tough time with VG10

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Have thinned a JCK mono VG-10. Didn't find it particularly abrasion resistant. Find soft stainless claddings far more problematic.
That's interesting but on further consideration not too surprising. Soft stainless can get very.... I guess "gummy" is the closest word. Thanks for the perspective.
 
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I thinned my tojiro vg-10. That wasn’t bad at all. It was actually pretty fast and easy. I have to say though that Tojiro vg-10 is among the best vg-10 knives I’ve tried (most others I’ve tried have been shuns).
 
The Tojiro cladding is not as problematic as other, softer ones.
As for the VG-10 core, I had very different experiences with the DP, from very easy to dramatic, and anything in between.
 
The Tojiro cladding is not as problematic as other, softer ones.
As for the VG-10 core, I had very different experiences with the DP, from very easy to dramatic, and anything in between.

You mean as a variance between multiple DP units? Like the heat treatment is inconsistent from one to another?
 
Always the same progression?
Not sure about all of them. Can't tell.
Except for the case of two Tojiro's from the same owner, bought together. Sharpened both after serious repair and thinning. Deburring with one remarkably easy, with the other one noticeably more difficult.
 
Fot what it's worth, my 2 cents:

A few weeks ago I sharpened a Tojiro DP (fd 1564 'Tojiro zen black'). I can't remember there were specific problems with creating burr or deburring or anything else. Since I signed up on this forum, I read a lot of VG-10 being problematic while sharpening. I didn't notice a thing compared to some better Wusthofs or Zwillings (next to the obvious things like geometry, angle and hardness).
I do remember I was quite pleased with the result. I could get clean through toilet paper, that luxery soft paper. This is a level I don't always achieve with my sharpening skills.

A bit more background so you can decide if this experience is worth anything to you. I don't know where I stand on sharpening skills. It's hard to find out who gives advice based on knowledge and own skills or who gives advice based on what they have read and know what is theoretically the right answer, if you know what I mean.
For example: I can give a new sharpener advice on what starting stones he should buy, just because I read a lot of the same answers in many topics. But it might be only one opinion of the most respected member here, which gets repeated because 'he' tells so...

I'm not new: Since a few weeks I read a lot on this forum and I notice from pictures from new people who have troubles sharpening, my results are (often) cleaner and in all modesty: 'I think I see what goes wrong in the picture'. But I also notice that often I am not skilled enough to give advice, knowing I learn a lot from the answers other are giving in that topic. Guess I'm somewhere in between.

So the fact that I noticed nothing strange with the VG-10 might just be lack of skills and experience ;)
 
@Benuser gave solid advice saying that you had to flip until it can’t be reduced further down. Weaken it. Flip it 10 times if you must. Key is there more than in progression or technique.

Can you elaborate on flipping it 10 times? Do you mean the burr flips with just one pass or one stroke or with 25% less pressure? Is there a video that demonstrates this flipping back and forth?

Thanks!
 
It was just a number - but yeah with practice « flipping » can be done with alternating trailing edge strokes. I don’t trust myself to do it good enough though so I do what you’ll probably do: once the burr is raised on one side and has been transfered to the other side, lighten your pressure and go through the same motion again and again, always checking that the burr entirely and consistently goes from one side to the other - it is normal, expected and wanted that it will reduce each time, so just make sure it does flip entirely is what I mean.

As @Benuser said, at one point you will feel that your burr doesn’t reduce anymore - it just flips. Go to a finer stone with the very same pressure you used to flip, and reduce pressure each time you flip both sides, until there nothing much that you can feel going on - edge will seemed deburred as far as your fingers can tell.

That’s when you can use just light leading strokes alternating side to side, trying to abrade any remnant. Then inspect under direct light, and deburr with soft wood or cork or even your nail. You want to use very light pressure with those mediums: what you are looking for is that it goes smooth the entire edge. When remnants of a burr are still attached, you will feel them as the blade will catch, bite and kind of «jump » instead of just gliding smoothly.
 
@inferno what has been your experience with the Hattori forums VG10?

Its been very good.
from what i have read vg10 would be hard/impossible to deburr, smeary, and yet chippy.

i dont see any of that on the hattori. its hard as rock and non smeary on the stones.
deburring is not any worse than any other ingot SS.
not at all chippy. its actually very very tough. maybe not as touch as aus8 but still tough enough for home use.


+2. Always wondered how it would be to thin a VG10 mono.

i have not thinned my hattori. but i guess its a nightmare just like all other monos.
when i have to do it. i will be going to the glass 220 then the 500 then 1k and then 4k.

it takes and holds a 4k edge well imo.
 
I wanted to touch back on this thread. Since my last post back in July, I was Very bothered by the fact that I couldn't get knives as sharp as I used to, so I immersed myself into sharpening for the month of august. I had a King 1000 and a King 6000 initially, and invested in a shapton 500 and my first jnat (a world which I'm still trying to wrap my head around). I watched the Murry Carter tutorial every day for two weeks, comparing my techniques to his. What I discovered were two errors on my end. 1) I had gotten away from taking my time and maintaining consistent angles. 2) I wasn't properly thinning the secondary on a regular basis. I feel like those two issues may be whats giving VG 10 people trouble. hope this helps anyone still having issues. Thanks to everyone for the comments and links as well, I found all of it SUPER helpful
 
I just sharpened vg-10 for the first time 2 weeks ago and going down a bit lower on grit ( I used my ATOMA 140 plate) to really make your edge bevel even, then working your way up to finer stones. Also doing the edge leading deburring method made a ton of difference.
 
God those King stones are frustrating. Glad you freed yourself from them.

Well, not fully. I still give them quick passes on the 1k as my natural is somewhere around 3/4K. But the 6k king has been utterly useless for me in the two years I’ve had it.
 
That's interesting but on further consideration not too surprising. Soft stainless can get very.... I guess "gummy" is the closest word. Thanks for the perspective.
The Tojiro cladding is not as problematic as other, softer ones.
As for the VG-10 core, I had very different experiences with the DP, from very easy to dramatic, and anything in between.

i have actually noticed this recently. i have a cheap deba with what i guess is 304 ss cladding. and that cladding can completely ruin diamond plates and some stones that dont release any abrasive. i think most quality knives use 400 series ss instead of 300 series just because of this.
 
God those King stones are frustrating. Glad you freed yourself from them.
Other than dishing a little quicker and taking a few strokes longer to sharpen, there's nothing wrong with King stones. If you learned how to sharpen with them, you might associate the frustration of the learning process with the stones themselves. But they're decent stones
 
Having learned to more or less hone straight razors, I find a good deal of that knowledge useful for knives.

First and foremost, let the stone do the work. High pressure will result in large burrs, especially in steel prone to burr retention (VG-10 for instance). Light pressure, minimal burrs (stop when you get a hint of one and start de-burring) and staying away from low grit stones makes a big, big difference.

So does angle control and even pressure across the blade. Most of that is inherent in straight razors as you put the spine on the stone while honing, but for knives give it a try.

King stones can drive you nuts until you learn to use VERY light pressure on them, otherwise they can wear so fast you dub back the apex.

VG-10 is very difficult to get exactly right in heat treatment I suspect, and is probably prone to losing it's characteristics close to the edge if not handled exactly right in final tempering. The result is a thin strip of soft, gummy steel at the very edge that will change quite a bit after it's sharpened a couple times.

And for beginners, angle control is absolutely critical. Until you can hold and repeat the same bevel angle down the entire blade well enough to have a clean apex you will not get a knife sharp. one pass down a fine stone at too high an angle can un-do half an hours work on coarser stones, and dubbing back the apex on a coarse stone is worse than starting with a dull knife. I know, I goofed on a yanagiba and am having to grind forever on coarse stones to get the wide bevel back to the edge, and hoping I have enough ura left to actually sharpen it.

Practice will get you there.
 
Lol, there isn't much not known about the theory of sharpening. It's the actual mechanics of doing it that are difficult!

That's why I suggest learning on knives you don't care much about, as beginners are VERY likely to do some damage. It's one thing to roll the edge and make gouges on a cheap carbon steel knife and quite another to do serious edge damage to a $400 gyuto one it trying to make a living with.
 
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