YoshiFirst, you need to know if your knife blade is made of one metal or…
Two different metals.
If you have a knife that is made of one metal, you are free of worry.
You can shave and sharpen your knife as you want.
Sharpen it for double bevels, or a singles bavel.
However:
1 If it is not, it is a different story
12 years ago, I figured out how to sharpen a knife that I couldn’t sharpen for a long time.
This knife was in the hut that my dad used to clean fish.
At the time my hobby had already been knife sharpening,
but it was a mystery to me that the knife had never been keen…
[image of a knife that is made of 2 metals]
2 If your knife is made of 2 different metals you can only sharpen double bevels
This kind of blade is made by sandwiching a hard metal using soft metal.
Kitchen knives like this make it easier to sharpen.
Imagine:
If your knife is made of only a hard metal, it takes a lot of time to sharpen.
You can save time by having this kind of kitchen knife.
In addition, hard metal is fragile. If you drop it,
It can break easily.
In order to support the hard part this kind of knife needs to be sandwiched by softer metals.
But…
3 This kind of knife is not made for sharpening into a single bevel
Here is why:
If you make this kind of knife into a single bevel knife,
The soft metal part has to be the edge. However…
The soft metal is not for cutting food.
It is too soft for a knife that the edge can develop a “U” shape quickly.
And it is not capable of cutting food regularly.
[2 different colors of metal on the knife edge]
4 How do you know it is made of 2 different metals?
If you can see 2 different colors of metal on the edge of the knife, it is made of 2 different kinds of metals.
Keep in mind that you cannot sharpen this kind of knife to a single bevel.
5 This type of knife is called “awase”
Awase knife has a similar structure to katana which is a Japanese sword.
Awase means combining different things in Japanese.
There are 3 different kinds of awase knives.
Warikomi, sanmai-awase, and tsuke-kou.
6 Warikomi knives are usually handmade
Blacksmiths forge the hard metal and soft metal using a hammer.
An edge made by warikomi is really hard, and has a very sharp feeling since it is forged.
Since it is handmade,
It has a cool elaborated look that mass produced knives don’t have.
Another benefit is that It is easily sharpened since soft metal is used on the side.
Downside of a warikomi knife is…
It is expensive, can get rusted easily, and the hard metal is only in half of the blade.
So after using and sharpening it for a long time, you will lose the edge.
Remember:
This kind of knife must have a double bevel edge.
7 Sanmai awase is mass produced by a machine
The press machine makes 3 metal plates into one.
The outside of the metal plates are usually made of stainless steel. And the inside plate is made of hard steel material.
The benefits of a knife that is made by sanmai awase are…
It is inexpensive,
And the face of the blade doesn’t rust since it is made of stainless steel.
Disadvantages of this kind of knife are…
It doesn’t look as nice as a warikomi blade, and sharpness also falls behind the warikomi.
This kind of knife must have a double bevel edge.
8 Tsuke-kou is usually used for deba knife
This is not related to the topic of this article because it is a single bevel knife.
But a deba knife that is made by tsuke-kou is the best deba knife for homecooks.
Because it is easy to sharpen since the metal is soft.
