Chef's knife help

[Graham Gates(Ionic Muffin)]

Hey ya'll. Im working on a knife for a chef friend of mine. I have the shape finished and now I am wondering if I should do a partial grind or a full edge to spine grind. The knife is a smidge deeper than 2 inches and the thickness is .110 inches. He works in a professional setting but I still worry that if I make it a full grind there would be a possiblility that the knife could chip since the angle of the grind would be very low. Not sure what to think.

 

I am working with files, not a belt grinder, so slower material removal.

[SLAG]

Mr. Gates,

Have a look at chef knives on the net. (e.g. Amazon etc.).

Notice that the blade tapers from the spine to the cutting edge. Also there is a taper from the handle end to the tip of the knife.

I suspect that you already know that. (so don't be insulted if I state generally known facts, it is in the effort to be complete).

Chef's knives usually have a thickening at the ricasso end of the blade. ( a bolster) It is located at the base of the blade and the handle. The reason for it is, that that part of the knife gets the most stress and it is usually there that the knife would break.

Just my two cents, good luck with it. You have crafted a great beginning for your chef's knife,

Regards,

SLAG.

[Graham Gates(Ionic Muffin)]

So full grind would be more tipical of a chef's knife. Does it boil down to the quench and heat-treat more than the grind? I guess if i want the edge to be super sharp I would want to make the edge hard but keep the spine and middle of the knife springy right?

[SLAG]

Most knives are differentially tempered. The spine is softer than the cutting edge.

Check the stickies on the knife maker's heading on this site. Better yet the site sells an excellent knife making book called "Introduction To Knife Making" The author is  Mr. Steve Sells, a highly knowlegable and experienced practitioner of knife making. I own a copy and regularly consult, it myself. It is reasonably priced too.

SLAG.

[nonjic]

The magic is in the heat treatment, The skill is in the balance between the heat treat and a thin grind, one that has enough convexity, or concavity (or both) to prevent food sticking and superior edge retention. Chefs knives are very difficult to get right. Ask to have a look at his favourite knife. If you do not have the skill set to do it, make some excuses and make it when your skill set improves.

The last thing you want is the reaction you give to the jumper you get from nan at christmas...... 'its nice'......

There is a reason so few people make chefs knives, they are incredibly difficult to do well, and a chef wont cut the punches if it does not cut properly. Which it wont, even if your only 10% behind the ball.

I am grinding kitchen knives to 0.006" - 008" thick, 0.080" behind the edge before sharpening, which is a big ask,to hold consistent along a 9" edge. people go thinner than that, and kitchen knife enthusiasts will still say it needs edge thinning on the stones !

16 minutes ago, SLAG said:

Most knives are differentially tempered. The spine is softer than the cutting edge.

Check the stickies on the knife maker's heading on this site. Better yet the site sells an excellent knife making book by Mr. Steve Sells, a highly knowlegable and experienced practitioner of knife making. I own a copy and regularly consult, it myself. It is reasonably priced too.

SLAG.

does this Steve sells make kitchen knives ? got any pics ?

[SLAG]

Ask him he is a moderator on this site.

regards,

SLAG.

[rockstar.esq]

Ionic Muffin,

Most of my kitchen knives are tapered (ground) both distally and from the spine to the edge.  There's a small secondary bevel for the actual edge.  Most "French" style chef knives have no straight section to the edge which allows them to rock smoothly until the bolster at the choil hits the board.  That part is critical if you want to be able to "pop" the top of the spine at the tip into your support fingers to achieve the really fast mincing motion that sounds like a wood pecker.  Knives with a long flat to the edge won't "woodpecker" worth a hoot. Even a slight curve in the edge will create a shearing motion rather than  chopping motion.  Shearing requires less force which makes the knife seem sharper.  Balancing the weight at the choil makes it seem lighter too.

Flat sided chef knives are often used as a crushing tool for stuff like garlic. The skin is released by crushing the clove between the flat and the board.  Then after a quick mince, the pieces are sprinkled with coarse salt and the knife flat is used like a spatula to crush the garlic and salt together until it's a fine paste.  Once that's done, the blade is often used to lift the garlic paste off the board.  If you ever get a chance to watch Jacques Pepin on the old Julia Child shows, you'll see him doing this all the time. 

[Frosty]

20 hours ago, nonjic said:

does this Steve sells make kitchen knives ? got any pics ?

Steve is an accomplished bladesmith and published author on the subject. You apparently have been an Iforge member long enough to know who and what Steve is on the Forum. 

Maybe you're a friend tossing out a little friendly bait?

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

As for ginds, it's quite simple---do it the way the end user wants!  I'll admit; sometimes you need tell them what they want...

Another method is to ask them what their favorite knife is and then use the features of it in your build.

[Graham Gates(Ionic Muffin)]

Ok, I have taken a lot of time to do more research and I have asked my friend how he wants it, and he said flat grind from spine to edge, which seems to be a general consensus. That is what I will do then. 

On the note of heat treating and quenching. Clearly you all can tell that I have limited experience with those two subject matters. Since that is the case, maybe I ought to outsource those processes to a professional company? I thought about Tru Grit, (if I shouldn't be posting names of companies I'll remove it) or some other company. I figure that if a company touts their services as professional(namely, that they sell the service) then they must be able to do it well enough for most purposes. 

Any thoughts? I think I would rather spend 30-60$ on a service than to ruin several knives of steel that I can't properly handle without much practice.(from what I can tell it seems to be the thoughts of most experienced knifemakers anyway)  

The steel is AEB-L, So it is one of "those" steels.

Thanks ya'll.

Graham.

[Steve Sells]

I know of plenty of people that farm out Heat Treating for various reasons, I would send out any stainless steel other than 440C myself as well.  The 440C I can do here, the rest is a pain for ramping soaks and such, and like you mentioned, I would not want to ruin a blade I worked on due to poor heat treating.  I also would loose the flat spot on the cutting edge of your blade and let it have a gradual curve for the reasons on intended usage already covered. 

In answer to the question above, I have made a few knives, and I have some photos on my web site, I am not a shutter bug and rarely remember to take photos of anything.  my wife does that so unless she reminds me to take a pic, it doesn't happen.

 

[Latticino]

Very interested as regards the "flat spot" discussion with regard to Chef's knives.  I'm hardly a chef, but recently took an integral Chef's knife class with Nick Rossi at the New England School of Metalwork (great guy, teacher and facility).  One of the things that he mentioned specifically is that he always includes an approximately 2" section of "flat" edge at the heel of his French style chef's knives.  He mentioned that the chefs he consulted with liked the flat as a sort of a stop for the rocking motion they use in chopping.

 

Here is a shot of a Kramer Chef's knife that appears to have this flat section (though it is hard to tell from the image):

[Graham Gates(Ionic Muffin)]

It could use a bit of work, though it is a bit deceiving. There is not really a flat spot. I checked on a flat surface and there is a rocking motion. However, there is a spot where it has much less curve that does not match the knife.

And to confirm. Any company that sells HT service should be just fine for my purposes, correct?

Again, thanks for all your inputs

Graham.

[Frosty]

Finding heat treaters is Paper Yellow Pages work. Doing it online is frustrating with all the "suggestions for things you might be interested in" rather than a phone number. Talking to live people is much more productive. If a company doesn't do what you want they'll know someone who does.

Not being able to find what you need for all the unblockable adds is about to get worse seeing as your service provider can now legally sell your internet search, view, etc. habits. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Graham Gates(Ionic Muffin)]

Thank you, that gives me a refined idea of what I should do. I have a few in mind, but seeing as how I only have a few knives at a time that I will ever need heat treated I will be looking for cost effective options, and of course I will call to ensure they can meet my needs. 

Its funny, for the longest time, I had this stubborn idea that if I heat treat myself that I could save money and it would be way cooler. Now after a few years and tons more research I have come to a conclusion that it just simply isn't worth the frustration and time for knives that I give as gifts or whatnot. 

I also had another funny thought. All us knifemakers that just do it in our backyards, doing quenches without much precision are really just playing blacksmith. No offence to anybody, but it just seems funny. Obviously there are the makers who have nice setups and are equip to quench and HT whatever steel they have, but for those of us getting into it and are on the poorer, hobbyist end of things, we are like backyard scientists that can only control so much of our environment and have limited applications to what we can do. Don't get me wrong, its tons of fun being a backyard "scientist" and I love the experimentation process.

 

Again, thanks!

Graham.

[rockstar.esq]

Latticino,

If that's what his customers want, it's not wrong.  The photo you posted reminded me that some french chef's knives have an integral bolster that comes down to the choil.  For example, Wusthof and Henkles "Classic, and International"  lines have them. 

It occurs to me that different techniques would steer people's preferences.  I bring the choil down onto the board which pops the spine at the tip into the fingers of my support hand.  I maintain a bit pressure on my support hand fingers to bring the tip back down to the board.  If you've ever seen a skateboarder doing an "Ollie" it's the same motion.  One side pivots the other end into the air, where counterpressure on the airborne side pivots the low end off the ground.

Since the off hand only needs to provide downward pressure, you can keep your hand open with the finger tips on the spine.  The knife hand is holding the handle with a pivot grip where the thumb and middle fingers are on either side of the bolster. That gives the knife hand freedom to generate the bouncing motion.

If there as a flat area, especially one that's a good quarter of the blades length,  the knife hand would have to strike the board harder to keep from losing all momentum.  That would be more work and it would probably reduce the top speed of the mincing.

With all of that being said,  I worked with quite a few prep chefs and none of them cut at "woodpecker" speeds.  Going back to Jaques Pepin, he would often cook a dish alongside Julia Child where she would use a power tool and he would use a manual implement.  She didn't beat him often and he wasn't out of breath from the effort either.  I learned the "woodpecker" mincing by mimicking him and Martin Yan.

One of the more memorable ones was whisking eggs into a meringue. Julia used a standing mixer, against Jacques with a whisk.  She started the episode with a starters pistol and they raced.  As memory serves, it was a draw.  I'm curious if modern culinary arts teaching has moved towards power equipment rather than maximizing manual technique. Maybe the popularity of stuff like Sushi has shifted the culinary arts focus towards slower precision?  Lots of sushi knives have flat edges. 

 

[JHCC]

15 minutes ago, rockstar.esq said:

The photo you posted reminded me that some french chef's knives have an integral bolster that comes down to the choil.  For example, Wusthof and Henkles "Classic, and International"  lines have them. 

Wusthof and Henckels are both German manufacturers, not French. German knives tend to have a bit more "belly" than French, but this is becoming less of a distinction as many big manufacturers nowadays tend to offer a wide variety of profiles to suit as many customers as possible.

[Graham Gates(Ionic Muffin)]

I agree, He will likely want a nice curve, which is why I will have him test the rocking motion of the knife today and make sure it is to his liking. 

Graham.

[Graham Gates(Ionic Muffin)]

here is my progress so far

 

[C-1ToolSteel]

Good start. Now, switch to draw filing, and focus on getting a nice, shallow, flat grind. Looking forward to seeing how it turnes out!

[rockstar.esq]

21 hours ago, JHCC said:

Wusthof and Henckels are both German manufacturers, not French. German knives tend to have a bit more "belly" than French, but this is becoming less of a distinction as many big manufacturers nowadays tend to offer a wide variety of profiles to suit as many customers as possible.

JHCC,

That's an interesting distinction.  I've never heard anyone refer to them as a "German Chef's Knife".  According to Wikipedia, you're correct that the German chef knives have more belly in the blade than the French chef knifes.  The Sabatier knives I've handled personally had bellies similar to the German knives, but they were old and it's probable that their owner ground a curve into them over years of sharpening.

 

[JHCC]

My own commercial chef's knives are Wusthof, and definitely have more belly than my parents' old Sabatiers. 

Of course, now that I've made a couple of my own, I find myself startlingly less interested in what the commercial makers do, and more about what feels good in my own hand....

[Graham Gates(Ionic Muffin)]

After much filing! 

 

 

Still not done... lol