Grind preference

I'm curious what most people look for in a grind. Do you like hollow, flat, convex, S, etc.? Wide bevel? Symmetrical vs asymmetrical? When you look at a choil shot, what is it that makes you want that knife, or steer clear of it?

This is mostly just out of curiosity sake but I suppose it could help me or anyone when looking for a new knife. I guess this question is really just for double bevel knives.

 

Does anyone like flat ground knives?

I like all types of grinds, great for variety and different applications. Regardless of grind or thickness at the spine, the main thing I look for is thinness behind the edge. Universally, if you get it thin enough just behind the edge, the knife will perform reasonably well assuming it's ground okay. Also starting out with a knife that is already thin behind the edge prevents me from having a lengthy thinning session the first time I have to sharpen it.

 

Thin, very thin behind the edge, slightly convex into blade road and a shinogi 2/3rds up blade to aid food release if smooth blade eg honyaki or some other finish like combination of Ku and hammering. Great distal taper is a plus IMO.

 

That sounds really nice. What knives would you consider in this category?

 

Thin tip and behind the edge. Some kind of convexity, s-grind, shinogi line, hook grind, etc. to aid food release. Not necessarily something specific, just nothing that screams "STICTION!". Choil shots can be misleading, especially with lots of distal taper.

 

No knife I'm aware of offers all those features, but of the ones I've tried for monosteel I think Comet Honyaki ticks most boxes and for sanmai, my vote goes to TF

 

I look for shoulders. Partial height grind I suppose is what fits my style best. Something with a thick spine but thin at the edge with pronounced shoulders lets me separate tall/dense items while having fluidity through short/soft items.

I suppose a lot of knives fit in there to some extent.

 

Sometimes when I consider grinds I ask myself “can I even maintain this geometry over many sharpenings?” Particularly things with some concave nature might give me problems...anyway I like sticking with things that are within my comfort level.
Other than that I like all sorts of stuff. I try and think about what kinda stuff I’m doing at work and if any particular grind could help or inhibit the work. Or if a grind could be useful for a broad array of tasks.
Also I like keeping a variety on hand, I don’t see a reason for owning a bunch of knives that cut exactly the same way.

 

That about sums it up for me.

I wouldn't want any concavity or even a flat grind for that reason. Convex is easy to thin. Even if it can take a while for more metal removal, there is more room for sneaking up on what you want. And if you rotate between enough different knives, you don't have to thin very often. So just buy more knives.

 

Full flat type grinds don’t work well for gyutos in my experience. For outdoor stuff where you cut wood and such harder matterials they work well. Once you start cutting wet stuff flat grinds seem to run into issues. S grinds and such work well and some very well, but I agree with @labor of love that I am always concerned about being able to maintain such complex grinds. Well executed convex or grinds that go somewhere to the middle of the blade and than straighten out such as wide bevel and variations work well and I can keep up with them. Fortunately, as many knives as I have I could probably cook for another 100 years and only need to thin a few of them.

 

Yeah this is all the truth. Although s grind is really fun in a home kitchen where you just don't sharpen or thin as often

 

i like full convex the most. could be thicker or thinner both are fun

wide bevels are nice too for food release and ability to get super thin behind the edge with meat to back it up

convex right side and flattish or concave left side is good for a righty if you want a combination foodrelease on the right side and minimum wedging with the block of food on the left

thin behind the edge for gyuto. if its a beater or butcher knife i need it thicker.

Yeah a variety is helpful. but the above are classics for me. of course we have double concave that come with many knives new, but those disappear with routine whetstone thinning and sharpening. wide bevels and s-grinds are more similar than not. if you rounded the shinogi on a wide bevel, you'd get pretty close to an s grind. you just need to concave out the blade face, however slight. the concavity of the s grind is supposed to release food, but the wide bevel does that anyway too with the sharp transition

 

I love good grinds diff. kinds for diff. jobs

I hate crappy grinds

 

I'm here with you.

 

So true, distal taper can have an amazing effect on the grind.
It can effectively drop the shinogi closer to the edge, allowing for better food release at the same primary-bevel angle.

 

I was going to ask what a hook grind was until I searched it. Saw Kippington's knife and wow, that is crazy!

 

Xerxes does something similar. Too extreme for me.

 

Well said! I don't work in a kitchen so it doesn't depend on my work, but I do like trying new things and want to try as many different knives/grinds as I can. One of the reasons I asked the question!

 

Well I can't argue with that!

 

Each Grind has their merit. Each has good and bad examples also, but generally ...
1. Convex
(the Push cutters grind)
For the longest time i loved as much Convex as i could get. It felt like a good knife when it was convex ground, and had the best food separation. Fell out of favor for me as after owning a couple... you want to get deeper in the rabit hole and test more stuff.

2. Scandi-Grid
bad experience with this grind ...
Takeda is an exception, but even he had issues in 2015/6 with the scandi-grind. now the blades are so thin it doesnt matter. - some examples you can see an S-Grind in there where the middle is thinned out.

3. Flat grind / lazer
(Flat grind = Rocking cutter grind)
(Lazer = the chopper grind )
Can be good knives, can be easy to maintain, never felt that magical to me though. in use probably for a little higher skilled user/ or somebody that takes more time rock chopping.

4. Wide bevel.
(??the pull cutters grind??)
last year or so ive changed to a wide bevel seaker, moving to wide bevels for their easier to maintain aspects. they allow me to crack out the stones more, and easier to thin/ polish and work on generally. They are more aggressive on the board and need more advance knife skills to use with the same proficiency as a convex grind. this is because there really isnt any buffer of convexity from the edge to your knuckle in chops. Gotta have good skills to whip around a wide bevel with any speed. Also, trying to go zero-micro-bevel your blade allows you to see exactly where the steel is. And this is the easiest grind to steer where your cuts go.

5. Hollow is just a soon to be wide bevel // just like KU knife is a soon to be polished knife.

symmetrical vs Asymmetrical - is there ever fully symmetrical? I would rather my cuts go towards my non-cutting hand(left) than my cutting hand(right) because in chopping it keeps the line easier for me to keep the slices super thin, if it steers off getting it back on line is difficult.

 

Food release? Some people swear by these....
Great for attacking those callouses too.

 

I'd like to hear thoughts on what makes a great distal taper. My understanding is that linear taper is generally not desired (?)

Also, what makes an S grind less maintainable than convex?

 

Yes the shapes are not as simple as they might appear in photos. I'll leave the technical aspects to the experts but from what I can see examining my Kato WH is that there is a complex relationship between attenuated width at the spine as one progresses down the convex grind into the edge and that shape is constantly changing moving from heal to tip. The taper is not linear.

 

How do you differentiate scandi from wide bevel, aren't they the same thing?

S grind is less maintainable because theoretically, eventually you will get into the hollow portion of the grind which can't really be maintained on flat stones. In reality, most people will never get there, but depending on how extreme S grind is and how narrow the lower convex portion of it is the possibility still exists.

 

I was going to ask the same thing...

 

I think scandi would be a wide bevel with a zero edge?

 

Not sure why you heard that, I really like linear taper.

There are so many types that it would be a while to describe taper in detail. Similar to grinds, there's liner, convex, concave, stepped... and any mix of the above.
It plays a important role in the balance and food release of the knife, as well as possibly adding more comfort to the grip area.

Maybe I should start a new thread on the topic, it's often misunderstood.

 

Would love to read that when you have time to post.

 

Maybe 'linear taper' was meant instead as constant thickness. Having taper does mean something gets thicker or thinner. I saw a couple super hard use forged outdoor knives have rhoboidal taper where they're thicker near the middle of the blade for chopping. I actually like a largish weight of tang in the handle too, if that counts as taper. Kato feels that way.