight up to the kurouchi and still have a functional nakiri. As for it's performance in the kitchen, it's thin enough to impress and small and light enough to not be cumbersome; the only complaints I could muster would be that it doesn't really release food that well and that edge retention is mediocre. At the price though, it's hard to pass up (especially if your primary intent learning to sharpen).
Just get someone with a grinder/sander to fix the old Henckels for you Seriously...if it's an old one, they're great knives.
You could find a flea market and go crazy!
It really all depends on what you want to own in the future...if you like cleavers, go for the CCK, it's easy to sharpen, and needs to be sharpened often and can get pretty sharp, but it loses it's edge fast. However, it's easier to see the angle because the knife is so huge, easier to hold, and you don't get practice sharpening the tip like a normal gyuto.
I'd recommend to pick what kind of knife you want to sharpen mostly, and get the cheapest here:
http://stores.ebay.com/BluewayJapan?_trksid=p4340.l2563
If the cheapest is still pretty close to a good knife (and not orders of magnitude less)...then why not just get what you really want? You probably won't ruin the edge completely, and when you're done you can ship it off to someone to fix if it seems very far off.
One last piece of advice, when I started learning to sharpen, it was on straight razors. I picked up 5 wapi's or so (cheap but decent steel) and some were warped bad, some just a little...they took forever to do anything with and along the way I couldn't really tell if I was making it worse or better. But only once I got a real razor to sharpen did it go easy and the results were fast to test. So although you can learn a lot on a cheap blade, keep in mind quality blades usually require a lot less time on the coarse stones and sometimes a different approach. If you use a 4k+ stone on a good blade, it would take you a LONG time to really ruin the edge in a way that would cost lots of money to fix.
thinning is part of sharpening.... maybe even more important performance-wise.
Get something that allows you in the near future to work on the edge, on the grind, and on the back-bevels.
don't forget the kanemasa e series at japan blades. very good beater knives at an excellent price.
+1 on everything Vertigo says
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