Thread: Knife re-edging

Get a stone and sharpen the fucking thing.

Originally Posted by Dorkus

I would argue its not a very good fish either

Yes I agree BAD FISH!!

could try the local Tepanyaka (spelling) Restaurant. Im guessing those guys Know how to sharpen Japanese steel

Scary Sharp. It will also clean up all those nicks.

I have a few Japanese kitchen knives and do all my own sharpening.

I would definately take the knife to someone who has experience with single bevel Japanese knives - I have sharpened them before, they aren't too difficult but it is easy to muck up the geometry and lose the magic.

There is a bit of work involved with this repair and to get the best results I thin it needs to be done by hand on waterstones. To keep the contrast between the dark, matte cladding and the bright core steel you will probably need someone with a japanese natural polishing stone. I am a knife nut so have all the gears but I'm not sure how many sharpening services are set up for it, unless they are a specialist with Japanese knives.

+1 to taking it to a good Japanese restaurant and talking to the chefs - the good ones know their stuff and a lot of them will do their own sharpening. They will be able to give some good advice.

I find with the hard knives tiny micro chips happen regularly but those look pretty nasty - it can happen when the knives are new (if they have been finished on a belt grinder or similar it can ruin the temper at the very edge) but otherwise I think your mate has gone a bit hard with it... When it gets sharpened you could ask them to do a sightly steeper convex edge for the last mm or so, you lose a bit of cutting ability but gain durability.

Another option which works well on Deba knives is to vary the edge angle along the knife, keep the edge on the front 2/3rds at 15 or so degrees and then the back 1/3rd put a 25-30 degree edge on. You use the tip and belly to slice, and the heel to power through bones.

Hope that helps, I love Japanese knives but they can be a pain in the arse at times!

a box of beer should do the trick at your local butchers

So playing on the web I typed in sharpeners and NZ and hit a site that specialisers in sharpening (and selling) Japanese knifes, they talk about angles, checking for chips etc etc, seem like they would be the best shot to fix the blade back to original condition...then buy cheap fillet knife and put that Japanese knife back in the kitchen!

Originally Posted by Shelley

So playing on the web I typed in sharpeners and NZ and hit a site that specialisers in sharpening (and selling) Japanese knifes, they talk about angles, checking for chips etc etc, seem like they would be the best shot to fix the blade back to original condition...then buy cheap fillet knife and put that Japanese knife back in the kitchen!

Have you got a link there @Shelley

Looks to me like your mate would be better off with an axe

Yeah here you go Traditional Japanese Knives and Knife Sharpening - Artisan Knives no idea if they are any good but they sure look the biz...