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Originally Posted by French Fries  OK so it seems like the Togiharu is the right choice for me. Now I have a couple more questions! ....
OK so no steel... does that mean I should use something else, like a strop, or simply use the knife for a couple of months without maintenance, then use the stone? |
No maintenance, then use the stone. But I think it's important to understand why.
The steel in these Japanese knives is very hard, which means that the edge will not deform under pressure the way softer (e.g most western) steel does. Imagine that the Japanese knife is made of glass and the Western knife of lead. When you cut with the glass edge, either nothing happens to the glass or it chips because it's so hard; when you cut with the lead edge, it squishes a bit because it's so soft. When a soft edge deforms, you run the edge of the knife along a very hard honing rod, and this bends the edge back into line. But bending a hard edge with a honing rod can actually weaken it slightly. That is, the honing rod will bend the lead laterally back into edge-shape, but if you bend the glass laterally it may chip. Do you see?
Thus when a soft knife is dull, it means either (a) the edge is deformed, or (b) the edge is gone. You assume (a) and run the knife on a steel, but eventually the steeling doesn't do anything, at which point you're looking at (b), so you grind the knife and start over. A hard knife is dull when the edge is gone, period, because it doesn't deform. So you don't need to maintain a hard edge all that often, but when you do you have to grind it on a stone.
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So the Togiharu is asymmetrical, correct? My concern was more regarding the sharpening: isn't it more difficult (especially for a beginner) to sharpen an asymmetrical knife than a symmetrical one? You make it sound like it isn't any more difficult....
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I didn't say the Togiharu is asymmetrical, or I didn't mean to. I don't actually remember. But it is a trivial issue from the point of view of cutting and sharpening with a knife this thin.
On the sharpening, think of it this way. Your hands have to learn two angles, which is the only hard part about learning to sharpen -- learning to keep a given angle steady while you grind. Take it slow, pay attention, and it's no big deal. Now you need two angles for a double-beveled knife, front and back. Either way, even if those are the same angle, your hand position is not the same, so you have to learn them separately anyway. If the angles are different, you just learn it that way. By the time you are ready to buy a second gyuto, or play with fancy stones, or whatever -- remember, it's an addiction! -- you will have a good sense of those angles and be able to manipulate them at whim, producing symmetrical edges, thin edges, fat edges, whatever. At this point, starting out, you just use the bevels already on the knife, whatever they might be, and you're good to go.
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I'm just about ready to order the Togiharu and a King 1000 grit stone!
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Good choice!
See you in six months in one of the forums for knife crazies.
