It hurts seeing you making those beautiful knives dull on the brick... Is exactly the same when I see my friends using my knifes. And thanks for your videos, I've learnt a lot from them
Close enough to scientific for me. I usually go about 25-30 degrees on my pocket knives for longer term edge retention, and ~17 degrees on my kitchen knives. This just confirmed it's a great angle for both sharpness and retention on kitchen knives. Thanks for the video. Maybe not the most exciting video ever, but the information was awesome! Thanks for your channel!
Thanks for the editing, this was great! I was expecting a 50 minutes video with each knife sharpened and I was really happy that you editted the video that way!
That was thorough and well done. Thank you very much. My biggest improvement in cutting performance and edge retention has been honing my slicing technique, and sharpening to a convex edge. Relying on more of the actual edge by slicing properly, not trying to whack or push a small section of the edge through the food is a huge edge preserver. Also I use an edge grain board with rubber feet for stability, for veggies, and a bamboo board for meat. Edge grain is better for lots of slicing and not warping your edge, it also holds veggies better cause it's thirsty and has the grain texture. Bamboo is less porous and very hard which makes it more sanitary and easier to clean after breaking down a bulk meat, it's less good for lots of slicing or suddenly separating veggies where your blade might whack the board. For the best results I usually thin the edge on my knives and grind them to a full flat profile with a convex 15° apex. This greatly improves slicing ability, reduces fatigue, and improves safety. I use machine sharpening these days to save myself time and the belts make it easy to put a convex apex on the edge. I always notice what knives others have used in my house, I keep my knives very sharp and can feel when they're off... I used to just buy serrated knives cause I'd dull an edge so quick, and I'd whack things like squash with a cleaver. Your videos helped me start on my knife knowledge journey and looking back I'm amazed where I'm at now. I peel waxy and hard kabocha squash before cooking now and have no issue slicing it into pieces, and my knives hold their edge even after a week of heavy use. You might want to look into how to get a convex edge using stones, this usually improves any cut tests numbers. A convex edge has something like 35% more meat behind the apex and reduces drag while slicing. A standard V edge or single bevel flat grind will always be sharper and feel that way too, but will have less edge stability meaning more edge maintenance. I'd love to see you make a video like this comparing the same edge angle degrees but against a convex edge of the same degree.
Thank you for your work and analysis on this. It is very informative and useful. With more kitchen experience, I had been looking for data like this, remembered this video, and came back to watch again. I miss the regular video uploads, but congrats on your success, and moving on in the world. It seems to me that no matter how sharp I get a knife, all mine tend to gravitate towards 250-300 (sharpness of many European mass manufacturers). If I want a 100-200 knife every time, I have to strop frequently (four minutes). Just a fine point observation that a 10 degree bevel means more steel to be whetted each time, compared to a 15 degree bevel; a 10 degree bevel is wider than a 15 degree bevel. The wider bevel might make it a teensy bit easier to hold the angle, but sharpening at 15 degrees probably means less time on the whetstone. On maintaining sharpness, in my limited experience, knife use technique is very important. Drawing a knife (slicing) is easier, and bringing the tip into contact with the board before it gets to the food, then drawing it through, prevents any banging at the end of the cut (watch Japanese chefs slicing on metal teppan-yaki griddles). And in rocking-dicing, moving the knife around may bend the edge in contact with the board. I'm guessing that the board contributes to loss of sharpness more than the food itself does, so a very light touch on the board will keep them sharper longer.
Very objective and the length of the video was just right! I used to fret about "what angle should this knife be done at?". After watching nearly all your videos and now with this one I will just stick with "about 15 degree approach".
Best review I’ve seen so far. Been sharpening knives for a while now, and I agree with all his has said. For hard hitting blades; hatchets, axes, or bowies I would suggest a 20-25* convex angle. As you do not need a razor sharp edge, but rather a strong edge.
THANK YOU so much! Really helps us beginners! Especially beginners like moi staring at a plethora of knives knives and tools - carbon, stainless; European, Asian; cheap, expensive; very old, band new - and not knowing where to start. It confirms my intuition that learning ONE angle first, going very slowly, engraining it into muscle and sense memory is the way for ME - if not necessarily everyone.
You ask, what else you could have done or differently? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! Obviously, from my point of view but one shared by many. A fascinated newbie in the realm of sharp knives. You easily answered every question I had with a whole lot of bonuses! Thank you, and BTW, your honing skills are out of this world
Love it, very helpful info, i have one thing to add as a newer test parameter. Inverted curve sharpening, using a buffer to make a curve inset angle on one side and knife gradients as usual on the other. So that when it wears the knife wears back to a new edge and only needs touching up for burrs etc...
Amazing how light on the kitchen knives! I dug an old kitchen knife out of my garage as it looks to good to throw away.i buffed the whole blade and gently sharpen on Ben cheers whetstone grinder. Then my cheap diamond block by hand and strop with green cutting compound! Sharper than brand new knives! And slices through A4 like butter! Great vids! Thanks🙂👍👍👍
I'll save you the disposal costs on one of those trashed knives. I'll even send you a pre-paid box to ship it to me for 'disposal'. Kidding aside, I liked the test and learned something about sharpening angles and edge retention. The main complaint I've had about your videos is that they're often too long and could use some good edits. (You should check out This Old Tony and Alex French Guy Cooking.) THIS video was not too long, and I enjoyed it very much. Now, where can I get a Masamoto KS that won't cost a fortune? A lot of schmucks out there are jacking the price up!
I corrected my sharping angle to around 15°, and used a strop for the first time, and, *drum roll*, achieved a razor sharp edge for the very first time. What made me look into my angle was the video by Tojiro's craftmen that explain that a steep angle will have your edge last longer but be less sharpen , while a shallow would do the opposite, which seam so obvious when you say it right? Then your video gave me a practical example, so i corrected myself every few strokes on the stone. The edge is now larger from a visual point of view. First time since i bought this Yaxell that i can cut through tomato skin flawlessly again (which was my goal), as good as it was out of the factory!!! :D
I dont know much about knives except that mine are dull. Looking for a knife sharpener and now researching what angle is the best. This to me is a great video. Thank you for your time and the very high dollar knives used in this test. To me, this is a very good test.
Good test but as you said this is an attempt at an objective test. But we all live in the real world and as you said several times, in real-world use the differences were not significant and it is much more important to get a good consistent edge than it is to try to hit a specific angle. One theme for a video that I would like to see is more about which angle is best for what type of cutting. Does the deboning knife benefit from a different angle than the chef's knife? etc? I am convinced it does, but I don't know which angles are good targets for the various types of uses - in the kitchen. My experience is with outdoor knives and pocket knives. For those I never suggest a sharper angle than 20° per side because you are often away from home when using the knives so retention is paramount. Also, outdoor knives often cut wood or other challenging materials. The other side for budget knives, you mentioned in another video is that the steel composition makes a difference which angle is best for that steel. So, it's all very complex but it doesn't need to be come elitst (like some do - but not you, thankfully).
You should do a video on hunting or EDC knives. I'd like to get your opinion on knife metals and what stones would be best for each metal. This could be months of video material.
So Mellow I agree that this is a topic that needs more attention. I would love to see more experimentation on convex grinds with freehand sharpening. I know that a few channels have done plenty of content on this but not with this equipment. A microscope would be an added bonus as well. Most of the content has been on narrow bevel knives. I’d be interested to see how he would approach wide bevel japanese knives that need “work”, having high and low spots.
I've asked like a year ago. Ryky has no knowledge of these types of knives and there are already many, many channels that offer this. He said it is doubtful he will ever do content like that, better to stick to what he knows.
Seth Wright...exactly! He could get into the different grinds, steels, blade thickness and angles as he is doing here. He have so much more content to put out. His audience would grow. I like what he does now but he could be so much better.
Buddha Mack maybe if enough people ask herm change his mind. He could learn a lot from research and the metallurgy isn't too hard to understand. He could get so many more subscribers if he did.
I have many bushcraft knives in different types of steel, they all sharpen fine on the same stones, there is no need to try to pair a stone to a specific type of steel. I have custom made knife from Dulo in Vanadis 4E @ 65HRC (convex) on the same stone as a Kabar in 1095 @56-58HRC and various others even some unknown kitchen knife that is terribly soft cheap steel. They all get hair whittling sharp, some just take longer due to harder steel.
"after twenty strokes on the brick, each of these knives will be between 1/4 and 1/5th the sharpness they were out of the box. And all your souls will have died slightly." as for objectivity, I don't think there's a whole lot to add but maybe spreading the cutting out over multiple days, however the practicality of that is.... debatable. it would combat the potential effect of fatigue slightly though, although you could also make a point for having different amounts of energy over different days will also impact the results.
I really appreciate the amount of work done for this video. So much testing and practice was put into statistics and was really easy to follow, thanks for this video. Really interesting.
I love how you gave a lot of information but were still very easy to understand and follow. Thanks for the helpful tips! I make knives and sharpening my finished blades has been my Achilles's heal. This has directed me down the right path. My next knife on the list is actually going to be a Japanese chef knife specifically for meat prep. What is your suggestion for the best overall performing knife type to use as inspiration for my design? The customer will be using it primarily for processing venison after field dressing. Thanks, and I hope to hear back from you soon!!!
you could compare it more objectively by sharpening using the sharpworx pro on the same stones...You may have to tweak the pro model as I did to get rid of the slight inconsistencies but once you do its very accurate using an angle cube. Good video though
The problem is, you only need to cut through a string on your testing device. Once the initial cut is through, there would be no force needed. However, in a real kitchen, after you cut through the "skin", you need to make your knife through the rest chunk of the ingredient. That motion includes two parts: 1) the very edge making one solid piece into two 2) knife as a wedge further splitting the two parts apart. From my experience the angle has more to do with (2).
I wan't talking about the second bevel though. The angle of primary bevel actually affects the result. How did I find out? I had a Tojiro when I learned the whole sharpening thing with. Initially when I sharpen with a wider angle (~20), it cuts through newspaper easily. But when it comes to potatoes, it wasn't very smooth. Then I sharpened it with a
You can get any angle razor sharp. Thin angles are good for dainty stuff like food prep and slicing things super thin, but are easier to damage, chip and roll. Thicker angles are more durable and are good for chopping, whittling and general hard use but aren't as good at slicing or shaving because they have more resistance when plowing through mediums. Sharpening angles do matter for different applications. I'd want a super thin profile for shaving or food prep, but I'd want a thicker profile for machetes and EDC pocket knives. I keep a stone angle of about 22.5° or a 45°cutting edge, it's still thin enough to shave but thick enough to take abuse. Also the thinner your edge is, the more metal you'll have to remove to maintain it, because the surface area of the grinds will be wider.
Little off topic but Kyocera sent me some Ceramic blades for reviewing and checking out. Never used one. Man those things are sharp. I understand their limitations but having one ... it’s pretty fun. I’ve never seen anything perform as well out of the box on the paper test as that. It’s apples and oranges kind of got comparing aside from sharpness ... but sharp they are. Did the thinnest tomato slice I’ve ever done. It will be interesting when I try to sharpen one.
Peter E. Agreed. Got a utility and a sashimi from Kyocera’s Kyotop line about 9 months ago. Love them for soft fruits/veggies and fish, no problems so far, minimal change in performance since purchase. I’m glad you mentioned ceramics!
Sean O'Neil yeah I just used it again today. Each time I’m enjoying it a lot. I ha shelf off so long until they sent me some. Now I want a few more. It’s a good addition.
According to these tests 10 degrees is the best for soft materials like vegs and meat (what else do you need a kitchen knife for?). It is the sharpest, and keeps it's edge best for the first 10 cuts of heavy rope what translates to a lot of food prep work.
Definitely agree with holding a consistent angle as opposed to trying to get a specific angle. You learn to "feel out" which angle is best for your particular knife, and you have a rough idea of the angle degree, but you don't worry about it too specifically, instead you try to lock your wrist and the position of the knife to where it felt right for that knife, and to where you know you get the most stable edge. The factory usually gets the edge pretty near where it's meant to be for that blade, but you can refine the edge better than you get it from them. I often see recommendations to sharpen chef's knives at 15 degrees. Experience tells me I strongly disagree with this, because most chef's knives of the western make are softer, and the edge barely lasts a few days. I've had much better results shooting for 20-25 with these kinds of knives, or just paying attention to where you can see and feel the edge as the knife came. If you just shoot to make contact on the stone with where you can actually see the edge, and just start slow and hold it stable at that angle, you get much better results for how the knife was intended to be used. Save those keen 10-15 degree angles for the hard, Japanese knives. I recall watching a video with knifemerchant recently, and the owner said when he learned to sharpen knives in Japan, they simply told him "okay, find your angle". Rather than a specific angle, that meant to just find the angle that naturally worked on that knife or something to that effect. Makes a lot of sense in my experience.
First I was a bit skeptical about the test, thinking it was just going to be the pressure test after sharpening, but I think the format testing edge retention was brilliant and filled in the blank spots. Great test!!! I will say that going through ingredients, I noticed a huge difference between 10-12 degrees, which is my usual, and 20 degrees. I recently sharpened a used victorianox that had been at 20 degrees and due to time, I just refined the edge rather than resetting the angle to 15 degrees. It was very noticeable!
somebody once said: find "your" angle, it matters less about the actual angle chosen, and more about what angle you are comfortable holding and sharpening at
Agreed. My dad taught me pretty much everything Ryky is teaching when I was maybe 10, but I didn't realize just how much he knew about the subject until recently. He was on a Destroyer in the Vietnam war and was lucky enough they never engaged in any real battles. The closest they came to firing their guns was at a plane, but it was too high to even try to take a shot at. So between picking up pieces of planes and pilots from crashes and failed landings, he was the ships barber and kept his scissors and straight razors sharpened himself. I guess that is why I've been able to consistently sharpen knives all my life. I found the angle I'm consistent with from tip to heel, and that's key. I wish he was still around to thank him for so many of the things he taught me that I took for granite. I wish I knew what happened to his leather strops...they were very nice.
Absolutely, positively, no doubt about it, FANTASTIC! Now try same stone, same angles but different steels. And then same steel on different leather strops. And then ...well, of course you do realize, you'll have to redo most of your old videos, lol. By the way I love the Shell Cordovan strop that I picked up from your store. The price was fantastic. Maybe you could compare that against the Buffalo without paste of course.
You could brick them all again, and rearrange which blades are sharpened at which angles, to make sure that you are not being thrown off by differences in HT. I apreciate that they are all the same model but they arent the same batch probably, and even how long the kiln has been running for that day before the knives go in can make a difference. RHC is only one small aspect of heat treatment, you could have two knives in kigami II at identical hardness and geometry and have them perform radically different due to things like carbide formations, retained austenite or slight variation in a steel batch.
Good video Mr burr! I like the format and the editing is spot on. Your progression in the new videos is inspiring. Now let's get back to cutting actual vegetables because that's what I like to use them for! :)
Doubt you remember me. Just want to say Hi and great job being active thus far. Im back onto youtube stalking and still waiting for Deba sharpening from yourself and technique for left hander. Cant wait for your future video.
Mic drop on sharpening angles, awesome vid! You can probably say you are the only person in the world who has simultaneously dulled masamoto ks’s let alone four 😅
The one good thing that will come along hopefully before too long will be home robots that can perform time consuming tasks like knife sharpening with precision and dexterity. Any knife can be sharpened to razor sharp , but who wants to invest a couple of hours a month to do this grunt work. Right now , I use an electric grinder and it works good enough for sharpening budget kitchen knives.
When it came to the coin toss for 15 or 17 degrees, I just went with 16. I am thinking my actual angle was somewhere between 15 and 17 . Thanks for the info. CHEERS
I re watched this video and u did answered many of my old questions. THX My Question on "how did this make u feel?" from yesterday was somewhat unfair ?.....sorry....u have so many but u aleast used a 'top of the line knife[s]' for this test. [insert 'tear' now] good luck to u
As far as Im not surprise of knife becoming dull quicker at the begining Im a bit surprised that it show increased rate at the 40-50 cuts mark... i don't know how you perform those test in details but i think that a) you can do more then one measurement after every 10 cuts. like 2-3 in a vicinity but not on the exact same spot on edge (cause test is local not global) b) always try to do cuts on same pice of edge c) especially if your measurement is not as expected do it again... In general the thing i would highly recommend is to perform one quite massive test on 2-3 different type/quality of knives to see how the dulling process is progressing, to learn it by those experiments so you can verify in future how good your measurments are. i mean like pick representative knife of a certain class / quality and do test with i dont know... 150 cuts? 300? and do measurements like every one single cut for first 20 cuts then start doing measurements every 5 or 10 cuts, tehn maybe every 20... not sure how exactly but in a manner you will be able to gain data of high quality. of course with making like 2-3 or maybe more measurements on every data point to see also the statistical variance of your measurements and how it eveloves with dulling process. i think that both the average and variance should be lower and lower as more cuts are done. but maybe there is some nonlinear feature you can capture. but in order to do that you have to do very detailed experiment to rly see what is happening. of course if you have microscope to check the visual look of edge would be fantastic information which could explain what those measurements are rly telling about blade :) pls forgive me my english :P its not my native language... if you want any help with concept of an experiment feel free to ask, as much as my education in experimental physics will allow me i will be glad to help! but to be clear - a good material engineer would be probably a better advisor :D
Was the sharpening angle the same on each side of the knife? Would love to see the difference in sharpness between a knife sharpened with same angle on both sides and a flatter angle on 1 side vs the other.
Hey, love your channel first off, secondly I came across a Franz Swaty 3 bar razor hone and was wondering if you were familiar with stones like these and could explain the proper use, or maybe do an episode on stones other than the Japanese type stones you usually use, if you think they’re worth using, love the show and keep up the awesome videos!
interesting video , the difference between say 15 and 17 angle is very small and you are doing this free hand. how do you know your at those angle and are maintaining them through out the honing?
To make your test more scientifically valid, you would have to test more than one knife in each angle category (the more knives, the better) and test sharpness and edge longevity blindly, in such a way that ensures that the measurer does not know the angle that had been used to sharpen each test knife. I think it's worth doing -- knife sharpness is important stuff.
Big apologies, I just read the description of the edge tester. Wow, never knew such a device existed!!! Outstanding comparison! [Previous comment => Sorry I didn't get it, but how did you measure the force required to cut the rope?]
Q: Do you use the same angle on the front side and flip side? For example, when sharpening using 15°, do you sharpen the top side to 15° and then the bottom side to 15°?
Hi Ryky, love your helpful and enthusiastic videos, thanks for your commitment, really appreciate your passion. It gets frustrating watching your great knife reviews, when I try to order from Cutlery & More, No International shipping available! Your videos reach a large number of different countries, pity we can't buy what you are recommending, from your "partners" (and Amazon links, loss of commission for you) any chance you can have a talk and try to expedite there limited shipping options, this is 2018, They can't handle international shipping? Just had to order direct with Japan, knives, whetstone's, postage no problem, Thanks for anything you can do re, this problem, it should benefit many of your viewers.
I knew it was coming, but damn did you running them over the brick hurt me... I winced so very very hard. I suppose it is worse as I wanted one of the KS range when I ordered my latest knife but had to settle for VG10 instead (they were out of stock and I had a need for a knife as another in my house dropped my old VG10 on tiles and bent the back) I maintain a 16degree angle -laughs-
Thanks. That was a really nice test. Question. May be the 5th time i ask this Question but know you have a really nice setup for testing, if you sharpen 2 exactly the same knifes at the same angles. How would the edge retention and sharpness be if the finishing stone on the one is like 800 grit and the second knife is polished to like 10000? I am about to test this myself but my results would not be as accurate as your measuring station😀 big thumbs up
He is sharpening pulling the knife away from the edge other videos say sharpen into the blade …..so which is it away from the blade or towards the blade?
Dude, you are the best, but no one can sharpen to a particular degree of blade angle by sharpening freehand. You can get close to a few degrees. For example you're never going to be able to say sharpening freehand I'm going to sharpen at 17 degrees or 20 or whatever.
BennyCFD I agree completely.. I can judge rough angle when sharpening by hand... but to claim to do 17 or 20 degrees. I wouldn't be surprised if only the most experienced in the world could accomplish that
very cool and clever way of home testing edge retention!
It hurts seeing you making those beautiful knives dull on the brick...
Is exactly the same when I see my friends using my knifes.
And thanks for your videos, I've learnt a lot from them
Close enough to scientific for me. I usually go about 25-30 degrees on my pocket knives for longer term edge retention, and ~17 degrees on my kitchen knives. This just confirmed it's a great angle for both sharpness and retention on kitchen knives. Thanks for the video. Maybe not the most exciting video ever, but the information was awesome! Thanks for your channel!
Thanks for the editing, this was great! I was expecting a 50 minutes video with each knife sharpened and I was really happy that you editted the video that way!
It'd be cool to see the edges under a microscope. Before brick, after brick, after sharpening, and after test.
I agree microscope images would be a pretty good inclusion to this channel
Yeah I'm really surprised he hasn't gone this far yet! This would be the best way to show people the importance of honing/stropping too
This test is more informative and closer to practical usage than the pricey knife test machines that cut paper. Bravo!
That was thorough and well done. Thank you very much.
My biggest improvement in cutting performance and edge retention has been honing my slicing technique, and sharpening to a convex edge. Relying on more of the actual edge by slicing properly, not trying to whack or push a small section of the edge through the food is a huge edge preserver. Also I use an edge grain board with rubber feet for stability, for veggies, and a bamboo board for meat. Edge grain is better for lots of slicing and not warping your edge, it also holds veggies better cause it's thirsty and has the grain texture. Bamboo is less porous and very hard which makes it more sanitary and easier to clean after breaking down a bulk meat, it's less good for lots of slicing or suddenly separating veggies where your blade might whack the board.
For the best results I usually thin the edge on my knives and grind them to a full flat profile with a convex 15° apex. This greatly improves slicing ability, reduces fatigue, and improves safety. I use machine sharpening these days to save myself time and the belts make it easy to put a convex apex on the edge.
I always notice what knives others have used in my house, I keep my knives very sharp and can feel when they're off... I used to just buy serrated knives cause I'd dull an edge so quick, and I'd whack things like squash with a cleaver. Your videos helped me start on my knife knowledge journey and looking back I'm amazed where I'm at now. I peel waxy and hard kabocha squash before cooking now and have no issue slicing it into pieces, and my knives hold their edge even after a week of heavy use.
You might want to look into how to get a convex edge using stones, this usually improves any cut tests numbers. A convex edge has something like 35% more meat behind the apex and reduces drag while slicing. A standard V edge or single bevel flat grind will always be sharper and feel that way too, but will have less edge stability meaning more edge maintenance.
I'd love to see you make a video like this comparing the same edge angle degrees but against a convex edge of the same degree.
Thank you for your work and analysis on this. It is very informative and useful. With more kitchen experience, I had been looking for data like this, remembered this video, and came back to watch again. I miss the regular video uploads, but congrats on your success, and moving on in the world.
It seems to me that no matter how sharp I get a knife, all mine tend to gravitate towards 250-300 (sharpness of many European mass manufacturers). If I want a 100-200 knife every time, I have to strop frequently (four minutes). Just a fine point observation that a 10 degree bevel means more steel to be whetted each time, compared to a 15 degree bevel; a 10 degree bevel is wider than a 15 degree bevel. The wider bevel might make it a teensy bit easier to hold the angle, but sharpening at 15 degrees probably means less time on the whetstone.
On maintaining sharpness, in my limited experience, knife use technique is very important. Drawing a knife (slicing) is easier, and bringing the tip into contact with the board before it gets to the food, then drawing it through, prevents any banging at the end of the cut (watch Japanese chefs slicing on metal teppan-yaki griddles). And in rocking-dicing, moving the knife around may bend the edge in contact with the board. I'm guessing that the board contributes to loss of sharpness more than the food itself does, so a very light touch on the board will keep them sharper longer.
Thanks for the practical example and explanation!
Very objective and the length of the video was just right! I used to fret about "what angle should this knife be done at?". After watching nearly all your videos and now with this one I will just stick with "about 15 degree approach".
Best review I’ve seen so far. Been sharpening knives for a while now, and I agree with all his has said. For hard hitting blades; hatchets, axes, or bowies I would suggest a 20-25* convex angle. As you do not need a razor sharp edge, but rather a strong edge.
THANK YOU so much! Really helps us beginners! Especially beginners like moi staring at a plethora of knives knives and tools - carbon, stainless; European, Asian; cheap, expensive; very old, band new - and not knowing where to start. It confirms my intuition that learning ONE angle first, going very slowly, engraining it into muscle and sense memory is the way for ME - if not necessarily everyone.
You ask, what else you could have done or differently? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! Obviously, from my point of view but one shared by many. A fascinated newbie in the realm of sharp knives. You easily answered every question I had with a whole lot of bonuses! Thank you, and BTW, your honing skills are out of this world
Love it, very helpful info, i have one thing to add as a newer test parameter. Inverted curve sharpening, using a buffer to make a curve inset angle on one side and knife gradients as usual on the other. So that when it wears the knife wears back to a new edge and only needs touching up for burrs etc...
That is pretty interesting. Thanks
Well done. I really appreciate the scientific method approach.
Amazing how light on the kitchen knives! I dug an old kitchen knife out of my garage as it looks to good to throw away.i buffed the whole blade and gently sharpen on Ben cheers whetstone grinder. Then my cheap diamond block by hand and strop with green cutting compound! Sharper than brand new knives! And slices through A4 like butter! Great vids! Thanks🙂👍👍👍
I'll save you the disposal costs on one of those trashed knives. I'll even send you a pre-paid box to ship it to me for 'disposal'.
Kidding aside, I liked the test and learned something about sharpening angles and edge retention. The main complaint I've had about your videos is that they're often too long and could use some good edits. (You should check out This Old Tony and Alex French Guy Cooking.)
THIS video was not too long, and I enjoyed it very much.
Now, where can I get a Masamoto KS that won't cost a fortune? A lot of schmucks out there are jacking the price up!
That was great!!! Thanks!! Just getting into knife sharpening and your videos are very helpful!!!
i can appreciate your method.
I corrected my sharping angle to around 15°, and used a strop for the first time, and, *drum roll*, achieved a razor sharp edge for the very first time. What made me look into my angle was the video by Tojiro's craftmen that explain that a steep angle will have your edge last longer but be less sharpen , while a shallow would do the opposite, which seam so obvious when you say it right? Then your video gave me a practical example, so i corrected myself every few strokes on the stone. The edge is now larger from a visual point of view. First time since i bought this Yaxell that i can cut through tomato skin flawlessly again (which was my goal), as good as it was out of the factory!!! :D
I dont know much about knives except that mine are dull. Looking for a knife sharpener and now researching what angle is the best. This to me is a great video. Thank you for your time and the very high dollar knives used in this test. To me, this is a very good test.
Good test but as you said this is an attempt at an objective test. But we all live in the real world and as you said several times, in real-world use the differences were not significant and it is much more important to get a good consistent edge than it is to try to hit a specific angle.
One theme for a video that I would like to see is more about which angle is best for what type of cutting. Does the deboning knife benefit from a different angle than the chef's knife? etc? I am convinced it does, but I don't know which angles are good targets for the various types of uses - in the kitchen. My experience is with outdoor knives and pocket knives. For those I never suggest a sharper angle than 20° per side because you are often away from home when using the knives so retention is paramount. Also, outdoor knives often cut wood or other challenging materials.
The other side for budget knives, you mentioned in another video is that the steel composition makes a difference which angle is best for that steel. So, it's all very complex but it doesn't need to be come elitst (like some do - but not you, thankfully).
You should do a video on hunting or EDC knives. I'd like to get your opinion on knife metals and what stones would be best for each metal. This could be months of video material.
So Mellow I agree that this is a topic that needs more attention. I would love to see more experimentation on convex grinds with freehand sharpening. I know that a few channels have done plenty of content on this but not with this equipment. A microscope would be an added bonus as well. Most of the content has been on narrow bevel knives. I’d be interested to see how he would approach wide bevel japanese knives that need “work”, having high and low spots.
I've asked like a year ago. Ryky has no knowledge of these types of knives and there are already many, many channels that offer this. He said it is doubtful he will ever do content like that, better to stick to what he knows.
Seth Wright...exactly! He could get into the different grinds, steels, blade thickness and angles as he is doing here. He have so much more content to put out. His audience would grow.
I like what he does now but he could be so much better.
Buddha Mack maybe if enough people ask herm change his mind. He could learn a lot from research and the metallurgy isn't too hard to understand. He could get so many more subscribers if he did.
I have many bushcraft knives in different types of steel, they all sharpen fine on the same stones, there is no need to try to pair a stone to a specific type of steel. I have custom made knife from Dulo in Vanadis 4E @ 65HRC (convex) on the same stone as a Kabar in 1095 @56-58HRC and various others even some unknown kitchen knife that is terribly soft cheap steel. They all get hair whittling sharp, some just take longer due to harder steel.
I suppose it's possible you can differentiate between 15 degrees and 17 degrees while sharpening. I cannot.
"after twenty strokes on the brick, each of these knives will be between 1/4 and 1/5th the sharpness they were out of the box. And all your souls will have died slightly."
as for objectivity, I don't think there's a whole lot to add but maybe spreading the cutting out over multiple days, however the practicality of that is.... debatable. it would combat the potential effect of fatigue slightly though, although you could also make a point for having different amounts of energy over different days will also impact the results.
I really appreciate the amount of work done for this video. So much testing and practice was put into statistics and was really easy to follow, thanks for this video. Really interesting.
I love the short and sweet video! Very informative and I love the data. This has taught me a lot. Thank you!
Quality video! Thanks for your dedication. I truly need one of these knives for my home soon 😋
Ryky! Nice job. Short and sweet and to the point. Youve always said the same thing. Good thing you proved it as well. Hope the babies are doing good.
I love how you gave a lot of information but were still very easy to understand and follow. Thanks for the helpful tips! I make knives and sharpening my finished blades has been my Achilles's heal. This has directed me down the right path. My next knife on the list is actually going to be a Japanese chef knife specifically for meat prep. What is your suggestion for the best overall performing knife type to use as inspiration for my design? The customer will be using it primarily for processing venison after field dressing. Thanks, and I hope to hear back from you soon!!!
you could compare it more objectively by sharpening using the sharpworx pro on the same stones...You may have to tweak the pro model as I did to get rid of the slight inconsistencies but once you do its very accurate using an angle cube.
Good video though
Best comparison I ever seen!!!! Thank you!
The problem is, you only need to cut through a string on your testing device. Once the initial cut is through, there would be no force needed. However, in a real kitchen, after you cut through the "skin", you need to make your knife through the rest chunk of the ingredient. That motion includes two parts: 1) the very edge making one solid piece into two 2) knife as a wedge further splitting the two parts apart. From my experience the angle has more to do with (2).
I wan't talking about the second bevel though. The angle of primary bevel actually affects the result. How did I find out? I had a Tojiro when I learned the whole sharpening thing with. Initially when I sharpen with a wider angle (~20), it cuts through newspaper easily. But when it comes to potatoes, it wasn't very smooth. Then I sharpened it with a
You can get any angle razor sharp. Thin angles are good for dainty stuff like food prep and slicing things super thin, but are easier to damage, chip and roll. Thicker angles are more durable and are good for chopping, whittling and general hard use but aren't as good at slicing or shaving because they have more resistance when plowing through mediums. Sharpening angles do matter for different applications. I'd want a super thin profile for shaving or food prep, but I'd want a thicker profile for machetes and EDC pocket knives. I keep a stone angle of about 22.5° or a 45°cutting edge, it's still thin enough to shave but thick enough to take abuse. Also the thinner your edge is, the more metal you'll have to remove to maintain it, because the surface area of the grinds will be wider.
Little off topic but Kyocera sent me some Ceramic blades for reviewing and checking out. Never used one. Man those things are sharp. I understand their limitations but having one ... it’s pretty fun. I’ve never seen anything perform as well out of the box on the paper test as that. It’s apples and oranges kind of got comparing aside from sharpness ... but sharp they are. Did the thinnest tomato slice I’ve ever done. It will be interesting when I try to sharpen one.
Peter E. Agreed. Got a utility and a sashimi from Kyocera’s Kyotop line about 9 months ago. Love them for soft fruits/veggies and fish, no problems so far, minimal change in performance since purchase. I’m glad you mentioned ceramics!
Both my wife and I love the Kyocera utility knife.
Sean O'Neil yeah I just used it again today. Each time I’m enjoying it a lot. I ha shelf off so long until they sent me some. Now I want a few more. It’s a good addition.
According to these tests 10 degrees is the best for soft materials like vegs and meat (what else do you need a kitchen knife for?). It is the sharpest, and keeps it's edge best for the first 10 cuts of heavy rope what translates to a lot of food prep work.
Definitely agree with holding a consistent angle as opposed to trying to get a specific angle. You learn to "feel out" which angle is best for your particular knife, and you have a rough idea of the angle degree, but you don't worry about it too specifically, instead you try to lock your wrist and the position of the knife to where it felt right for that knife, and to where you know you get the most stable edge. The factory usually gets the edge pretty near where it's meant to be for that blade, but you can refine the edge better than you get it from them.
I often see recommendations to sharpen chef's knives at 15 degrees. Experience tells me I strongly disagree with this, because most chef's knives of the western make are softer, and the edge barely lasts a few days. I've had much better results shooting for 20-25 with these kinds of knives, or just paying attention to where you can see and feel the edge as the knife came. If you just shoot to make contact on the stone with where you can actually see the edge, and just start slow and hold it stable at that angle, you get much better results for how the knife was intended to be used. Save those keen 10-15 degree angles for the hard, Japanese knives.
I recall watching a video with knifemerchant recently, and the owner said when he learned to sharpen knives in Japan, they simply told him "okay, find your angle". Rather than a specific angle, that meant to just find the angle that naturally worked on that knife or something to that effect. Makes a lot of sense in my experience.
First I was a bit skeptical about the test, thinking it was just going to be the pressure test after sharpening, but I think the format testing edge retention was brilliant and filled in the blank spots. Great test!!! I will say that going through ingredients, I noticed a huge difference between 10-12 degrees, which is my usual, and 20 degrees. I recently sharpened a used victorianox that had been at 20 degrees and due to time, I just refined the edge rather than resetting the angle to 15 degrees. It was very noticeable!
Love the vids man. Awesomeness test. I think your experience and feel in the hand was worth more then the machine in this test. Good job.
thanks Tony! just doing my best
somebody once said: find "your" angle, it matters less about the actual angle chosen, and more about what angle you are comfortable holding and sharpening at
Agreed. My dad taught me pretty much everything Ryky is teaching when I was maybe 10, but I didn't realize just how much he knew about the subject until recently. He was on a Destroyer in the Vietnam war and was lucky enough they never engaged in any real battles. The closest they came to firing their guns was at a plane, but it was too high to even try to take a shot at. So between picking up pieces of planes and pilots from crashes and failed landings, he was the ships barber and kept his scissors and straight razors sharpened himself. I guess that is why I've been able to consistently sharpen knives all my life. I found the angle I'm consistent with from tip to heel, and that's key. I wish he was still around to thank him for so many of the things he taught me that I took for granite. I wish I knew what happened to his leather strops...they were very nice.
Great stuff, as always. Love the analytics from the new gear. Keep it up, brother!
One of the best videos I've ever seen
LOL @ 1:30 I was definitely feeling ya!!!
very well done video! The data is presented really well, and the voice over is really nice.
as always amazing video Ryky. awesome experiment and information for the world about knives
Absolutely, positively, no doubt about it, FANTASTIC! Now try same stone, same angles but different steels.
And then same steel on different leather strops. And then ...well, of course you do realize, you'll have to redo most of your old videos, lol.
By the way I love the Shell Cordovan strop that I picked up from your store. The price was fantastic. Maybe you could compare that against the Buffalo without paste of course.
Awesome video, explained a lot. Thanks. Tony
wow!! Felt like i was back in my first day of trigonometry. good job on those numbers
You could brick them all again, and rearrange which blades are sharpened at which angles, to make sure that you are not being thrown off by differences in HT. I apreciate that they are all the same model but they arent the same batch probably, and even how long the kiln has been running for that day before the knives go in can make a difference. RHC is only one small aspect of heat treatment, you could have two knives in kigami II at identical hardness and geometry and have them perform radically different due to things like carbide formations, retained austenite or slight variation in a steel batch.
Good test though. I apreciate that your out there trying stuff and publishing the data.
Good video Mr burr! I like the format and the editing is spot on. Your progression in the new videos is inspiring. Now let's get back to cutting actual vegetables because that's what I like to use them for! :)
Doubt you remember me. Just want to say Hi and great job being active thus far. Im back onto youtube stalking and still waiting for Deba sharpening from yourself and technique for left hander. Cant wait for your future video.
Mic drop on sharpening angles, awesome vid! You can probably say you are the only person in the world who has simultaneously dulled masamoto ks’s let alone four 😅
Love your new format with narration. The new studio is excellent. You're publishing some of the sharpest and most polished content on the tubes.
One thing I would have like to seen was you holding four Masamoto's (two in each hand ) and brick all of them simultaneously. :)
WOW, I thought angle made much more difference! Thanks for the info, that is very good to know.
Epic. Thank you for such an objective and well put together video
The one good thing that will come along hopefully before too long will be home robots that can perform time consuming tasks like knife sharpening with precision and dexterity. Any knife can be sharpened to razor sharp , but who wants to invest a couple of hours a month to do this grunt work. Right now , I use an electric grinder and it works good enough for sharpening budget kitchen knives.
I don't know why but I find these the most cathartic videos on CZcams to have on in the background
Great video, much respect young man. Old School just met a new school man to respect & be proud of.
New fan & sub. Kind regards & best wishes
Excellent comparison. I'd like to see the new Suehiro rocks
Wow. So much good information. Thank you for this well developed video.
on a thin hard knife i use an angle of about 10-12.5°,
it would be interesting how finer stones and leather strops affect the result
Hey great video , it answered a lot of questions I had.
When it came to the coin toss for 15 or 17 degrees, I just went with 16. I am thinking my actual angle was somewhere between 15 and 17 . Thanks for the info. CHEERS
"Sharpening at 10 degrees may leave some scratches" lol you should see the state of some of my 10 degree and lower bevels, they look so bad.
Great video, thanks for that
Thanks ill rember that
I re watched this video and u did answered many of my old questions. THX
My Question on "how did this make u feel?" from yesterday was somewhat unfair ?.....sorry....u have so many but u aleast used a 'top of the line knife[s]' for this test. [insert 'tear' now]
good luck to u
As far as Im not surprise of knife becoming dull quicker at the begining Im a bit surprised that it show increased rate at the 40-50 cuts mark... i don't know how you perform those test in details but i think that a) you can do more then one measurement after every 10 cuts. like 2-3 in a vicinity but not on the exact same spot on edge (cause test is local not global) b) always try to do cuts on same pice of edge c) especially if your measurement is not as expected do it again...
In general the thing i would highly recommend is to perform one quite massive test on 2-3 different type/quality of knives to see how the dulling process is progressing, to learn it by those experiments so you can verify in future how good your measurments are. i mean like pick representative knife of a certain class / quality and do test with i dont know... 150 cuts? 300? and do measurements like every one single cut for first 20 cuts then start doing measurements every 5 or 10 cuts, tehn maybe every 20... not sure how exactly but in a manner you will be able to gain data of high quality. of course with making like 2-3 or maybe more measurements on every data point to see also the statistical variance of your measurements and how it eveloves with dulling process. i think that both the average and variance should be lower and lower as more cuts are done. but maybe there is some nonlinear feature you can capture. but in order to do that you have to do very detailed experiment to rly see what is happening. of course if you have microscope to check the visual look of edge would be fantastic information which could explain what those measurements are rly telling about blade :)
pls forgive me my english :P its not my native language... if you want any help with concept of an experiment feel free to ask, as much as my education in experimental physics will allow me i will be glad to help! but to be clear - a good material engineer would be probably a better advisor :D
Nicely done
All i wanted to see thanks so much
Thanks for the video, very helpful.
Repeat and repeat and repeat learning how to hold the same angle is the answer to sharp knife 😉 four KS knives at once wow !
Fantastic test.
Was the sharpening angle the same on each side of the knife? Would love to see the difference in sharpness between a knife sharpened with same angle on both sides and a flatter angle on 1 side vs the other.
short and sweet! no complaints. do you foresee any experimentation with convex grinds?
Hey, love your channel first off, secondly I came across a Franz Swaty 3 bar razor hone and was wondering if you were familiar with stones like these and could explain the proper use, or maybe do an episode on stones other than the Japanese type stones you usually use, if you think they’re worth using, love the show and keep up the awesome videos!
interesting video , the difference between say 15 and 17 angle is very small and you are doing this free hand. how do you know your at those angle and are maintaining them through out the honing?
So nice that u r using that machine to measure sharpness. Now there is some science going on here.
To make your test more scientifically valid, you would have to test more than one knife in each angle category (the more knives, the better) and test sharpness and edge longevity blindly, in such a way that ensures that the measurer does not know the angle that had been used to sharpen each test knife. I think it's worth doing -- knife sharpness is important stuff.
Big apologies, I just read the description of the edge tester. Wow, never knew such a device existed!!! Outstanding comparison! [Previous comment => Sorry I didn't get it, but how did you measure the force required to cut the rope?]
Q: Do you use the same angle on the front side and flip side? For example, when sharpening using 15°, do you sharpen the top side to 15° and then the bottom side to 15°?
Thanks for this, a great help
Are the Japanese knives sharpened at an exclusive or inclusive 15 degrees?
That bricking hurt my soul
Great video
How can you determine the angle of the edge if you don’t know?
Hi Ryky, love your helpful and enthusiastic videos, thanks for your commitment, really appreciate your passion. It gets frustrating watching your great knife reviews, when I try to order from Cutlery & More, No International shipping available! Your videos reach a large number of different countries, pity we can't buy what you are recommending, from your "partners" (and Amazon links, loss of commission for you) any chance you can have a talk and try to expedite there limited shipping options, this is 2018, They can't handle international shipping? Just had to order direct with Japan, knives, whetstone's, postage no problem, Thanks for anything you can do re, this problem, it should benefit many of your viewers.
I would like to know how close the factory edge on the four knives were and how they compare to your sharpening
Amazing. Thank you!
So that Give me a lot More confidence
I knew it was coming, but damn did you running them over the brick hurt me... I winced so very very hard.
I suppose it is worse as I wanted one of the KS range when I ordered my latest knife but had to settle for VG10 instead (they were out of stock and I had a need for a knife as another in my house dropped my old VG10 on tiles and bent the back)
I maintain a 16degree angle -laughs-
Thanks. That was a really nice test. Question. May be the 5th time i ask this Question but know you have a really nice setup for testing, if you sharpen 2 exactly the same knifes at the same angles. How would the edge retention and sharpness be if the finishing stone on the one is like 800 grit and the second knife is polished to like 10000? I am about to test this myself but my results would not be as accurate as your measuring station😀 big thumbs up
Nice video, looks like a lot of work.
Great video. Thank you for doing this so we don't have to.
He is sharpening pulling the knife away from the edge other videos say sharpen into the blade …..so which is it away from the blade or towards the blade?
What is your take on a Convex Edge in comparison to a V edge?
Thanks. I just finished my first batch of ( 5 gyutos) and was wondering what angle. 15 sounds good to me.
Dude, you are the best, but no one can sharpen to a particular degree of blade angle by sharpening freehand. You can get close to a few degrees. For example you're never going to be able to say sharpening freehand I'm going to sharpen at 17 degrees or 20 or whatever.
BennyCFD I agree completely.. I can judge rough angle when sharpening by hand... but to claim to do 17 or 20 degrees. I wouldn't be surprised if only the most experienced in the world could accomplish that
I have a shinwa katana I would like to ask for advice to preserve my swords blade and keep it from rusting