Chef's Choice Edgecraft E315 Manual Del Usuario página 7

SHARPENING THE TRADITIONAL
(SINGLE BEVEL) JAPANESE BLADE
Traditional Japanese knives such as the sashimi blade shown here are single sided and
have a large factory bevel on the front side of the blade. There are a large number of
manufacturers of knives of this type used widely to prepare sashimi. The factory bevel
(Bevel A) is commonly ground at about 10 degrees, but there are exceptions and that
angle is not standardized at the factories. Designs of the traditional Japanese knives and
the detailed structure of the cutting edges likewise vary widely from one manufacturer to
the next, however there are some similarities. The cutting edge consists of a small primary
facet on the front face of the blade below the large bevel and a much smaller secondary
microfacet along the back face. Commonly the back side microfacet can be easily seen
only with a hand magnifier. The back face is ground flat at the factory or more commonly
it is slightly hollow ground to ensure that an effective microfacet can be formed there as
part of the cutting edge. Because of the lack of standardization, the manual approach
used to sharpen these knives in Asia has proven difficult, laborious and time consuming.
The EdgeCraft® Model E315 is designed to sharpen all traditional Asian blades and to
create a factory-quality edge.
Before you start to sharpen a traditional blade, examine it carefully in order to confirm
that you have the traditional single bevel blade and to determine whether you have a
right or left handed type. It is essential that you follow carefully the sharpening
procedure and sequence as described below in order to achieve the optimum edge on
your traditional blade.
Note: Do not attempt to sharpen any traditional blade thicker than ⅛ inch (3 mm) in the
Model E315 sharpener. (Control of the sharpening angle becomes difficult for such
thick blades.)
Again confirm which side of the blade has the large factory Bevel A. Hold the blade in
your hand (as when you are cutting) and if the large factory bevel is on the right side of
the blade, the blade is right handed. For the right handed blades start sharpening in the
left slot of Stage 2 so that only the beveled side (right side) of the edge will contact the
polishing wheel.
STEP 1 - START IN POLISHING STAGE 2 (RIGHT HANDED BLADES)
Pull the full length of the blade through the left slot of Stage 2 (Figure 5) about ten (10)
times (take about 3 seconds for each pull of a 5 inch [12 cm] blade and proportionally
longer for longer blades). Feel for a burr on back side of blade edge as shown in Figure 4.
(The burr will be extremely small). If there is no burr, make ten (10) additional slow pulls
through the left slot. If no burr is formed after these pulls proceed to Step 2; otherwise
omit Step 2 and go to Step 3.
Figure 5. Traditional (sushimi) knife in left slot of
Stage 2.
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