Chef'sChoice EdgeCraft E1520 Manuel page 6

The Model E1520 is designed to sharpen virtually any of this growing variety of blades and
to maintain the angles and edge designs of their tradition.
If one can identify the manufacturer of a knife or establish its country of origin it is
relatively easy to classify the edge as Asian (15 degrees) or as American/European
(20 degrees) and to sharpen accordingly. For example the Santoku knife is
characteristically sharpened as an Asian blade (15 degrees) regardless of where the
knife is manufactured. Otherwise if you are using a given knife for heavier cutting or
chopping it probably is best sharpened as an American/European blade at 20 degrees.
If you use a small or medium size knife only for light work such as paring, peeling, or light
slicing you may prefer to sharpen it as an Asian knife at 15 degrees in order to take
advantage of its increased sharpness.
The following descriptions may be helpful in identifying your knives or in explaining their
edge structures.
EUROPEAN/AMERICAN BLADES
(20 DEGREE FACETS)
European/American fine edge blades are
universally double beveled and are sharpened on
both sides of the blade. Most of the Euro/American
knives, shown on the right, Figure 4 have a thick
cross-section designed for heavier work. However,
the associated conventional paring, fillet and utility
blades, are smaller and have a relatively thin cross-
section well suited to their intended application.
CONTEMPORARY ASIAN KNIVES
(15 DEGREE FACETS)
The most popular Asian blades; the thin, light
weight Santoku and Nakiri for example are
generally double faceted (sharpened on both faces
of the blade) as shown in Figure 5. Occasionally
Santoku knives are sold with single facets but these
are not readily available in the United States.
There are other but somewhat heavier double-
faceted Asian knives, the Deba and Gyutou,
popular in Asia, which are used for chopping hard
vegetables, for tailing and filleting fish and for
meats. These are basically Asian chefs knives
designed for heavier duty work. While these
heavier knives are commonly sold with 15 degree
facets, you may wish to sharpen them with 20º
angles. The Chinese cleaver is included in this class.
TRADITIONAL JAPANESE KNIVES
(15 DEGREE FACETS)
The traditional Japanese knife is single beveled
and has a large factory bevel A along the lower
section of the front face of the blade. These are
sold as either right handed or left handed versions
as shown in Figure 6. The large wide factory bevel
A is ground, commonly at about 10 degrees. The
most popular example of this type blade is the
sashimi knife also known as Yanagi and Takohiki,
designed as shown in Figure 6. This lengthy, thin
slicing blade is ideal for preparing very thin slices
Figure 4. European/American blades are
generally thicker.
Figure 5. Double faceted contemporary
Asian blades are usually thinner.
Figure 6. Single beveled traditional Asian
blades are thinner and sharpened primarily
on one side.
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