Blade Thinning Service

One of the most requested services that I perform is blade thinning. Since a knife is basically a wedge (triangular in cross section) it's easy to use and sharpen them to the point that they begin to earn this "wedge" description. This can be caused from improper sharpening, edge damage repair, or simply just from being a thicker knife that's been properly maintained over many years. There comes a point where thinning at just (or above) the edge doesn't work any more and the performance has tanked - this is where I come in.

What I do is I thin the knife back to what it's thickness once was, or even thinner, down into the edge. The knife is instantly transformed into a cutting machine again, it looks better too, and it is now MUCH easier to sharpen into the future.

Here's a very typical example of what I do when thinning a gyuto. I hope that you can see the difference in the blade's thickness from the before & after pictures. Again, this is typical, not in anyway a special job and it's typical of what you can have done to your aging knives if interested.

 

This is very illustrative Dave. I see this defect very often when people post about using the system sharpeners that are very common now.

 

I learned this the hard way with my first knife, a Watanabe 210m gyuto. I then spent probably 10 hours thinning the whole thing to the point where the kanji is barely readable. The coarse red stone really got a workout, as did I. It is very sharp and easier to maintain now. Now every time I go to sharpen I thin down about half the height of the blade before putting a new edge on. It seems to work. I see no shoulders and have less wedging in hard veggies than I once did. What percentage of blade width would you recommend thinning one a completely new edge is needed?

 

I'd have to say (to be safe) that each knife is different. Speaking of Watanabe I did something similar to you on my 270mm Watanabe gyuto when I first got it and even though I'd never want to do that job again by hand I'd have to admit that it made a HUGE difference in how it worked from then on out. I'd say that I went about 1/3 up the blade face over time with thinning. It was ugly though.