# How do you sharpen your cleavers?



## Lazarus (Jan 21, 2017)

I feel like I'm trying to sharpen a shovel, cant get my daily chopper shave sharp, using a king 1k/6k.


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## foody518 (Jan 22, 2017)

Same as with other knives - sharpie trick, holding the knife how Jon does for the right side, but doing the same on the left side (switching hands). Deliberately angling a bit for the tip and heel if you don't want to have them blunted. Angle holding *is* a little harder because of the weight and distance from the stone, but somehow my Suien still cuts just fine and has decent edge retention too. Having a normal full sized stone helps.


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## guari (Jan 22, 2017)

How blunt are them? Maybe you need to properly set an apex and your king might be struggling a bit.


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## Lazarus (Jan 22, 2017)

guari said:


> How blunt are them? Maybe you need to properly set an apex and your king might be struggling a bit.



Not blunt, just not getting as sharp as I can get a Nakiri. I might need to pick up a bigger stone as foody suggests. And just keep playing with the angles


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## foody518 (Jan 22, 2017)

The ~200-210 x 65-75mm top surface ones are the ones I have. I was just thinking that if you were using like a 180x60 mm combo stone, that could make your job a little more difficult


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## LifeByA1000Cuts (Jan 22, 2017)

Chinese chef knife or bone cleaver? Different rules might apply...


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## WingKKF (Jan 23, 2017)

The angle of the bevel does play a role in how well it can get to shaving sharp. Also if the cleaver is made with some cheap stainless, it may never get to be shaving sharp. Your best bet for shaving sharp is a high quality carbon steel slicing cleaver.


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## LifeByA1000Cuts (Jan 23, 2017)

Shaving sharp as in arm/leg hair or straight razor like? The first should be possible even with a $10 stainless cleaver when fresh...

However... OK, is it worth mentioning that cleavers, unlike lighter/smaller knives, ARE harder to control when doing a shave test, and that it is easy to hurt yourself ... or is everyone like me and will disregard warnings and/or common sense and learn by ouch later anyway?


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## Lazarus (Jan 23, 2017)

Arm hair sharp, and Chinese veg cleaver, not bone.


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## foody518 (Jan 23, 2017)

Lazarus said:


> Arm hair sharp, and Chinese veg cleaver, not bone.



You can do it, I believe!


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## chinacats (Jan 23, 2017)

My thought is that it may be a burr is not being completely removed? I find it rather easy to hold a decent steady angle because the blade is so tall...meaning my wobble is less in effect.

Not sure of your knife but if it's a CCK, the carbon is soft enough to roll...see if gentle use of a steel will correct the issue...again my guess is that the softer steel is giving you an issue with burr removal...my CCK has geometry such that even a mostly dull one will still cut pretty well.


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## foody518 (Jan 23, 2017)

LifeByA1000Cuts said:


> Shaving sharp as in arm/leg hair or straight razor like? The first should be possible even with a $10 stainless cleaver when fresh...
> 
> However... OK, is it worth mentioning that cleavers, unlike lighter/smaller knives, ARE harder to control when doing a shave test, and that it is easy to hurt yourself ... or is everyone like me and will disregard warnings and/or common sense and learn by ouch later anyway?



Found a video on YT of a guy (Stephan Wolf?) sharpening a 0.3% carbon stainless smaller cleaver (Shibazi-esque dimensions) 400->1200 grit, pretty clean looking and sounding paper cut test at the end. Didn't do a shave test but I'd be surprised if it wouldn't have passed it. Whether it retained that edge for more than 5 board impacts might be another thing altogether XD

I took my Suien to my forearm hairs yesterday... Should I not have done that? XD


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## Lazarus (Jan 23, 2017)

chinacats said:


> My thought is that it may be a burr is not being completely removed? I find it rather easy to hold a decent steady angle because the blade is so tall...meaning my wobble is less in effect.
> 
> Not sure of your knife but if it's a CCK, the carbon is soft enough to roll...see if gentle use of a steel will correct the issue...again my guess is that the softer steel is giving you an issue with burr removal...my CCK has geometry such that even a mostly dull one will still cut pretty well.



It's a Takeda Classic, Aogami Super. Which is why I keep getting into my head that I can get this thing as sharp as some of my other knives. I've tried the draw the edge against my cutting block to deburr as I'm pretty sure AS is tougher than my old steel I used from western knives.


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## foody518 (Jan 23, 2017)

Maybe try more slightly edge leading strokes when almost finished? How does it feel using the 3 finger test?


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## LifeByA1000Cuts (Jan 23, 2017)

I have here: Jade Temple #2 (cheap and nasty) stainless I sharpened yesterday. ~14 dps on chosera 400 (freshly flattened! makes big difference with cleavers), cho 400 alternating the cork then beechwood deburr, then a couple ~10dps strokes (nothing to do with the apex, rounding off shoulders), ~20dps on top of it as a semi-microbevel on the 400, same debur, then newspaper strop, strop on BBW a few degrees higher to make another microbevel, newspaper strop again.

Shaves leg hair without needing to be scratched firmly on the skin. Freshly out of left arm hair, and wouldn't do it with a cleaver anyway for reasons described.

EDIT: It was at sponge slicing before involving the BBW.

EDIT: Another PS: Straight ~14dps misses the krassi criterion of edge retention with that, tried before. The burr from that steel is strange, it feels extremely friable on the fingers.


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## mise_en_place (Jan 23, 2017)

LifeByA1000Cuts said:


> then newspaper strop, *strop on BBW *a few degrees higher to make another microbevel, newspaper strop again.
> 
> EDIT: *It was at sponge slicing before involving the BBW*.



I would imagine zaftig women would be too soft to strop on.


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## LifeByA1000Cuts (Jan 23, 2017)

Blue coticule, thought the abbreviation was common?


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## mise_en_place (Jan 23, 2017)

LifeByA1000Cuts said:


> Blue coticule, thought the abbreviation was common?



I'm not familiar with it, but that doesn't mean much. 

Just a joke anyway. Didn't actually think you were involving a large woman in your sharpening progression.


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## LifeByA1000Cuts (Jan 23, 2017)

Not much of a progression even, more an experiment at regression - there's just one edge-leading abrader involved


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## foody518 (Jan 23, 2017)

LifeByA1000Cuts said:


> Not much of a progression even, more an experiment at regression - there's just one edge-leading abrader involved



More steps and complication than I'm currently using for probably comparable stainless stuff XD


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## XooMG (Jan 24, 2017)

I do not like deburring in wood. Some do it well...but I don't, or my edges tend to handle it poorly. I get better results on a hanging fabric strop with autosol and 20 laps per side.

I recommend finishing your 1k with edge-trailing (stropping) stokes, a vigorous deburr, and trying the 6k a couple degrees higher with minimal pressure.

Just make sure you're not cutting into the 6k. I do not mean you should use edge-trailing, but make sure your edge leading strokes are contributing to your edge, rather than grinding it down.


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## Sharpchef (Jan 24, 2017)

Deburring on wood is very funny, don`t you cut on wooden boards? just a pragmatic attempt ....

Greets Sebastian.


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## LifeByA1000Cuts (Jan 24, 2017)

Yep - if the hardwood piece used to deburr will quickly destroy your edge, so will your board.


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## fatboylim (Jan 25, 2017)

LifeByA1000Cuts said:


> I have here: Jade Temple #2 (cheap and nasty) stainless I sharpened yesterday. ~14 dps on chosera 400 (freshly flattened! makes big difference with cleavers), cho 400 alternating the cork then beechwood deburr, then a couple ~10dps strokes (nothing to do with the apex, rounding off shoulders), ~20dps on top of it as a semi-microbevel on the 400, same debur, then newspaper strop, strop on BBW a few degrees higher to make another microbevel, newspaper strop again.
> 
> Shaves leg hair without needing to be scratched firmly on the skin. Freshly out of left arm hair, and wouldn't do it with a cleaver anyway for reasons described.
> 
> ...



+1 o starting the progression lower. I start at 600, then 1200, then 3000/5000 then strop on a 6000


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## LifeByA1000Cuts (Jan 25, 2017)

Will probably try the "just a 400+Paper+ENAT" way on other stuff, probably something where "polished teeth" would be ideal, until I find its weaknesses ...


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## merlijny2k (Jan 26, 2017)

I accidentally discovered the '400 stone straight to paper stropping' progression by accident when i was sharpening someone's stuff and didn't have my fine stone with me. Those polished teeth are real tomato destroyers. I still want to try it for slicing bread with a non-serrated knife.


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## Keith Sinclair (Jan 31, 2017)

You can get the Takeda cleaver as sharp as your knives. A larger stone does help. There are as many ways to deburr as there are sharpening techniques. I prefer a lateral sweep on the stone at your final angle height. It takes about one second & removes the burr.

It takes some practice to master. If you go too hard the burr will flip to the other side, feeling for the burr does not take long to master.

Any residual burr do not try to fix on the stone, you could mess up your nice bevel. Newspaper works well for residual burr. Again at your final bevel height strop on newsprint only a couple stokes. For burr removal it is a light touch and less is best.


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## LifeByA1000Cuts (Jan 31, 2017)

@merlijny2k though I will likely not keep that on the Chuka, that needs more push cutting power, so a 1000 or 2000 step will be in next time  Need to thin it more anyways...


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