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6
In recent years, as cultures and foods of the eastern and the western countries have become
more ubiquitous and available on a global scale, the knives commonly associated with those
foods also have become widely available. Many European and American brands are selling
Santoku blades and certain traditional European styles are now sold under Asian brands.
The Model 1520 is designed to sharpen virtually any of this growing variety of blades and to
maintain the angles and edge designs of their tradition.
If one can identify the manufacturer of a knife or establish the country of origin of the
knife’s particular design it is relatively easy to classify the edge as Asian (15 degrees) or as
American/European (20 degrees) and to sharpen
accordingly. For example the Santoku knife is charac-
teristically sharpened as an Asian blade (15 degrees)
regardless of where the knife is manufactured. Other-
wise if you are using a given knife for heavier cutting
or chopping it probably is best sharpened as an Ameri-
can/European blade at 20 degrees. If you use a small
or medium size knife only for light work such as paring,
peeling, or light slicing you may prefer to sharpen it as
an Asian knife at 15 degrees in order to take advantage
of its increased sharpness.
The following descriptions may be helpful in identifying
your knives or in explaining their edge structures.
EUROPEAN/AMERICAN BLADES
(20 DEGREE FACETS)
European/American fine edge blades are universally double
beveled and are sharpened on both sides of the blade. Most of
the Euro/American knives, shown on the right, Figure 4 have
a thick cross-section designed for heavier work. However, the
associated conventional paring, fillet and utility blades, are
smaller and have a relatively thin cross-section well suited to
their intended application.
CONTEMPORARY ASIAN KNIVES
(15 DEGREE FACETS)
The most popular Asian blades; the thin, light weight
Santoku and Nakiri for example are generally double faceted
(sharpened on both faces of the blade) as shown in Figure 5.
Occasionally Santoku knives are sold with single facets 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. While these heavier knives
are commonly sold with 15 degree facets, you may wish
to sharpen them with 20º angles. The Chinese cleaver is
included in this class.
Figure 4. European/American blades are
generally thicker.
Figure 5. Double faceted contemporary Asian
blades are usually thinner.
Figure 6. Single beveled traditional Asian
blades are thinner and sharpened primarily
on one side.
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