Sharpening Global Knives

Japanese Knives - by Tokushu Knife
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If I think the globals are expensive and i coul dsell all 6 or 7 to get a decent Gyuto (never heard of that) then I guess they are eye wateringly expensive
 
Nah, it's more a question of loss within a fairly knowledgeable secondhand market. Meaning either you find a fish to buy them almost full price, or at least to a decent percentage of their selling point. Thing is, intrinsic value is working against you.

However, if say you can salvage a petty, a paring, a bread knife, a boning - whatever you feel you need and works well with your Globals - then I guess you could have a decent Gyuto anyway out of selling say a 8" Chef, a 10" slicer, and a Santoku. More popular options among neophytes, it might catch on with your FB friends or something.
 
Ok so you could save the petty, the bread, the carving fork because it won't hold much value, and sell a set of 4 that has some appeal. The Chef, overlarge Santoku, Nakiri and tomato, these knives are about 500$CAD on the market. I guess a good 350$US at least. If you can get 200$ US out of it, you have a fairly decent range of very very good Gyutos to chose from. Folks here will lead you to the best choices as per your region and buying power.
 
De nada. Advantage is, while you're trying to sell, you still can use them and (learn to) sharpen them, in turn benefiting in your resell value if you succeed.

For sharpening listen to @Benuser advice. You won't go wrong, the process he describes is incremental and failproof. You'll find the edge, get the burr... and then the deburring game is where you'll have to work until proper.
 
It's interesting people's different experiences sharpening them. I think a lot of the trouble I have is that the ones I've sharpened are not mine (my in-laws have, I kid ye not, about 30 of the things), they tend to come to me very blunt, sometimes chipped, and having been run through dishwashers their entire life.

My suspicion is that they're naturally quite fat behind the edge, and have quite a convex grind, so when they're in this state it you have to remove quite a lot of steel in order to be able to start sharpening proper. Which is why I pretty much always start on very coarse stones. Just a hunch, I've never looked too closely at it.

So perhaps my issue is as much with the people who often own globals, as it is the knives themselves ;)

EDIT - And obviously I'm not putting anyone here into that category of person!
 
cotedupy said:
It's interesting people's different experiences sharpening them. I think a lot of the trouble I have is that the ones I've sharpened are not mine (my in-laws have, I kid ye not, about 30 of the things), they tend to come to me very blunt, sometimes chipped, and having been run through dishwashers their entire life.

My suspicion is that they're naturally quite fat behind the edge, and have quite a convex grind, so when they're in this state it you have to remove quite a lot of steel in order to be able to start sharpening proper. Which is why I pretty much always start on very coarse stones. Just a hunch, I've never looked too closely at it.

So perhaps my issue is as much with the people who often own globals, as it is the knives themselves ;)

EDIT - And obviously I'm not putting anyone here into that category of person!
Click to expand...
All perfectly true. But even a well-maintained, thinned Global may cause serious problems due to its steel. Large carbides, clusters of them, in a soft matrix. Hard to raise a burr, often hard to get rid of it. Burrs popping up after half an hour. Chipping — never seen with such a soft steel. Spontaneous chipping, you can't relate to any event. There is a reason this steel has been chosen. It's highly stain resistant and offers a kind of bite normal people will perceive as sharpness.
Old man speaking here:
Globals have been introduced half way the eighties. In these days the general public only knew the big German names, thick, heavy and dull.
The Globals were a revelation. Thin, light, sharp out of the box, with a to some appealing, modern design. Easily available. Great marketing. Soft enough to allow common abuse. Users could go on with their poor habits.
Since they are frankly outdated. Much better stainless knives have become available through distance selling, even to the general public.
But for many, Globals have been a first introduction to better knives.
 
Can someone explain carbides please?

Whilst one of my knives has some damage at the tip (no idea how that happened) the rest have not been mistreated and are not chipped and have never been in a dishwasher. I guess unless you are knowledgeable in the beginning when looking for knives global are an attractive option, they look(ed) good, felt good and were marketed well so you think you are buying into quality (as I had until I made this post lol)
 
Knifesteelnerds has lots of steel information. Good pictures of carbides. Also did a pretty big edge retention test, among other ones.
 
steevjp said:
Can someone explain carbides please?

Whilst one of my knives has some damage at the tip (no idea how that happened) the rest have not been mistreated and are not chipped and have never been in a dishwasher. I guess unless you are knowledgeable in the beginning when looking for knives global are an attractive option, they look(ed) good, felt good and were marketed well so you think you are buying into quality (as I had until I made this post lol)
Click to expand...
Carbides are cristalline structures within steel. In the case of stainless steel chromium carbides catch our interest. They are much harder than their environment. During Heat Treatment the maker can influence their formation, especially their size and distribution. Big carbides will make the blade more abrasion resistant but harder to sharpen. If they're both large and unevenly distributed the steel won't hold a fine edge. To a certain degree it's a choice made by the maker which quality he wants to prevail.
 
You've landed on a very strange island, where people have a slightly different way of looking at knives. Globals are decent knives and better than 95% of mankind will ever handle. To me, ease of sharpening and taking and holding a crazy fine edge are very important. Even most professional cooks hardly know what we are speaking about.
 
haha, it would seem I have, i must admit I was compeltely unprepared for all the detail, i was thinking ive these knives, im struggling with getting them sharp, ahhh a knife form, that'll do, how hard can it be... famous last words
 
As above! Globals are pretty good in the grand scheme of things. (Just no one wang them in the dishwasher then ask me to sharpen them yh?)
 
Benuser said:
You've landed on a very strange island, where people have a slightly different way of looking at knives. Globals are decent knives and better than 95% of mankind will ever handle. To me, ease of sharpening and taking and holding a crazy fine edge are very important. Even most professional cooks hardly know what we are speaking about.
Click to expand...

Was about to say something like this.

@OP don't forget the die hard members around here are very 'spoiled' with knowledge. Some tend to debate till the last few percentages about what steel is better and why (part of the strength of this forum, i like it) and with that a general opinion throughout this forum gets established. People search for topics and read this opinion, and with or without own experience to confirm this, they take the side of the forum. Thats how a forum and/or community works, unless there are two sides which are about 50% devided... not the case with globals 😅

We somethimes forget to put al this 'autistic nitpicking' into perspective.
You can see this in practise when you got overwhelmed with all the information about knives and sharpening. It was way out of your league (no offense) and therefore of little help to you (at this point!), although it is all 100% correct.

In my opinion for now you just have to know: yes, you can get a Global knife very very sharp. That it's harder to achieve then most other steels doesnt really matter for now, it's hard enough to get a good angle on a knife at this point! That is where your gain is: making hours and hours and hours to be able to make a good edge. You will be able to make your knife sharpen then before sharpening and at that point you succeeded. They get sharper every time you sharpen a new knife. Just like anything, you will get better by doing it.
After a while we see a topic which goes something like this: 'I know I have hit the apex, I can feel a burr, but I cant get rid of it.. How come?'
And at that point we might want to point out that Global is kinda harder (unpleasent) to sharpen. For now: abbrade, grind, sharpen, hone, strop, cut, polish and repeat

Till then, Global, Kai Shun are all good quality knives in the hands of 95% of all kitchenknife users.
 
The way i see it:

with most steels its more or less a zero sum game this whole thing with sharpening and edgeholding ability.

so for low abrasion resistant steels you spend less time to sharpen, and they need sharpening more often.
1095/blue/white/blue super and so on.

with the high abrasion resistant steels they keep an "acceptable" edge for a lot longer, but when its time to sharpen it also takes a lot longer.
examples are true hss and stainless/powder hss/ss like srs15, r2, s30v and similar

but when you get to the ends of the spectrum its not a zero sum game any more.

i feel that when stainless goes below 57-58-59hrc or so then it will simply not hold an edge for a very long time, usually, but it usually still takes just as long to sharpen as the higher hrc, more abrasion resistant steels. like vg10 or other high qual stainless at 60+hrc.

with my macs that i've had (aus8) at 57 and 60ish hrc i feel the 57 dont hold an edge for very long but its very fast to get it back to speed. the cryoed ones at 60 is also very fast to sharpen.

but with globals i think they they take at least 50% longer to sharpen than the macs. the steel is softer so you have to be more careful.
and basically in the end you are not getting that time spent sharpening back in edge holding time. you have crossed the tipping point.
so for me personally they are not worth owning.
 
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We are getting generously treated with this info 😍
(Im serious. I sharpen one Global of my dads, which I don't find particulairly more difficult then some other knives, mostly comparing cheap SS. So I have lots to learn to feel the difference between multiple steels, instead of me succeeding or failing the sharpening process)

TS is getting overwhelmed I guess 😅
 
i did a test a few years back kawa. i basically ran a cryoed mac (60hrc aus8) and a kurosaki r2 at 63ish hrc to the ground, by cutting cardboard. both were sharpened on the glass 4k as finish stone.

basically i had 2 cardboard boxes, quite big and beefy ones. that i cut into slivers. it was a highly unscientific test. but still a test.

after box 1 both knives would cut paper well and felt sharp.

after box 2, none of the knives cut paper, it would tear. but the kurosaki felt a bit sharp on my fingers.

basically the mac was rounded off and the kurosaki had hundreds of microchips in the edge. but between these it was still sharp.

so i decieded to resharpen them on the 4k only (or was it the 3k i dont remember). and the mac sharpened up in a few minutes, maybe 2-3 minutes.
the kurosaki though, it took at least 20-25 minutes. at least.
---------------

but then again i tried to dull another kurosaki r2 with cardboard. and after maybe 1,5h of constant cutting it was still cutting paper cleanly. and i basically ran out of cardboard. and it had no microchips either. i basically found out that it keeps an edge so long that it doesn't really matter any more.

so it is what it is kinda..
 
I like those kind of tests. Comparing things, making as much variables the same. And then making one variable (there are always more that change...i know) change to see the results.

Do i understand you well that you had 2 different kurosaki knives of R2 steel (but different knives, so knife #1 and knife #2?) that had a very different result while making as much variables the same as possible?
Interessting...
 
i think i didn't grind enough out of the new edge on the one that microchipped before starting to us it.
you basically need to grind off metal on new knives since most are sharpened on powertools.
and that means either the very edge was overheated (re-tempered) to decrease the hardness, and then the steel has no strength.
or it was overheated more and then it was simply rehardened (since its air-hardening) at the edge with no temper afterwards (ultra brittle).
or somewhere inbetween.

but its a known phenomenon. it all goes away after a few sharpenings usually.
 
inferno said:
i think i didn't grind enough out of the new edge on the one that microchipped before starting to us it.
you basically need to grind off metal on new knives since most are sharpened on powertools.
and that means either the very edge was overheated (re-tempered) to decrease the hardness, and then the steel has no strength.
or it was overheated more and then it was simply rehardened (since its air-hardening) at the edge with no temper afterwards (ultra brittle).
or somewhere inbetween.

but its a known phenomenon. it all goes away after a few sharpenings usually.
Click to expand...

😳 thats completely new to me. Makes sense though... Thanks for this.

Is that overheathing -or even more- always locally only? Meaning you will always get different edge retention after a few sharpenings (if the knife was overheated i mean..)?
 
its at the first 0,5-1mm of the edge i would guess. could be less though. but its very common.
this is why most cheap ss knives in like vg10 get a bad reputation as "chippy". since they are cheap, they factory sharpen on belt grinders... :)
 
yeah some makers sharpen on the watercooled spinning stones. and kurosaki is one of them...
 
thanks for this. Something to take into consideration when concluding about how well i did on a job... 👍
 
Just curioso, but should then those powertool edges be stropped with a mildly aggressive compound, or perhaps touched on like 1-2K stones, early on and with assiduity, if one wants to push back the moment where thinning/sharpening will occur and cause problems? I’m not intending « ideally » but « possibly » with this question? Wouldn’t this slowly get rid of ill-retempered metal while constantly refreshing the matrix? Or be limited or made impossible by which factors?
 
I have two Globals--nakiri and petty--and my daughter likes them the best. She says they don't slip in her hand, and aren't too sharp or too dull, but just right (call her Goldilocks). When I sharpen, I start them on a Trizack belt which really resets the bevel and then switch to the #1000 Shapton. I thin there just a bit behind the edge, and then sharpen at the steeper angle that I set with the belt. Works like a charm.
 
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