Sharpening Stainless (vs. Carbon)?

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o_in_nyc

o_in_nyc

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I love to zen-out and sharpen my collection of carbon steel knives but don't have much experience sharpening stainless. A friend asked me to sharpen her set of stainless Zwilling (in the wood block)... They're dull but not basket cases. What grits would the group recommend I use? 600/1000? 1000/4000? How should I think about sharpening stainless vs. carbon steel?

Apologies if this has been asked many times or seems an obvious question.
 
For the German 1.1446 stuff I use a Imanishi 400 / SP1000 / Gesshin Splash and go 3000. Not necessarily because its the best, more so because I refuse to put them on my Chosera's / Morihei's and those are my old set up.
 
I’ve always wondered if it makes a difference if they’re 20+ year old Classics or the newer ones. Everyone complains about the new ones, but is the steel the same?
 
Dan- said:
I’ve always wondered if it makes a difference if they’re 20+ year old Classics or the newer ones. Everyone complains about the new ones, but is the steel the same?
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Stainless, I'd say the old steel is as bad, if not worse, than the new stuff. At least with the Wusthof's and ESPECIALLY Sabs.
 
Never used Diamonds on R2, Aebl, G3, SKD, even back in the day with Swiss Forschners I'd thin on coarse King then maintained on big King 1K brick. Some newer stainless is sharpening friendly. Other stainless made for toughness is harder to sharpen on whetstone.

I didn't go to diamonds until started chasing super steels with folders.

Still as you say zen like sharpening with carbon is why most of my home knives are still carbon. Even cheap little opinel paring knives fun to sharpen & work great for small prep & cutting protein.
 
M1k3 said:
Stainless, I'd say the old steel is as bad, if not worse, than the new stuff. At least with the Wusthof's and ESPECIALLY Sabs.
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With Sabs the use of 4116 is only relatively recent. Old Sabs contain even less carbon, and hardly take any edge. All you can say about them is that they are corrosion resistant and won't chip.
 
Dan- said:
I’ve always wondered if it makes a difference if they’re 20+ year old Classics or the newer ones. Everyone complains about the new ones, but is the steel the same?
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When speaking about the Wüsthof: steel is still the same 4116, but a bit harder than it used to be. More important is the robotised production, and much finer factory edges than the steel can hold. Their man-made ones used to have strongly convexed edges, while the ones have straight bevels at 13° per side, but remain fat behind the edge with strongly protruding shoulders. More force will be required to push the shoulders through the food, with a violent board contact. They only become usable if you remove the shoulders and convex the bevels. Let them end at 18-20° per side. The steel lacks edge stability: big carbides in a soft matrix. Fine stones don't abrade carbides, and remove a bit of the matrix. It leads to carbides outbreak with the first board contact. They do look built like a tank but are fundamentally weak.
 
That's what happens with robot made, substandard steel, tuff thick grinds made for most folks whose knife care knowledge is abysmal. Prying apart frozen chicken thighs
They don't break.

When knives like Shuns hit the mainstream which are not that thin would get severe damage. They had been using lowest common denominator German stainless knives very tuff.
 
Traditionally the knife handling in German culture isn't particularly subtle, so it makes sense. But those thin edges don't: it only serves marketing purposes.
 
Yeah it was just a response to all the J-knives coming out with 15 degree angles. Ironically no one ever knew - nor cared - what angles Robert Herder used, because their knives were still ground so thin behind the edge that it didn't matter.
 
I have a henckels 8” chef that I stopped using after I got into Japanese style knives. I sharpened it recently on my 1k diamond stone when I was trying out sharpworx passaround and it is actually a much more capable knife than I thought it was. Not that I would recommend people buy these, but properly deburred these can be useful if you already have them. Because of the steel deburring these is not always easy and they are thick, but they can be tuned to work pretty well.
 
It kind of depends on what stones you’ve already got.
I’d probably start by thinning on a SG220, aiming most to knock the shoulders off rather than get too acute an angle (as cheap stainless steel doesn’t usually support very acute bevel angles), then deburr, then refine / finish on a SG500 or SG1000.
They’re my most used stones when travelling to family members houses, and a lot of my family have cheapo knives (that they put through the dishwasher).
 
NameAlreadyTaken said:
It kind of depends on what stones you’ve already got.
I’d probably start by thinning on a SG220, aiming most to knock the shoulders off rather than get too acute an angle (as cheap stainless steel doesn’t usually support very acute bevel angles), then deburr, then refine / finish on a SG500 or SG1000.
They’re my most used stones when travelling to family members houses, and a lot of my family have cheapo knives (that they put through the dishwasher).
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Makes sense, as the SG1k is more or less equivalent to JIS 700, and the SG500 not far from a real 500.
 
Soft Germans are probably the only ones to benefit from the use of the finest grooved steel rod I know, the Dickoron Micro. Requires a very light touch, edge leading, and finishing with the lightest strokes sur place, leading nor trailing. Do it in time, and with only a few strokes.
If I mention it, it's because the 4116 can't be maintained with a Belgian Blue, which works with about any other steel type I've tried. With 4116, it will leave a great looking edge that crumbles at the first use.
As for other Dickoron: the Polish will only work with soft carbons, but any fine stone will. The coarser Red Dickoron will allow ten more minutes of work with your soft stainless, after which a serious amount of fatigued steel is to be removed. And by far this isn't the coarsest steel.
 
There are actually a bunch of people that successfully use dickoron micro on very hard edges like the 65 hrc 1.2519 on Kamons and similar knives. I haven't tried it myself since I don't see the need, but there are enough success stories that I wouldn't dismiss it as only useful on soft Germans. Ben even talked about its use on his knives at some point.
 
That's exactly the point: there is no need to use the Micro with other than soft stainless, as there are excellent, safer alternatives. When sharpening a Herder 1922 in C75W @ 60Rc that has been maintained for a year with a Micro, I have to remove some fatigued steel. Not a dramatic amount, but still. Not so with my own one maintained on Belgian Blue.
Reading Ben's citation Massdrop III: Kamon I believe it's a theoretical point of view: the Micro plating being at 70 Rc, one could use it with a 65 Rc blade. I must humbly admit that I didn't dare checking it. The 70 Rc is not what Dick specifies: they mention 65 Rc IIRC. Apart from that, as I have excellent alternatives there is no need. The only time I had a minor chip in a Masahiro VC (61-62Rc) was shortly after a single use of the Micro. I don't know for sure if it's related, of course. Would like to see reports of people maintaining over a longer period of time an AS @65Rc with the Micro. For the time being, I don't use it even with a simple Shirogami#2 @61Rc, or an Arogami#2 @62Rc.
 
Do what works for you. I’m just saying when people like Marco Guldimann recommend something I don’t disregard it right away. Many have had good results with hard edges and micro. Many alternatives of course.
 
Barmoley said:
Do what works for you. I’m just saying when people like Marco Guldimann recommend something I don’t disregard it right away. Many have had good results with hard edges and micro. Many alternatives of course.
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Sure. I still am very interested in examples of long term use of the Micro on really hard edges. Might be I'm overly cautious.
 
Benuser said:
That's exactly the point: there is no need to use the Micro with other than soft stainless, as there are excellent, safer alternatives. When sharpening a Herder 1922 in C75W @ 60Rc that has been maintained for a year with a Micro, I have to remove some fatigued steel. Not a dramatic amount, but still. Not so with my own one maintained on Belgian Blue.
Reading Ben's citation Massdrop III: Kamon I believe it's a theoretical point of view: the Micro plating being at 70 Rc, one could use it with a 65 Rc blade. I must humbly admit that I didn't dare checking it. The 70 Rc is not what Dick specifies: they mention 65 Rc IIRC. Apart from that, as I have excellent alternatives there is no need. The only time I had a minor chip in a Masahiro VC (61-62Rc) was shortly after a single use of the Micro. I don't know for sure if it's related, of course. Would like to see reports of people maintaining over a longer period of time an AS @65Rc with the Micro. For the time being, I don't use it even with a simple Shirogami#2 @61Rc, or an Arogami#2 @62Rc.
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I think there is a general misconception about what a honing rod can achieve. I have a lot of customers who's only methods of maintaining an edge are waterstones. Fine ones of course. Doesn't take much to resharpen a thin edge, but yet the stones take off a lot of material compared to the fine honing rod we're talking about.

And you're right that once the knife, after honing it for a long time, needs to be put on the stones, it needs a "longer" session as the edge is more damaged than a constantly water stone maintained one.
However it is way thinner too once it finally needs to be refreshed, as the honing rod takes barely any material off. At least in my experience.
So if I was to use 2 knives for one year, one only maintained on waterstones, and quite regularly to have that crazy freak sharpness we all like so much, vs a knife that's maintained with the honing rod and then finally put to the stones to refresh it at the end of the year because the edge can't be honed anymore due to too much microscopic damage, the honed knife will have a thinner edge at the end of that time span when both are back at freshly crazy sharpness.

As I said - that's true for me. Resharpening on guided systems with fixed angles is an exception to that. Many of my friends use that. Takes very little to resharpen with that, as there is no angle variation. And those knives end up having the most perfect sharpness as far as I know.
Those systems are too bulky and expensive for my taste though so I'm using the method described.
But long story short... It's not just theory what I'm doing. I'm living it. And to me the most important thing is to keep the geometry of my knife pristine and in "as delivered" condition as long as possible. Because I'm very lazy. I don't want to thin my knifes edge all the time. And also I don't want to loose so much expensive steel all the time ;p.
I will say though, that the experience might vary depending on the methods.
 
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KAMON Knives said:
I think there is a general misconception about what a honing rod can achieve. I have a lot of customers who's only methods of maintaining an edge are waterstones. Fine ones of course. Doesn't take much to resharpen a thin edge, but yet the stones take off a lot of material compared to the fine honing rod we're talking about.

And you're right that once the knife, after honing it for a long time, needs to be put on the stones, it needs a "longer" session as the edge is more damaged than a constantly water stone maintained one.
However it is way thinner too once it finally needs to be refreshed, as the honing rod takes barely any material off. At least in my experience.
So if I was to use 2 knives for one year, one only maintained on waterstones, and quite regularly to have that crazy freak sharpness we all like so much, vs a knife that's maintained with the honing rod and then finally put to the stones to refresh it at the end of the year because the edge can't be honed anymore due to too much microscopic damage, the honed knife will have a thinner edge at the end of that time span when both are back at freshly crazy sharpness.

As I said - that's true for me. Resharpening on guided systems with fixed angles is an exception to that. Many of my friends use that. Takes very little to resharpen with that, as there is no angle variation. And those knives end up having the most perfect sharpness as far as I know.
Those systems are too bulky and expensive for my taste though so I'm using the method described.
But long story short... It's not just theory what I'm doing. I'm living it. And to me the most important thing is to keep the geometry of my knife pristine and in "as delivered" condition as long as possible. Because I'm very lazy. I don't want to thin my knifes edge all the time. And also I don't want to loose so much expensive steel all the time ;p.
I will say though, that the experience might vary depending on the methods.
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I don't experience thickening when touching-up. The coarsest I use is Belgian Blue, and at least the dominant side is convexed, in line with the face. The last 1.5cm got refreshed when touching-up.

From the results I've seen it's indeed likely to be very different with jig users. Seen it with knives I've got on BST, or sharpened for friends who experienced the classical problems occurring after a while: wedging and crazy steering. Nice edges, poor cutters, as they ignore the blade's geometry.
I agree even with only a very fine stone it's perfectly possible to both thicken and mess up the geometry over time.

I would be very interested to know whether you use the Dickoron with really hard edges, say an Aogami Super @65Rc.
 
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