I was gifted 3 Global knives a few days back by a friend who replaced her much used and abused Globals with...another set of Globals. A petty that was just pretty darned dull and a bit rusty, a tiny pairing knife missing maybe 4 mm off its tip, and a G-66 7 inch santoku-ish ktip-ish gyuto with 1ish mm chips in the edge.
I didnt need these as I have what I'd call my starter set of nice Japanese knives, Some Hitohiras, a Kamo, a couple Katos, a CCK, etc. but I took them to practice my sharpening and restoring skills.
I put the the G-66 to a Shapton pro 220 to take care of the chips and put a point on the rounded tip and then a Shapton pro 1000 for edge refinement, finally finishing on a balsa strop with .1 micron diamond paste. When I was done it was gliding through paper towels, easily taking the hair off my forearm, and sliding through the skin of a tomato under its own weight. And then the real test...a carrot. And this is where the whole thing fell apart. Cutting a 3/4" thick carrot not only did it wedge but I had to press down hard while slicing to make headway and get through the carrot. Not chopping...while slicing. Like ridiculous amounts of force. I chuckled and grabbed my Shibata bunka to make sure I didnt have some kind of mutant extra hard carrot on my hands. Of course the Shibata slid through the carrot like it wasnt even there. Next to no resistance. Now, I get it, I put a Toyota Corrola up against a Porsche of course the Porsche wins, but I didnt expect the difference to be this stark.
This experiment REALLY hammered home to me that geometry cuts. The Global while relatively thin at the spine, maybe 2ish mm, just doesnt slim down enough behind the edge, making it next to unuseable on hard veg even directly after a fresh and very keen shaprening. Or I am just REALLY spoiled at this point and I've forgotten what "normal" knives are like
I didnt need these as I have what I'd call my starter set of nice Japanese knives, Some Hitohiras, a Kamo, a couple Katos, a CCK, etc. but I took them to practice my sharpening and restoring skills.
I put the the G-66 to a Shapton pro 220 to take care of the chips and put a point on the rounded tip and then a Shapton pro 1000 for edge refinement, finally finishing on a balsa strop with .1 micron diamond paste. When I was done it was gliding through paper towels, easily taking the hair off my forearm, and sliding through the skin of a tomato under its own weight. And then the real test...a carrot. And this is where the whole thing fell apart. Cutting a 3/4" thick carrot not only did it wedge but I had to press down hard while slicing to make headway and get through the carrot. Not chopping...while slicing. Like ridiculous amounts of force. I chuckled and grabbed my Shibata bunka to make sure I didnt have some kind of mutant extra hard carrot on my hands. Of course the Shibata slid through the carrot like it wasnt even there. Next to no resistance. Now, I get it, I put a Toyota Corrola up against a Porsche of course the Porsche wins, but I didnt expect the difference to be this stark.
This experiment REALLY hammered home to me that geometry cuts. The Global while relatively thin at the spine, maybe 2ish mm, just doesnt slim down enough behind the edge, making it next to unuseable on hard veg even directly after a fresh and very keen shaprening. Or I am just REALLY spoiled at this point and I've forgotten what "normal" knives are like
