Watanabe OOTB Edge help

[kpham12]

Hi all,

I bought a 240 stainless clad Watanabe gyuto a while ago and the OOTB edge was the best I've used so far. It was very toothy and aggressive and kept its bite for days of use without needing a strop or touch-up. Unfortunately, the knife came with a small chip near the heel, so I sharpened the knife after a couple weeks on a shapton pro 1K followed by lightly polishing on a kitayama 8000 which is what I read is used to sharpen Watanabes before shipping them out.

I'm a novice at sharpening but I can get the knife to cut magazine paper, pass the tomato test without any issue, but the problem is the edge does not hold anywhere near as long as the factory edge. It looses its bite after a couple light uses. I read Watanabes are sharpened at near zero grind, but I sharpen at about 12 degrees each side. Is the lack of edge retention purely due to poor sharpening technique? Should I try sharpening to a zero grind with a microbevel? Any help is really appreciated.

 

[Wander Vanhoucke]

I'd say
1: get better at sharpening
2: Maybe the edge thickness increased because you sharpened it so making the knife in turn feel less sharp. You could thin it if you wanted.

 

[slickmamba]

Are you deburring properly? Sounds like you might have a wire edge

 

[kpham12]

I'd say
1: get better at sharpening
2: Maybe the edge thickness increased because you sharpened it so making the knife in turn feel less sharp. You could thin it if you wanted.

Yeah, still practicing my sharpening. As for thickness, the original edge was thin enough to flex with just light pressure and I've only sharpened once, so it's still very thin.

Are you deburring properly? Sounds like you might have a wire edge

I deburr on the shapton 1K with stropping strokes, decreasing in pressure until deburred. The blue steel deburrs pretty readily compared to cheap stainless or the old carbon knives I've been practicing with.

 

[TSF415]

I'm newer to sharpening as well and had a similar issue at some point. I started doing edge leading strokes which works really well once you figure it out. You can search the forums about it. That is what solved my similar issue. I thought I was deburring before but apparently I was just going thru the motions without proper results.

 

[valgard]

I deburr on the shapton 1K with stropping strokes, decreasing in pressure until deburred. The blue steel deburrs pretty readily compared to cheap stainless or the old carbon knives I've been practicing with.

You'd be hard pressed to fully clean the edge solely on the shapton pro 1k, that stone is too fast and rough. Need to strop at least on either a finer stone and something like clean balsa/denim/felt, or at least do that last step on the clean stropping medium (wet newspaper on a flat surface is also a possibility). Another thing to add to your deburring arsenal is strokes parallel to the edge with stropping-like pressure, and edge leading strokes too but if you're not good at controlling angle and pressure these could be counterproductive.

 

[valgard]

The burr doesn't need to be the massive thing you can see easily to affect your results, really tiny burrs can make a difference too.

 

[Barry's Knives]

I concur that stropping is likely the issue. After the kitayama strop on the same stone and then finish on something less abrasive like leather, balsa, cork, sponge, newspaper etc

 

[kayman67]

I deburr on the shapton 1K with stropping strokes, decreasing in pressure until deburred. The blue steel deburrs pretty readily compared to cheap stainless or the old carbon knives I've been practicing with.

If you don't learn edge leading, stropping on such aggressive stone most likely will never solve the problem.

 

[Nemo]

This problem does sound like the sort of issue caused by a microscopic burr (wire-edge).

Sharpening is an interesting skill. The basics are not difficult to grasp but as you reach each new level of expertise, more and more intricacies present themselves.

Deburring is an example. At the basic level, there are a number of ways to remove the macroscopic burr (the burr you can feel). Stropping strokes, feather light edge leading and/or edge parralel strokes and dragging the edge through cork/ soft wood/ felt are all techniques that can be incorporated.

Note that edge trailing strokes can be a double edged sword. They will tend to draw a burr out but will weaken it as you flip the burr from side to side. The burr can then be removed with a light edge parrallel stroke. This is why deburring stropping strokes should be LIGHT. You are trying to flip the burr without applying enough pressure to draw it out much.

At the next level, you may wish to limit burr formation in the first place. For example with gradually decreasing pressure as you sharpen (before you get to deburring). See Pete Nowlan's (@Sailor) videos on knifeplanet.net (the relevent video is also at the end of the JKI series). You may (will) feel bits or burr break off as you do this. I usually do this on the coarsest stone I will use and subsequently I only polish with very light pressure on finer stones. However, I note with interest @Valguard 's note about this being difficult on SP1k (I usually use Chosera 1k, which is harder and finer).

You may also like to look at @Kippington' s deburring technique:
https://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/threads/kippington-deburring-video.44003/
Hope this helps.

Edited to add: At another level, a technique that I have found helpful is Dave Martell 's process of repeating the last few steps of sharpening once the knife is sharp. In my mind's eye, this is kind of like a really thorough edge cleanup and I have found it to be very effective.

 

[slickmamba]

I deburr on the shapton 1K with stropping strokes, decreasing in pressure until deburred. The blue steel deburrs pretty readily compared to cheap stainless or the old carbon knives I've been practicing with.

I'm not a fan of the stropping strokes to deburr. Leads to lots of wire edges, like I think you're experiencing. If you deburr first, then do the strokes to clean it up, you'll end up with a much cleaner edge. Check out this video from Jon at JKI on youtube



obviously not the only way to deburr, like others have said, edge leading is solid, you can do the strokes you're doing but once the burr is flimsly and all on one side you should aim to remove it instead of just flipping it and lowering your pressure which is just going to straighten it out. I prefer the parallel stroke tho.

 

[M1k3]

 

[valgard]

There's been a lot of good videos posted, here's one of how I go about the process myself in case you find it useful. Note that I usually generate a minimal burr. The video is a bit old but I mostly do things the same way.

 

[kayman67]

Worthy of mentioning is that even edge leading will generate some residual burr with a very aggressive approach (stone and pressure).

 

[Garm]

Peter Nowlan's videos have been mentioned as good resources for learning pressure control, burr reduction/removal etc, and I completely agree with this.
Another important lesson I learned from him when it comes to sharpening, which he repeats over and over, is "manage your expectations". Whenever I get frustrated with my sharpening process or results, that saying pops up from the back of my mind.
Learning to sharpen is a long journey, just like any other skill, and it takes time and experience to be able to produce great edges with both refinement and lasting bite. Just think about how many knives Watanabe has sharpened in his life, or Jon Broida, or any other great sharpener.
There's a lot of good advice about pressure, burr minimization, and burr removal in this thread. Keep at it and your edges will slowly or quickly improve, both in how sharp they are initially and how long they remain that way.

 

[Ultrafiche]

I'm not a fan of the stropping strokes to deburr. Leads to lots of wire edges, like I think you're experiencing. If you deburr first, then do the strokes to clean it up, you'll end up with a much cleaner edge. Check out this video from Jon at JKI on youtube



obviously not the only way to deburr, like others have said, edge leading is solid, you can do the strokes you're doing but once the burr is flimsly and all on one side you should aim to remove it instead of just flipping it and lowering your pressure which is just going to straighten it out. I prefer the parallel stroke tho.

Thanks for sharing this video. I found it super helpful!