Knives & Knife sharpening

[Nick the Knife]

It's worth being aware that as in keeping with nothing being simple in life - when looking at grits you need to be aware what scale they're using to rate their stone e.g most asian stones will use the Japanese system ,JIS - whereas Yank ones will be ANSI. At the lower level's they're about equal but above 1000 the JIS ones are ~2-3times as high as the ANSI ones (using the same micron sized particles) e.g JIS 2000 = ANSI 1000.

The edgefaux ones were ANSI.

 

[Nick the Knife]

Hmmm ok well I'm going to have to give in and grab one of these Opinel pocket knives - the only others I have are yucky chinese junkers.

PJ, you are Mr Opinel - what do you think of this guy's listing?

He's got a spotless feedback record and surely making knockoff Opinel's in France would get you strung up - but the handle's wood looks a lil unusual to me - I know he's got an Inox version pictured rather than the Carbon varient (which I will grab).

Is the cheapest I can see by about $3 or so. Figuring on either the #8 or 9, good choice?

Thanks.

 

[Pjotr]

Hmmm ok well I'm going to have to give in and grab one of these Opinel pocket knives - the only others I have are yucky chinese junkers.

PJ, you are Mr Opinel - what do you think of this guy's listing?

He's got a spotless feedback record and surely making knockoff Opinel's in France would get you strung up - but the handle's wood looks a lil unusual to me - I know he's got an Inox version pictured rather than the Carbon varient (which I will grab).

Is the cheapest I can see by about $3 or so. Figuring on either the #8 or 9, good choice?

Thanks.

The one pictured has a beechwood handle which is the standard timber Opinel uses. I agree that the grain looks different than most of the Opinels I've seen but that is just the kind of variable you get with beech and any other timber really. I compared the picture to an Opinel I recently bought in France and it all looks legit to me. Same words, font etc. I've got a No 8 which is a perfect size for a pocket knife but also does duty as a pairing knife. Don't think you can go wrong with a No 8 or 9.

 

[mr626]

Just in case you want the stainless steel over the carbon steel, Peter's of Kensignton have it for not much more:

Peter's of Kensington | Opinel - No. 8 Pocket Knife

Agreed on the sizing of the No. 8 being a great pocket knife size too.

 

[Nick the Knife]

Thanks PJ, I'll grab a #8 then.

Hi '626, thanks for the heads up but I'll stick with the carbon steel - easier to keep razor sharp and I'll pop a tea patina onto it to make it very user friendly - plus pretty sexy looking.

Cheers,

Nick

PS Went with a #9, 30cents extra for that 10mm more seemed hard to resist.

 

[Pjotr]

........PS Went with a #9, 30cents extra for that 10mm more seemed hard to resist.

I know what you mean. I bought a whopping No 12 as a present for my son. It's just such a lot of blade for not a lot of money.

 

[Mong.]

I'll pop a tea patina onto it to make it very user friendly - plus pretty sexy looking.

Nick, if you wouldn't mind, could you elaborate on this a little for me? I had a look through the Whirlpool thread and Googled it a bit, but I'm fairly average at customising my searches to get something useful so I didn't turn up much. What I did find was pretty simple:

-1/2 tea and 1/2 fruit juice is a pretty common mix, but very strong tea by itself also seems to work
-no one seems to agree on how long it should soak in the tea, I've seen from 20 mins to 1hr to 1 week
-some people say the tea should be boiling when the knife goes in

I'm going to sandpaper my lonely single carbon steel knife back to bare metal, then I'm going to try this. It's got about a 7" blade though, so I'm trying to decide between using tea, vinegar or coke. Price is a small factor, I'm going to need to fill up a large jug as I have few containers that this knife will fit in evenly while it's submerged.

To summarise my questions;

Do you use only a tea solution? Is it boiling when you submerge? How long do you soak the knife for?

Also, cheers for the info on grading of sharpening stones. I'd been reading a bit about it, it's less relevant for my choice of 1k stone but very much a factor in my research for a 4-6k finishing stone. I think it's a good choice going for the No. 9 too, my 8 is a touch short for my liking.

 

[Pjotr]

What I know about patinas you could write in very big letters on the back of a stamp, but just for a laugh I tried tea on my usuba. We have leaf tea every morning and I just collected the remains from the pot over a couple of days and immersed the knife overnight. Works really well. Produces a pretty tough grey patina which doesn't wash off in a hurry and reduces the smell/staining you sometimes get from carbon. Don't know if it's just a stain or if a patina is basically a stain or vice versa but it works. The best patina I get is on my little Robert Herder paring knife which really only gets used for dicing and peeling fruit. It's almost like a layer of rust and it's really thick. Occasionally I'll clean it off when I'm touching up the edge with a very fine stone. You can almost see it floating off in chunks!

 

[Nick the Knife]

Hi Mong,

Personally I was VERY happy with my results and this is what I did anyway (prolly all in the WP thread - dunno) but anyway just tea, I used old tea leaves from the pot (as we're strictly loose leaf drinkers) - and also added a lil green tea (I didn't like this one so figured I'd get some use from it). Then just add hot water - you could use boiling - dunno if it really matters but you want a VERY strong and tannic mix - its the tannic acid you're chasing.

Make sure the blades of the carbon knives are VERY clean - so ensure you clean with metho etc and don't touch with your fingers to avoid oil on them. Immerse the metal fully in the liquid.

I pulled it out every hour or so and allowed it to dry - this will enhance the patina as it has access to more oxygen - you'll see the colour literally change. You can stop this at any time by rinsing under fresh water. If you want darker put it back in and repeat.

I think mine was in for about 6-7hrs....got a very nice grey from that....might have been a tad longer.

Rinse off and allow to dry, couldn't be easier. Is very unreactive and looks great, very tough too.

I tried the hot vinegar before this and it does get very dark but I didn't like it that much....so had to sand off and do the tea, I find this the best one.

A 4-6k ANSI graded finishing stone is a very high grit.....really you'll have to go with Chosera/Shapton type stuff, for normal household use you won't see much benefit from that. Honestly......I'd suspect you'lll be expecting it to me noticeably sharper and it's not, because like myself your technique will still be the issue. Stones cost too much once you go above ~1200-1500 ANSI to make them truly beneficial for household use - I mean a lot of sharpening sites will say for best results householders should FINISH at 600! So unless you're wanting a mirror edge I'd save the cash.

 

[Pjotr]

.........A 4-6k ANSI graded finishing stone is a very high grit.....really you'll have to go with Chosera/Shapton type stuff, for normal household use you won't see much benefit from that. Honestly......I'd suspect you'lll be expecting it to me noticeably sharper and it's not, because like myself your technique will still be the issue. Stones cost too much once you go above ~1200-1500 ANSI to make them truly beneficial for household use - I mean a lot of sharpening sites will say for best results householders should FINISH at 600! So unless you're wanting a mirror edge I'd save the cash.

I agree with that. Not sure where the ANSI scale is used. Most of the stones that I have come to know recently are made in Japan so I'm assuming are graded accordingly using a Japanese standard. As I've mentioned previously if it wasn't for the fact that you really have to use a fine grit for the back of a single edge blade, I doubt I'd own a 5K grit stone. Using a coarser grit for that would reduce the life span of the blade dramatically. Or at least quickly flatten it out in which case you might as well turn it in to a double edge blade. It was recommended to me to get an even finer grit for that. I'm glad I didn't follow that advice. My 5k grit (Seuhiro Rika) leaves a mirror finish as it is. If you want dumb advice log on to the kitchenknifeforums site by the way. The biggest collection of self opinionated morons I've yet to encounter. It's basically go and get a big expensive Japanese knife or please just f...k off. Almost in those words. I jumped before I was pushed. Makes YKW seem like a really nice, gentlemanly place to be. Which it is of course.

 

[Mong.]

It finally came. After fucking around with the post office for four days, my new Tojiro arrived yesterday. Our postal system is a miracle of the modern age. I don't know how any problems ever get solved. I got an urgent reminder notice to pick up the box on Thursday last week, and when I went on Friday to collect it, the package had gone back to the dispatch center for re-delivery. I wondered why they told me to come pick it up if it wasn't going to be there when they said. I was told in reply that it would come on Monday. It didn't, and I was assured that it was at the post office for collection on Tuesday. Surprise surprise, it was delivered on Tuesday arvo and wouldn't have been at the post office if I'd gone there. All this whole time, no one from AusPost had any idea where my parcel was or where I could pick it up. Inspires confidence....lesson learned though. VERY worthwhile ponying up extra for tracking.

My bitching aside, I couldn't be happier with either the seller or the product. Blueway Japan are a class eBay seller. Their communication is exceptional in all stages of the order, and the product and shipping packaging has been great on both knives I've purchased from them so far. Hard to fault their prices either. For about $50 shipped, it's a nice blade.

Nick, thanks for the info on the tea patina. I'm going to sand the black layer off this new knife and one of the Vietnamese knives I own, so I'll use your method on both of them afterwards.

 

[Pjotr]

............. I'm going to sand the black layer off this new knife and one of the Vietnamese knives I own.......

That's the best patina you're ever going to get! To be replaced by a tea stain? If you're going to do that you should really polish it to a smooth finish too. I like the blacksmith look myself. I know it's not the conventional western kitchen knife finish but then neither of them are conventional western kitchen knives.

Have you got your Bester stone yet?

 

[Mong.]

It's not that the kuro-uchi is unattractive, it's that there is a little bit of staining on the new blade. It returned from a family member having borrowed it with a bunch of ugly onion stains, and I'd like to get rid of them. This means I'm going to need to sand it back anyway. The other reason is that I'm told the kuro-uchi finish stained the onions a bit. That's been the case with the cheap Vietnamese chopper too, and I've been meaning to give it a going over for a while anyway. I might as well do them both properly while I'm at it. Half of my family can't be arsed caring for carbon steel properly or just forget, so as long as they continue to pinch my knives, I think it's worthwhile giving the blade a bit of protection. There's just no reasoning with my mother.

"It's just a knife, I'm gunna use it how I always use it..."

I've not yet ordered the Bester. I wanted to wait and see what condition the petty was in when it got here. I'm going to give it two weeks, and I'm going to give it a go in the Edge Faux right before I order. It just seems a little silly not to assess what I already have before I dive in the deep end. I've settled on just grabbing the Bester 1200 at the start, and then I can decide if I have a purpose for either a starting or finishing stone later. I still have my eye on a Sakai carbon steel single bevel deba, I might delay a little longer and order both at once to save on shipping.

 

[Nick the Knife]

That's the best patina you're ever going to get! To be replaced by a tea stain?

Is that black really a patina? It seems to me to be more like a layer of soot/carbon from the knife making process which they've just not removed......please don't get me wrong as I'm not one to play semantic nor be a smart alec but its got a very different nature to other patinas I'm familiar with. FWIW I also found that the kurouchi layer was quite rough and tended to cause slices of food to stick-adhere to it, which could be a PITA with slicing up some things - I have read others found this too.

Honestly, I was very sceptical about the tea patina as well but it's really very good looking IRL and ticks all the boxes for a patina (IMHO anyway) - easy to put on, good looking, hard wearing and completely removes reactivity of the blade.

The guy who gave me the heads up on it is a real genius with sharpening and knives, Bindi from over at the WP thread - so full credit to him. Great thing is if you tire of it or dislike you can remove with some wet'n'dry and elbow grease. ;-)

 

[Pjotr]

Is that black really a patina?.......

I'm guessing it's a layer of oxidised carbon which develops as the blade is heated and then cools down in the blacksmithing process and on that basis is certainly a patina as I understand it. It's also pretty tough.

Honestly, I was very sceptical about the tea patina as well but it's really very good looking IRL and ticks all the boxes for a patina (IMHO anyway) - easy to put on, good looking, hard wearing and completely removes reactivity of the blade......

The tea patina works very well. Tried it once on the usuba.

 

[Mong.]

PJ, your description of the kuro-uchi layer is spot on from what I've read. Nick is right too though, though it could be considered a patina I have found that it both sticks and can discolor anything chopped by it. I expect that it would settle down after a while, but I'm going to do this Viet nakiri, so I might as well do them both.

Did you keep the tea patina on the usaba, by the way? Also, what made you choose the rounded point version as opposed to the square? Simple curiosity here, apologies if my memory is faulty and you have the square. I think it's the kama-usaba from Blueway though, right?

 

[Pjotr]

............Did you keep the tea patina on the usaba, by the way? Also, what made you choose the rounded point version as opposed to the square? Simple curiosity here, apologies if my memory is faulty and you have the square. I think it's the kama-usaba from Blueway though, right?

Yeah I kept the tea patina. I think it's still there! As you might have gathered I'm not too worried about creating specific patinas. Quite happy to just to use the things and let whatever develops...develop.

The kama-usuba has a dead straight cutting edge which runs from tip to toe. The very tip of the standard usuba curves up a bit. I think the kama-usuba is better for cutting right in to the heart of vegetables for when you're finely dicing onions for instance. I think the standard square tipped usuba looks a bit better for some reason. They're both identical to sharpen. The only down fall compared to a knife with a rocker is that you need a dead flat cutting board. It gets insanely sharp and is an absolute piece of piss to sharpen. I'll bet it's easier and more accurate to sharpen with a stone than with an EF. There aren't any other knives I can think of for which you can make that claim.

 

[Nick the Knife]

The 9cm Opinel Carbon arrived a week or so ago, nice knife. Gave it a tea patina – it didn't come up quite as sexy as the others but still will protect the blade. Also applied another 2 coats of matt varnish ( seems to already have one on it but wanted extra protection. Also made sure the hinge section was well oiled and greased to protect the carbon steel without a patina on it. Pretty sharp OOTB but nothing amazing, will sharpen up a tad more on the EF, as it's a pocket knife I'll stick with around a ~25 degree angle on it.

Amazing bargain at around $12 delivered. Thanks for the recommendation PJ, would encourage others to grab one.

 

[Pjotr]

.........Amazing bargain at around $12 delivered. Thanks for the recommendation PJ, would encourage others to grab one.

No problem.

 

[eggbert]

Man, I am an idiot.
I knew I had better implements to use, better knives even, but I decided to use my carbo next knife in a way it totally want designed to be used and managed to snap the end 4mm off.
To say I am pissed of with myself is an understatement.

Still I guess it gives me the chance to buy a new knife