Sorry if this has been posted somewhere else, but I've noticed that with some more expensive knives, the cutting edge seems to have a really steep angle. I heard/read once that sometimes knife-makers will leave the setting of the bevel to the customer, but I was also not wanting to set a much lower angle without being more sure about it first/see the reasoning for such a steep angle.
Setting bevels on new knives
- Thread starter mgslee08
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Use the knife. If it doesn’t go through product like you want, set a lower angle bevel. If that makes it too chippy, you can always steepen it again or add a microbevel.
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Or go Stringer style? Pretty thin until micro/macro-bevel is gone. Use knife. If chips, raise angle a little until chips are gone.
Indeed! Sorry about your new knife, but it’s not going to be truly sharp until you sharpen it like stringer does:
https://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/threads/sharpening-with-continuously-changing-bevel.45003/
Just kidding: stringer’s techniques are really great, but the key for you right now is to not stress out and be ok with changing the edge geometry. Good luck!
Sharpen as low as you can do consistently. Use the knife. If it micro-chips, add a slightly higher angle micro-bevel until chips disappear.
Sorry to necro post, but lots of the knives I see on site have pretty small bevels. Compared to mine, mine are pretty huge. Does blade thinness, grind etc. Contribute to this at all? Or is it just the preference of the owner to sharper at a higher angle to keep bevels smaller?
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It's good sharpening practice to build a relief — or primary — bevel at a very low angle. The final or secondary bevel will be almost imperceptible. Two advantages: the area behind the edge being very thin, which highly contributes to the blade's performance, allows a still performing conservative secondary edge; easy maintenance, as a few strokes on a fine stone will do to revive the secondary edge, without the need of a full sharpening with thinning behind the edge through a full progression.
And yes, the width of the bevel is a combination of the bevel angle and the thinness of the knife behind the bevel. If you have huge bevels and your edges aren’t microchipping all over the place, I’d guess your knives could use a thinning. Or put in a relief bevel (essentially, thin just near the edge) like Benuser says.
DavidPF
Likes Boring Knives
That's the only part I DO understand - instead of evenly all over, he keeps it super thin at the tip, fat & strong at the heel, and normal in the middle. Unfortunately, knowing that little detail doesn't make me able to actually sharpen a knife.
