[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Scary sharp knives (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 7/8/2008 4:21:15 PM EDT
So I just received a Japanese made chef's knife, an 8.2" Tojiro Gyutu. That thing is so sharp, I barely had to put any pressure on it to shave hair off of my arm. I'm actually kind of scared to use this thing. 
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Won't do shit for your back hair. 
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Dammit!! I was gonna order one. |
Wrong. I already tried. |
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If it were REALLY sharp... it would pop hairs off with no pressure just a push. |
That's a beautiful damascus. I'd be afraid of using that one.. The OP knife should make dinner prep a bit easier. |
Wow. That's beautiful. |
Not to mention the $1200 price tag for a 10" chef's knife. 
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Thats frackin georgeous  .......and banned in Britain 
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Believe it or not, the Tojiro DP F-808 I ordered sells for about $50 at Korin.com (. If you want to spend between $100-150, then buy a MAC knife. Seems like everywhere I looked, everyone had great things to say about them. The MAC MTH-80 MAC Mighty Chef 8" with dimples is what you want:  Review |
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Bit rich for my blood. Recently got a small set of Wusthof knives for the kitchen. My fiance doesn't take care of cookware (no, I mean it's bad  ) so I've got to keep my eye on them. |
Niceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee 
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That looks very nice, perhaps a late birthday present for myelf.... |
That's something I've been worried about. I've had a Japanese waterstone for years, and have never been able to get a knife sharp. Last week, however, I think I figured out what I'm doing wrong and I've been able to get my knives razor sharp. This new knife out of the box is something else though. |
Well, I was just checking out that link and it appears these are RC 63-69. That's pretty damn hard. I'm thinking ceramic rods only...I don't know that a whetstone would cut it. |
Again, looks like a very hard steel. In my uneducated opinion you're going to need ceramic or diamond rods to sharpen this beast. I also don't know how Hatori can get an edge that hard without it chipping. |
Thats a freaking awesome website. 
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Holy crap! I just noticed this new addition to their website.  
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The harder the steel - the harder to sharpen. There is nothing wrong with sharpening a knife with ceramic rods. But at that point the knife will be no sharper than the average kitchen knife sharpened on the same rods. Actually probably less sharp because an average knife will be easier to sharpen. |
What do you recommend, then? I have a Lansky sharpener kit that looks like the edge pro, and I've never had a problem putting a great edge on my poccketknives. It is definately not big enough to handle a 12 inch chef's knife though. What about those hollow-grinding electric sharpeners? Anygood? |
It depends how seriously you are going to take knife sharpening and/or how many knives you want to sharpen. The typical electric knife sharpeners that you buy in a chefs catalog are OK to use for the average person's needs. Put an expensive knife like the OP has in them and you will destroy it. If you are looking to make a few knives scary sharp, many people are very happy with the Edge Pro knife sharpeners. They are a bit expensive, but the average guy without much practice can get impressive results without destroying an expensive knife like is in this thread. They are good for sharpening a few knives however but not a lot of them (you won't sharpen every knife in your kitchen because it would take to long). I collect knives and for the last couple of years have been learning how to sharpen knives. There are hundreds of different types of sharpeners sold. Most are hard to use well. The learning curses are significant for most and along the way when electricity is used you probably will mess up a bunch of knives and still probably never get good at it. I bought a Tormek. It has a slow RPM and utilizes grinding wheels that rotate in a little tank of water on one side a a leather strop wheel on the other side. I replaced the standard grinding wheel with a 4000 grit Japanese wetstone. They are very expensive but worth it if you have a lot of expensive knives that you want to keep sharp. For me it is now a hobby and my wife appreciates the end results. But with this system you can quickly learn how to make knives scary sharp without ruining them. The Japanese Shun knives are fantastic. But unless you plan on becoming an expert on sharpening them, you may as well get a good set of high carbon no stain knives with a ceramic rod sharpener. You will be much happier and be able to afford to buy more guns with the savings. |
Hattori FTW. 
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To be fair - my Tojiro was only $50. It's not the end of the world if I can't get it back to scary sharp. How much better is the EdgePro over a Lansky? Maybe - for this knife - I'll just take it to have it sharpened. There's a local guy that's supposed to be VERY good. |
The edge pro starts at $300 vs about $40 Big difference in price and results. But when you start paying many hundreds of dollars for knives because they are "scary" sharp, your are throwing your money away when you don't keep them sharp. You generally only want to send a knife out for sharpening when it is necessary to grind a new edge on the knife. Expensive kitchen knives should be sharpened very frequently but not by some guy who sharpens knives for your local butcher. |
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A set of DMT diamond stones, a bunch of reading and a whole lot of work and you can get very good at puttin a scary edge on a blade. Getting a equal freehand angle is not all that hard but takes some work. If you are looking for scary sharp a good leather strop is going to be in order as well. There are some very good books on how to make an edge out there. It is neat on how many different kinds of cutting edges there are! Working edges, fine, edges, shaving edges, sawing edges, cleaving edges, ect... I like the DMT products for the price and the quality.. There are much better products out there but for the for the price (about $30 a stone) the are the best for your money IMO.. |
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A set of DMT diamond stones, a bunch of reading and a whole lot of work and you can get very good at puttin a scary edge on a blade. Getting a equal freehand angle is not all that hard but takes some work. If you are looking for scary sharp a good leather strop is going to be in order as well. There are some very good books on how to make an edge out there. It is neat on how many different kinds of cutting edges there are! Working edges, fine, edges, shaving edges, sawing edges, cleaving edges, ect... I like the DMT products for the price and the quality.. There are much better products out there but for the for the price (about $30 a stone) the are the best for your money IMO.. |
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While not a kitchen knife, I picked up a CRKT NECK knife. Soon as I got it I broke out the spyderco sharpmaker set up and ran it through about 160 strokes with both sets of rods. Tonight I was using it and made the mistake of bumping the blade with my fingertip. Not drawing my finger down the blade, just bumping it. I just stopped bleeding a bit ago. For work knives, I freaking love that sharpmaker. In about 10 minutes you can turn a trashed edge into something that will pop hairs off your arm, and it didn't cost much at all. I'll stay away from the damascus pointy things-I use everything I own pretty freaking hard and it would be a pity to thrash something that nice.. |