Edgecraft Chef's Choice 316 - Manual (Page 9)

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re-SharpenIng the euro/amerICan blade
Re-sharpen in Polishing Stage 2 as described above. You will be able to re-sharpen repetitively
about 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 aSIan and euro/amerICan bladeS
Euro/American blades in general have a sturdier cross-section than the more delicate and thin-
ner contemporary Asian blades. The variation among commercially available knives of any type
is great and in fact some Euro/American blades are very thin and certain Asian knives have a
thicker cross-section designed for heavier work.
1. ContemporarY aSIan KnIveS
The more popular Asian blades; the thin, light weight Santoku
and Usaba or Nakiri are generally double faceted (sharpened
on both faces of the blade) as shown on the left. Occasion-
ally Santoku knives are sold with single facets (#2 below) 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. The Chinese cleaver is included in
this class.
2. tradItIonal JapaneSe KnIveS
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 on the left. The factory bevel A is
ground, commonly at about 10 degrees. The most popular ex-
ample of this type blade is the sashimi knife also called yan-
agi and sujihiki, designed as shown to the left. 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 10 in order to establish the geometry of the
cutting edge. An even smaller cutting micro-facet (barely vis-
ible) 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.