thinning knifes

[taquito0110]

hello there knifes aficionados, i have a really bog issue with a Tojiro DP 240 it was my first knife as well very good knife so I'm learning how to sharpen and i mess it up. my edge is to thick and the other one is to thin, so overtime i sharpen one side and i do more the 50 strokes until i get the burr when I'm done and start on the other side i get the burr with just 10 strokes so I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. so i try to think my knife put by putting fast into my lower stone and scratch my knife but was getting thinner but now i can get the burr. so i would like to know if there is a solution fro those types of DP Tojiro, i always had issue with the knife. also i would like to know if chief knifes to go can fix them and how much would it cost me ? thank you for taking the time to read this and i hope if i can't get solution

[Organic]

The key is to do an even number of strokes on each side in order to keep the bevels symmetrical. If you find that the knife has unequal bevels, spend more time on the thin side when you sharpen until things even out.

[cedarhouse]

You get a burr when the two sides of the bevel meet. So if you grind one side till you raise a burr, no matter how long it takes, then the other side will raise a burr immediately because the two bevels have already met. For a knife in good repair, I like to grind 5-10 passes on each side, I don't count but I have a sense of how long I've been going. If a knife is really damaged, I might do 20-50 strokes per side depending on the severity of the damage.

Fixing this is easy, grind the thicker side down until they are even the finish sharpening as normal. There are sharpeners that can fix this but I suggest you give it a try yourself first. If you can't get it, you can always reach out to the pros later to repair your work.

[Igalor]

next times you sharpen it start on the tiny bevel side and raise a burr there, it will even itself out after a couple of times, this isnt a big deal, some people do the same thing deliberately to have an asymmetrical edge.

[jmcnelly85]

What stones are you using? A coarse stone should raise a burr long before 50 strokes. How are you trying to detect burrs and how often are you looking for one?

[taquito0110]

thank you for answers they are helping. I'm going to try to get do that. stones I'm using a 320 to thin and 500 to make a babel

[arthurfowler]

next times you sharpen it start on the tiny bevel side and raise a burr there, it will even itself out after a couple of times, this isnt a big deal, some people do the same thing deliberately to have an asymmetrical edge.

Apologies for hijacking this thread but this comment really interests me. Even though I am working on keeping my sharpening angles more consistent on both sides of the knife, I do get a visibly larger sharpening bevel on the right side of my knife. Clearly I could be sharpening at different angles but does raising the burr on the same side of the knife contribute to this.

Many thanks and apologies for the hijack.

[J david]

next times you sharpen it start on the tiny bevel side and raise a burr there, it will even itself out after a couple of times, this isnt a big deal, some people do the same thing deliberately to have an asymmetrical edge.

Apologies for hijacking this thread but this comment really interests me. Even though I am working on keeping my sharpening angles more consistent on both sides of the knife, I do get a visibly larger sharpening bevel on the right side of my knife. Clearly I could be sharpening at different angles but does raising the burr on the same side of the knife contribute to this.

Many thanks and apologies for the hijack.

I don't know what knife you are sharpening, but you could be sharpening at the same angle on both sides and seeing this. Some Jknives are simply thicker behind the edge or more convex on the right side by design. So, sharpening at the same angle as the left, you may see a wider bevel on that side. Some knives are more exaggerated than others in this regard.

Also, don't get tied down to sharpening at the same angle on both sides. Many Jknives are not the same angle, again by design. If you like the way it cuts when you get it, just keep chasing what is already there when you sharpen.

To the folks that count strokes on the stones, think about the goal. The goal is not to give exactly the same amount of attention to both sides of the knife, the goal is to sharpen it. Instead if counting strokes, try inspecting your progress frequently, and let the knife determine how much attention it needs. I could get any knife sharp with x number of strokes per side per stone, but I would have likely removed a lot more material than necessary.

[arthurfowler]

Thanks J David, that's a fair comment as it hasn't happened on every knife but probably more than most. I completely agree with you thoughts and it makes much sense as every handmade knife will be different. I suppose I was chasing the consistent angle to initially build my consistency.

[SteveG]

@arthurfowler - I don't switch hands, and it's common for me to sharpen at a little lower angle on the side where the spine is facing me and a higher angle with spine facing away. I try to keep them the same, but it doesn't always happen.

Also +1 to J David's comments.

[arthurfowler]

Thanks Steve, much appreciated. I agree that it's more important to focus on the Knife rather than the angle.

[Organic]

@ J david

I totally agree that counting strokes isn't the best method. I suggested it because it will help you keep the two sides of the knife more even if you're not experienced enough to know how to judge the bevels and make adjustments. I guess this is as good of an opportunity to learn as any.

[jmcnelly85]

I definitely agree on the point of more inspection through the process. I recently gave a knife a full progression starting with 320 stone and after about five strokes on the first side I was shocked by the amount of burr I raised. How are you feeling for burrs? Do you run your fingertips along the side opposite of the one being sharpened, sliding the side along paper towels to see if it "catches", fingernails, loupe? How frequently are you stopping to check?

Burr detection is a skill that gets better with more experience. The more you focus on this aspect of sharpening, you'll be able to find smaller and smaller burrs. There's a chance you might even phase the burr formation stage out entirely.

[Rufus Leaking]

Back to arthurfowler- I have two tanakas which both seem to develop a smaller bevel on the left side, and it has nothing to do with my sharpening technique. It's the grind. The way I handled it was to sharpen the left side first.

[arthurfowler]

Thanks JMC, I think I am ok at burr detection as I do check after each pass. I run my finger along the opposite side to check. I suppose there is a question on whether I am generating too much burr but I do think that I am able to check this fairly accurately as I do try to flip slides as soon as there is any size of burr along the full length of the edge. The non burr formation strategy is definitely a question I plan to post soon as I have read this quite a few times now.

Thanks Rufus Leaking, I definitely plan on recording notes on my sharpening so that I can start on the alternate side to the previous sharpening.

[Organized]

Are we having 2 different conversations here? Whenever I thin a blade I don't hit the edge at all, well atleast intentionally. Burr discussion would be related to actual edge sharpening no?

[Kit Craft]

Are we having 2 different conversations here? Whenever I thin a blade I don't hit the edge at all, well atleast intentionally. Burr discussion would be related to actual edge sharpening no?

If you want your blade to have a compound bevel, sure. Or you are using the entirety of the grind as a thinning angle and then adding a secondary. On wide bevel knives, I treat them like a scandi, and sharpen/thin from the shinogi down to the edge where I raise a burr. At the end of my process I add a much more obtuse micro bevel. Though, you could do the same with something that is flat/convex ground but they normally have a much larger secondary bevel cut in at the edge and people tend to thin behind that, which is closer to what I assume you mean.

[Organized]

Unless I'm mistaken the OP has a tojiro DP with a thick edge. In this case, I'd thin behind the edge while not hitting the edge as I thin. In this particular case if edge has contact to the stone just like the metal behind the edge-you're grinding away a thin edge instead of creating a thin edge.
Yeah blade road thinning is all about maintaining geometry of a blade. But the OP is looking for an overhaul or improvement for his knife, not just maintaining geometry.

[jmcnelly85]

I think if this gets moved to the sharpening section it might get more responses.

[arthurfowler]

Apologies again for hijacking the thread.