Help me understand please

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pitted_soul

pitted_soul

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Ok. I got a knife from a reputable but not a prolific maker, handmade knife. There was, what I considered, a grind issue and I got a replacement. The replacement is a santoku and it seems to cut weirdly, I don't know how else to put it. But I will try to explain.

On most knives I have, they have an edge that slices through stuff, per usual. On carrots, I feel like this one is cutting but also tearing a little. I have to be more mindful in directing the knife, it would have a tendency to just cut off to the side of the carrot if I was attempting to make a thin slice, unless I was very deliberate and provide more guidance or direction more so than my other knives. A thin slice would also cause the slice to curl a little bit in a carrot but not the other knives. Carrots don't stick to the blade one drop but it isn't shooting it across the board either. And I don't feel like I have the same amount of control that I do with almost every other knife. It doesn't laser through onions like a Santoku should, IMO. Bell peppers are fine enough and it's sharp, so it goes right in to a tomato. It absolutely wedges in a sweet potato and can cut a slice of one but takes more effort than knives half the price or 20% even. It has a near mirror finish and minimal patina at this point.

My theory is that it could and should be thinner BTE and its sharpness is compensating for that as much as it can.

Now, I've reached out to the maker and he is super cool and a very good guy and will refund me. He came HIGHLY recommended.

Is that making ANY sense? Do I need a video of it? Is my concern unfounded or am I misconstruing something?

Thanks.
 
It sounds like your knife is not correct with your handedness as well as having a thick grind. If you are right handed and the grind is more convex or obtuse on the left and flatter on the right it will have a tendency to steer right as you cut with the right hand unless you were very careful when cutting. An extreme case of it would be a single bevel knife designed for a lefty used with the right hand or the reverse of it. The other symptoms sound like a thick grind that needs to be thinned. As far as santoku having a requirement of lasering through onions, I don't know, santoku is just a profile and the grind determines how it will cut different items.
 
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Barmoley said:
It sounds like your knife is not correct with your handedness as well as having a thick grind. If you are right handed and the grind is more convex or obtuse on the left and flatter on the right it will have a tendency to steer right as you cut with the right hand unless you were very careful when cutting. An extreme case of it would be a single bevel knife designed for a lefty used with the right hand or the reverse of it. The other symptoms sound like a thick grind that needs to be thinned. As far as santoku having a requirement of lasering through onions, I don't know, santoku is just a profile and the grind determines how it will cut different items.
Click to expand...
Point taken about what a santoku "should" do. It isn't a laser but is pretty thin overall, not a WH but not dainty, ~205g, 8.5", differentially hardened W2. It is described as a walkschliff convex grind. It is a double bevel and there was no note of a handedness and the handle is ambidextrous. I have one other Santoku (Shun) that was shorter but almost as tall, and it performed better in every situation i presented them with. My thicker Dua vau kiri cleaver performed the same or better than this knife.

I'm trying my best to see if there is just something I am missing or misinterpreting. I realize that we are bound by the constrains of our communication. I HATE returning things and avoid it like the plague but a handmade knife should be wanted.
 
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Agree with @Barmoley - you're experiencing steering which is caused by an asymmetric grind, or the shape of the blade from the edge to the spine.

This thread will help explain what's happening. Although with a very thin slice of carrot the right side of blade doesn't come into play to counteract steering from the left side. If you do that sort of thin often and it's important to you, then look for a knife that's righty-biased, e.g. most Japanese knives but fewer Western-made knives (unless specified).

https://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/threads/a-basic-explanation-of-asymmetry.33951/
The wedging is related to overall thickness moreso than the shape or asymmetry. The near-mirror finish might also be causing stiction.
 
I obviously dont know the knife or handle material but I would also say that 205g sounds like a fairly thick knife to me. I prefer my 210's to be in the 150g-190g gram range as a whole. It does sound like steering to me but I have had thick knives feel like they were steering on things like thin slices with carrots. I had a Milan for a bit that would cut straight down but crack carrots. If I tried thin slices though it steered pretty badly towards the thin slice. There was nothing wrong with the knife just a forged S-grind that behaved that way due to thickness.
 
You guys sent me down a nice rabbit hole. A couple of asymmetry threads, a distal taper thread, and Walkschliff conversations. Very informative and eye-opening.

Alright, I'll get some pics up tonight and hopefully a video uploaded. This is a chance to improve my choil pics.

Static friction might be a contributor to the situation with the mirror finish, especially in the larger vegetables. This is some pretty significant stiction and the first time I've experienced it at this level. Will a patina have a significant effect on stiction?
 
It is actually 226 g, I came home and measured it. The maker emailed me and explained his grind and said it is deliberately thicker behind the grind but done in such a way that it's still quite functional. I will say the food release is very good on it. It is a big boy for sure. It is differentially treated and that is well done. There's a slight possibility that I was overreacting. I will neither deny nor confirm that but it is a possibility. Maybe evaluating this through a different lens and having some more understanding of the grind. It's different than anything I've had before. But it seems to do the job for the most part
 
pitted_soul said:
It is actually 226 g, I came home and measured it. The maker emailed me and explained his grind and said it is deliberately thicker behind the grind but done in such a way that it's still quite functional. I will say the food release is very good on it. It is a big boy for sure. It is differentially treated and that is well done. There's a slight possibility that I was overreacting. I will neither deny nor confirm that but it is a possibility. Maybe evaluating this through a different lens and having some more understanding of the grind. It's different than anything I've had before. But it seems to do the job for the most part
Click to expand...

Everything, to one degree or another, is a compromise. In very broad terms, laser will mean super easy slicing but prone to poor food release whereas thicker grinds will be the opposite. Outside of just plain poor execution, they're not better or worse, just different.
 
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Sounds like a little thinning behind the edge is needed.

And maybe adjust sharpening angles on each side to compensate for steering.
 
If you like the knife for things that are not carrots and sweet potatoes, heck, keep it for those and get something else for the hard stuff. Laser, wide bevel, Chinese cleaver, whatever. And by "whatever," I of course mean Chinese cleaver, but I might be biased.

Oh, and one vote for changing your grotty disgusting avatar.
 
I think that avatar is unnerving even me a little. You should see what we do as jokes with each others Screensaver and backgrounds. My wife is a nurse too and wont blink an eye to it. Mealtime conversations are fun.

I'm going to keep the santoku. I've never had a grind like this and I assumed it was wrong and not me. It's a sturdy knife for sure with a strong tip. The handle is outstanding.
 
Barmoley said:
Could be, but hard to say without other dimensions and knowing the handle construction and material. Besides plenty of heavy for length knives cut all sorts of ingredients very well.
Click to expand...

Oh for sure. I was just taking the performance description and plucking those things out as culprits. A knife can have those exact same descriptors and be great.
 
pitted_soul said:
I think that avatar is unnerving even me a little. You should see what we do as jokes with each others Screensaver and backgrounds. My wife is a nurse too and wont blink an eye to it. Mealtime conversations are fun.

I'm going to keep the santoku. I've never had a grind like this and I assumed it was wrong and not me. It's a sturdy knife for sure with a strong tip. The handle is outstanding.
Click to expand...

You could always ask the maker to thin it for you if he’s willing. I’ve done that with a couple customs that came out thicker than I wanted, and in both cases the knife came back hugely improved (from my perspective, anyway). 225g is a lot of meat on a santoku.
 
Ok, I'll address what I can.

I'll get a good choil shot by the morning.

Echoing what @Barmoley said, I have several WHs and heavier knives, I have only one that could approach a laser and that's my thinnest long knife, and they all perform well over a wide variety of mediums and my thinking is that it's due to being well ground. I have several that are the same length and heavier that I felt were "better" cutters. But maybe it's cutting differently. It's certainly sturdier BTE that any of those others.

I'm tired. I have a long commute and life and I just couldn't muster choils shots and my "changed-my-mind" emails. Tomorrow
 
pitted_soul said:
I think that avatar is unnerving even me a little. You should see what we do as jokes with each others Screensaver and backgrounds. My wife is a nurse too and wont blink an eye to it. Mealtime conversations are fun.

I'm going to keep the santoku. I've never had a grind like this and I assumed it was wrong and not me. It's a sturdy knife for sure with a strong tip. The handle is outstanding.
Click to expand...
Keep the knife, change the avatar hahaha
 
20231027_070715.jpg
20231027_070748.jpg
20231027_070744.jpg

I'm horrible at these. This was in the middle of clean-up.
 
It has to be just the choil, there is no way the knife would cut at all in any reasonable manner if the rest of the edge was like this. In the second picture the edge also looks very asymmetric in a way that would steer for a right hander, but the rest don't really. Choil shots can be very deceiving and not representative of the rest of the edge as I suspect is the case here.
 
With the typical disclaimer that choil shots don’t tell the whole story…. that looks really thick at the edge. If you have some digital calipers, those can usually give quite a bit more detail especially further up the blade.
 
Barmoley said:
It has to be just the choil, there is no way the knife would cut at all in any reasonable manner if the rest of the edge was like this. In the second picture the edge also looks very asymmetric in a way that would steer for a right hander, but the rest don't really. Choil shots can be very deceiving and not representative of the rest of the edge as I suspect is the case here.
Click to expand...

Agree that choil shots can be tough to get an accurate idea of the edge but if you blow up that last picture you can kinda see a bit of the side. It looks like it might be convexed in the manner of say Bark River knife. But yes, hard to say for sure.

OP can you just take a side picture of the blade?
 
I just thinned a new knife for a customer in Germany that wasn’t totally satisfied, and he guided me as to what the problems were, and I agreed with him and it was no problem. In my defense, it was a totally new style of knife with dimensions and profile that I had never made before

as already stated, that edge on the choil shot, something just doesn’t look right. Also, why does it appear There are heavy, grinding scratches? Like the choil wasn’t rounded and polished…

And another vote for the avatar change
 
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