Edgecraft Chef'sChoice 315XV Instructions page 9

c. Check the blade for sharpness. For a sharper edge make a few more pairs of fast pulls as in step b
and check for sharpness.
re-SharpenIng the tradItIonal 20° euro/amerICan Blade
Re-sharpen in Polishing Stage 2 as described above. You will be able to re-sharpen repetitively
about 5-10 times using only Stage 2 as described above. After resharpening a number of times,
you may want to hone in Stage 1 to speed the re-sharpening process. In Stage 1 make about
5 pairs of alternating slow pulls and check for a burr. When a burr exists, proceed to polish in
Stage 2 as described above.
deSCrIptIon of ContemporarY 15° and
In general you will find that traditional 20° Euro/American blades have a sturdier cross-section
than the more delicate and thinner contemporary 15° Euro/American Asian style blades. The
variation among commercially available knives of any type is great and in fact some older
traditional 20° Euro/American blades are very thin and certain Asian knives have a thicker
cross-section designed for heavier work.
1. ContemporarY 15° euro/amerICan and aSIan
StYle KnIveS, fig. 9a
In the last few years, most of the popular European and
American brands have adopted the 15° edge angle, along
with a thinner blade cross section, particularly adjacent to
the edge. The more popular Asian style blades; the thin,
light weight Santoku and Nakiri are generally double faceted
(sharpened on both faces of the blade) as shown in Fig. 9a.
There are other, 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. The Chinese cleaver is included in
this class.
2. tradItIonal SIngle Bevel JapaneSe KnIveS, fig. 9b
The traditional Japanese knife is single beveled and has a
wide factory bevel A along one face of the blade above the
small edge facet. These are sold as either right handed or
left handed versions as shown in Fig. 9b. The wide factory
bevel A is ground, commonly at about 10 degrees. The most
popular example of this type blade is the sashimi knife also
called Yanagi and Takohiki, designed as shown to the right.
This lengthy, slicing blade is ideal for preparing very thin slices
of raw tuna or salmon. The back of this blade is commonly
slightly hollow ground. A small single cutting facet of about
15° to 20° is created along the front of the edge of the sashimi
blade as shown in Figure 9b and 10 in order to establish the
geometry of the cutting edge. An even smaller cutting micro-facet (barely visible to the unaided eye) is
customarily created on the back face of the blade to enhance the sharpness of the finished edge. Figure
10 shows a greatly enlarged cross-section view of a typical factory edge on the traditional single-bevel
Japanese knife. The large factory bevel A serves to deflect the food slice away from the blade as it is cut.
tradItIonal 20° BladeS
Figure 9a. Double faceted comtemporary
15° blades.
Figure 9b. Single beveled traditional blades.
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