I'm looking for a carbon steel beater knife

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Miguelito's Blade

Miguelito's Blade

KKF Supporting Member
Joined
Jan 30, 2022
Messages
139
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Location
Roseville, CA
Being pretty new at all this, I so far have three decent Japanese knives and three or four of the old stainless knives we are replacing. I have assembled a set of stones 400-1000-4000-6000-8000 and have been making what is, to me at least, acceptable progress by practicing on the stainless knives. At this point I would not dream of touching my Wat Pro Nakiri or either of my other Japanese knives, but the day is unavoidably approaching when I will have to at least touch them up. All of them are carbon steel clad with stainless. So the time has come to start learning on carbon steel, which, I understand, is perceptibly different from stainless to work on.

Because of all that, I am looking for a carbon steel beater knife. It doesn't matter at all to me what type it is, though I would prefer that it not be a gyuto. All I really care about is that it be carbon steel, preferably but not necessarily a Japanese pattern, and cheap. If possible I would prefer to spend $50 or less but I would be willing to spend up to $100 if I had to. I have come across a very few out there, but I hoped that some of you might know of just the right one. Thanks.
 
Sakai Kikumori Nihon-kou is pretty nice but at the high end of your budget. Kanehide bessaku (?) is another one i Hear but no experience on it. I don't think carbon is that different from stainless. Maybe less pressure/strokes to burr and deburr.
 
I admire your diligence, and I might be alone when I say this, but the principals at hand don't really change, irregardless of the steel type. I might even go so far as to say that a good carbon steel knife is much easier to sharpen than one made of a soft, cheap, high-chromium stainless steel. If you can master those ones, carbon will be a snap.
 
MSicardCutlery said:
I admire your diligence, and I might be alone when I say this, but the principals at hand don't really change, irregardless of the steel type. I might even go so far as to say that a good carbon steel knife is much easier to sharpen than one made of a soft, cheap, high-chromium stainless steel. If you can master those ones, carbon will be a snap.
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Thanks for the encouragement and advice. Even knowing that about carbon knives and assuming that I become a wizard at sharpening stainless, I think it would still give me the shivers to take one of my good knives to a stone.
 
HumbleHomeCook said:
Also, if you don't mind a gyuto, I can probably help but I honestly wouldn't want you buying a knife you won't get much use out of just to practice on.
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I just realized that I forgot to mention that I also have two stainless gyutos to practice on. That is my only reason for what I said about gyutos. I guess it just depends on the specific knife.
 
The cheap options that I know are:
Knife Japan have free shipping and a few shape options.

Ikkyu also have a few options and you can combine the included shipping with artificial/ natural stones.

Hida tool have stock of their Tosa knives, not sure what the shipping situation is.
 
If you want something japanese JCK is worth a look; www.japanesechefsknife.com. They're usually one of the cheapest. It's hard to beat a Fujiwara FKH for value. But at that point it's already on the 'pricier' end for something that's essentially just a piece of training metal.
Could go for one of the cheap carbons made in the Americas... Old Hickory maybe? Those are dirtcheap even over here after shipping across the atlantic.

Personally I wouldn't really worry about carbon steel being all that different in sharpening. It's just easier / faster.
If you insist on getting something to practise, figure out what role you want filled and just get a cheapish carbon knife for it. For example a cheap sujihiki, a honesuki, a boning knife, whatever.
 
Depending on your intentions, also consider checking eBay. You can search for "gyuto" and check the box for "used". Lots of old beat up Japanese knives available. You can also get a used forgecraft slicer
 
You will want a decent knife. I purchased a few cheaper Tojiro shirogami knives as practice and while they are useful as beaters in and of themselves, they are not the same as working on a good carbon knife.

Sharpen your Watanabe. There is nothing you can do to the knife that a professional sharpener cannot fix. The only thing that could really happen is you will lose some height if you really mess it up. You will learn so much more by working on a good knife than something you don't really care about (as the good knife will get sharper).
 
If you want a beater for beater stuff, Masahiro VC/Nihonkou is a good pick. The rumor is that these are something like V2 and not an SK steel, all I know for sure is that the ones I had got extremely sharp easily, had impressive edge retention, weren’t particularly prone to rust and didn’t take damage under heavy and hasty use.

If you want a cheap knife to avoid sharpening your expensive ones, sharpen the expensive ones. Everyone has to take the plunge sometime, because buying a knife is faster than building the skill to sharpen it. Personally I’d maintain that carbon is the way to go; most people’s cheaper knives are stainless and it seems intuitive that I’ll practice and learn on my Wusthofs before starting to grind away on my Wat/Tanaka/Mazaki/etc, but in practice these sharpen quite differently. Stainless gives different feedback and the burrs behave differently, softer steel behaves differently, sharpening a thin edge is markedly different from a thick one, etc.

To answer the question asked in the OP, how about a house brand level Hitachi carbon such as Karaku, Akira-saku, etc? Or a Tosa forged knife which is likely to have a less refined finish and not as thin of a grind, maybe not as hard of steel, but is essentially the same form. I’d recommend against Masahiro/Misono/Sakai Takayuki/etc in this instance because these are highly asymmetrical edges and different to sharpen than a convex or flat grind or a more symmetrical wide bevel.

Speaking of wide bevels, in hindsight something like an ironclad Wat nakiri is an excellent knife to learn on (Assuming that you are putting a secondary edge bevel on and not trying to hamaguri grind the wide bevel every time). You can immediately see if you’re grinding away too much metal on the coarser stones because the edge bevel will get too tall; then you thin (or have it thinned) and try again. With a thin edge like that one reaching the apex should be easy and come quickly, burr is easy to feel, etc.
 
GorillaGrunt said:
Speaking of wide bevels, in hindsight something like an ironclad Wat nakiri is an excellent knife to learn on (Assuming that you are putting a secondary edge bevel on and not trying to hamaguri grind the wide bevel every time). You can immediately see if you’re grinding away too much metal on the coarser stones because the edge bevel will get too tall; then you thin (or have it thinned) and try again. With a thin edge like that one reaching the apex should be easy and come quickly, burr is easy to feel, etc
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Speaking of the height of bevels, what are the angles on a Wat nakiri? It seems that everyone is so familiar with such angles because try as I might--and I have--I have not found the actual angles specified. I have been sharpening my stainless beaters to 10 degrees, but, while they did get really sharp, depending on the knife, it commonly produces a very wide bevel and looks not even close to how I know it should look. So if you would, please explain to me what angles are used. Thanks.
 
Practice on cheap stainless knives. If you can effectively deburr a cheap stainless knife, high end carbon will be a revelation as to how easy it is.

Sharpen as many as you can get your hands on. Friends, neighbors, coworkers, anyone. It's an awkward ask, but usually people are delighted. You almost certainly wont make them worse. The vast majority of peoples knives are in terrible condition. That's what I did. I sharpened about 200 knives before I dared put my expensive knives on stone. Once I did my only thought was, wow, that was so much easier, what took me so long?

If you really want to sharpen some carbon steel, keep an eye on ebay and get yourself a vintage forgecraft. They are a lot of fun to restore and are great knives. Usually you can find them around $25.
 
Miguelito's Blade said:
Being pretty new at all this, I so far have three decent Japanese knives and three or four of the old stainless knives we are replacing. I have assembled a set of stones 400-1000-4000-6000-8000 and have been making what is, to me at least, acceptable progress by practicing on the stainless knives. At this point I would not dream of touching my Wat Pro Nakiri or either of my other Japanese knives, but the day is unavoidably approaching when I will have to at least touch them up. All of them are carbon steel clad with stainless. So the time has come to start learning on carbon steel, which, I understand, is perceptibly different from stainless to work on.

Because of all that, I am looking for a carbon steel beater knife. It doesn't matter at all to me what type it is, though I would prefer that it not be a gyuto. All I really care about is that it be carbon steel, preferably but not necessarily a Japanese pattern, and cheap. If possible I would prefer to spend $50 or less but I would be willing to spend up to $100 if I had to. I have come across a very few out there, but I hoped that some of you might know of just the right one. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Not a bad idea, but think you are probably overthinking this. Carbon steel is much easier to sharpen then stainless. Take it slow, focus on technique, keep your pressure light. Your not going to remove much if any metal with that mindset which means your not going to F anything up. As you get comfortable with the physical motion and create a muscle memory you'll learn what works and doesn't. It's not that hard
 
Miguelito's Blade said:
Speaking of the height of bevels, what are the angles on a Wat nakiri? It seems that everyone is so familiar with such angles because try as I might--and I have--I have not found the actual angles specified. I have been sharpening my stainless beaters to 10 degrees, but, while they did get really sharp, depending on the knife, it commonly produces a very wide bevel and looks not even close to how I know it should look. So if you would, please explain to me what angles are used. Thanks.
Click to expand...
Those wide bevels are an indication of how thick the blades are. 10° might be a great value for a backbevel with your stainless beaters, but those edges won't hold with that kind of steel. Add a few strokes at a much higher angle and blend the bevels.
 
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