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Microbevel in knife sharpening

Brendan_Lee_56950

Wondering what your thoughts are on the microbevel in knife sharpening. My main questions are when would it be a benefit (i.e. is it something that would be best in the workhorse knife but not good in others that don't get as much heavy use?), how you recommend doing it (if yo do), and what kind of knives should or should not be used with it.

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Daniel_O_Malley_38420

While I don't put a microbevel on knives when I sharpen them, I do put a convex edge on the knives. The effect is similar, though a convex edge will be a bit stronger than a microbevel (think gothic arch). Basically, a primary bevel leading directly to the edge will be a great cutter, but is likely to be a bit fragile. By convexing the edge slightly on your finest stone, you will have very close performance, but higher strength.

I would not recommend doing convexes or secondary edges on single bevel knives like yanagi which are used for the most fragile cuts. For most other knives, you will see an improvement with a slight convex.

-daniel

Chris_Young_80640

Curious Daniel, what's the technique like to put the convex edge on the knife?

Daniel_O_Malley_38420

My general progression through stones is to start pretty rough (generally on a 220 grit ceramic), progress through a 700 grit ceramic, 1200 grit ceramic, 3000 grit clay matrix, and finish on an 8000 grit clay matrix. For the example, let's assume we're sharpening something like a Yoshikane SLD, which can hold a very fine angle. I'll go through my initial stones at a quite fine angle ... say 7 degrees. When I get to the 3000 grit stone, I'll initially work on the 7 degree angle, but the last 40 strokes or so, I'll raise the angle up to a 9 degree angle. On the 8000 grit stone, I'll initially work on a 7 degree angle, increase the angle by about a degree for about 40 strokes, increase again for about 40 stroke (9 degrees) and increase one more time for about 40 strokes (10 degrees). This will effectively meld a primary angle moving into the edge that is quite fine so that I get very little resistance making cuts, though the angle at the cutting edge will be 10 degrees, with the area in between forming a clam shell. Because they are fine adjustments, they'll meld into each other for more or less of a constant curve.

Brendan_Lee_56950

Wow so the graduation to the edge is very smooth if you are moving up only a few degrees each time, i'll have to try that out.