# First time sharpening a Deba and first time sharpening



## Spokk (Jun 3, 2019)

Hello everyone!
I recently purchased my first sharpening whetstone (two sides) to maintain my knives sharp. I've watched a lot of youtube video tutorials, some were extremely useful and complete.
Yet I still have zero experience in this domain and it's a little bit scary at first, i don't want to ruin my knives. I just came back from japan where i got two new additions and I thought of buying a chef knife at a dollar store (yes they sell those there, and i must admit they look decent enough for the price tag) but unfortunately i forgot.
Anyway, I have a knife for a few years know that I don't use because it doesn't suit me well and I find it somewhat dull (?). It's barely been used, that was my first "real" purchase.It's a Kai seki magoroku Deba knife (MGR-155D). I got it with a huge discount and mostly becuse it looked cool.
I know debas are asymetrical and are sharpened differently but since I don't use it I thought I would try it on this one.
Now here's my issue :After watching a few videos and gathering some info, i've seen that debas are supposed to be sharpened with or without a bevel on the "right" side and dead flat on the concave back side.
Mine has a small bevel on both sides, it came like this from Kai.After checking on the internet (pictures) I saw this was not that uncommon.

Now how do I sharpen it ? dead flat ? Till the bevel is gone ? Or do i maintain the same angle knowing that it's opposite to everything i've learned about debas.
If I go dead flat, how am i going to form an edge ? Isn't the burr going to form and not being sharpend the other way ?
I know this would be more clear with a small sketch lol.

I've read an old thread about this topic here but I still need fresh opinions.

Thank you for your answers.

P.S. I'll try to post some pics

Edit : In the meantime I found a picture online. As you can see there is a small bevel on the cutting edge and the exact same one exists on the flat side


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## Ochazuke (Jun 3, 2019)

The grinds on mass produced single bevel knives are almost always kinda weird. Since you're just starting out I wouldn't try to fix the grinds either. Just get used to creating a burr on the beveled side and removing the burr on the ura. Just start there and worry about the rest later.


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## Spokk (Jun 3, 2019)

Ochazuke said:


> The grinds on mass produced single bevel knives are almost always kinda weird. Since you're just starting out I wouldn't try to fix the grinds either. Just get used to creating a burr on the beveled side and removing the burr on the ura. Just start there and worry about the rest later.


Thank you, will try.
I also own a german DeBuyer santoku. Since it's a laser factory sharpened knife, is it ok to sharpen it on whetstones ? any precautions ?


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## Ochazuke (Jun 3, 2019)

You should be fine. Just know that stainless steels require patience and that once you pick your angle to sharpen, don’t change it.


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## ojisan (Jun 3, 2019)

Guessing this knife might have a (almost-)dead-flat back without urasuki (concave), and if that is the case, it’s pretty hard to remove the bevel on the back side and get ura-oshi.

Basically how you sharpen this knife is the same way you sharpen double bevel knives.

Put a ruler on the flat side and check if there is a curve to see if it has urasuki. If there is, sharpening with a 1:99 ratio eventually brings the knife to single bevel. If not, just keep the same bevels, it’s a super-asymmetric double bevel knife.

Grinding only the small bevel makes the bevel larger and larger, so usually you want to grind the entire bevel as well to reduce the thickness of the blade.

A real single bevel knife doesn’t have (year, literally) a bevel on the backside. You “polish” the ura with very very flat whetstones just to remove burr. I’d recommend use only fine stones for ura for daily sharpening.

For the face side, it depends. I think most people like to have a small bevel (nidanba) (or convex) on a deba, that makes the blade tougher and helps avoiding cutting bones when filleting. You can also add a bevel to the backside around the heel (sandanba), to make it even tougher, but it’s not for the entire blade like this knife


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## Spokk (Jun 4, 2019)

ojisan said:


> Guessing this knife might have a (almost-)dead-flat back without urasuki (concave), and if that is the case, it’s pretty hard to remove the bevel on the back side and get ura-oshi.
> 
> Basically how you sharpen this knife is the same way you sharpen double bevel knives.
> 
> ...


Thank you for all the info. I'm 90% sure it's concave, but i'll make sure with a light or something. My stones are brand new (1000 and 3000) so i'm assuming they're dead flat.

I'll get rid of that extra bevel on the ura eventually. since i don't use this knife might as well experiment with it but i'm going to try to sharpen it as well as my other knives to see if i can improve its cutting. I guess if'im trying to go through fish bones i'm not going to have any issues but so far cutting chicken skin (tried it) is not proprerly doable. This is still supposed to be factory sharp. So i'm guessing even if this knife is maybe not fade for this purpose, it should still do it.

So yeah i'll try to sharpen these factory edges on this deba as well as resharpen my debuyer.

About stones, I started with these two grains (1000/3000) I'm guessing that if i want to achieve something sharper and do some polishing i'm going to have to invest in some somoother ones, but what about coarser ones ? what would you recommend ?


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## ojisan (Jun 4, 2019)

Debas are supposed to be sharp enough to cut through chicken skins, especially those tips are. Factory edges are sometimes (almost always?) not sharp enough.

You will find what you need after some tires and errors. 1000/3000 is good enough to start with. Just make sure get them always flat, meaning you need a flattening stone. Most likely you will want a rough stone to remove the bevels, but you'll see yourself once you start.


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## Spokk (Jun 4, 2019)

ojisan said:


> Debas are supposed to be sharp enough to cut through chicken skins, especially those tips are. Factory edges are sometimes (almost always?) not sharp enough.
> 
> You will find what you need after some tires and errors. 1000/3000 is good enough to start with. Just make sure get them always flat, meaning you need a flattening stone. Most likely you will want a rough stone to remove the bevels, but you'll see yourself once you start.


I got a Suehiro Cerax kit with a two sided stone that comes with a small flattening stone i believe. I still have to learn how to use it though.


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## Benuser (Jun 4, 2019)

With double-bevelled you don't want to change the existing geometry of you best start on the dominant far behind the edge, at the lowest possible angle, and only little by little raise the spine until the very edge has been reached and a burr got raised. Verify the process by looking at the scratch pattern with a loupe (8x is comfortable) or use the marker trick.
Once one side done you switch to the other one. In the case of this, excusez le mot, pseudo-deba I'd probably only deburr the other side.
This approach, again, only applies if you're fine with the previous configuration. The advantage is, it can be used safely without any concern about angles or degree of asymmetry. You only duplicate the former edge in its new location and thin a bit, as it is being moved to a slightly thicker part of the blade.


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## Knife2meatu (Jun 4, 2019)

@Spokk : You shouldn't take for granted that your new stone came already flat.


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## Benuser (Jun 4, 2019)

Knife2meatu said:


> @Spokk : You shouldn't take for granted that your new stone came already flat.


Very true! And it happens too often they have an inactive kind of crust that first should be removed. A good occasion to chamfer the stone's edges.


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## Spokk (Jun 4, 2019)

wow ok thanks i'll check that


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## ojisan (Jun 4, 2019)

Tha small stone is a nagura, not a flattening stone. A sandpaper on a flat surface also works, but I'd recommend buy one. You can save time.


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## Spokk (Jun 5, 2019)

didn't know that thank you. Gonna look it up.


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## Benuser (Jun 5, 2019)

When looking for a flattening stone, skip the ones made from coarse NiC. Very slow at use. In the case they're flat OOTB, they won't stay flat and tend to loose particles, so a good rinsing is necessary after use. You don't want 60 grit particles on your 3k stone.
The only flattening stones that really work are the Atoma, where a thin layer is embedded with diamond particles, and that layer glued on a deadly flat piece of aluminium. Works fast, and can be used as well to raise slurry. Get the coarsest one, the 140. Not the cheapest solution, but you won't regret.


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## Spokk (Jun 5, 2019)

a bit expensive for my beginner skills but i'll keep it in mind thank you


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## Benuser (Jun 5, 2019)

Spokk said:


> a bit expensive for my beginner skills but i'll keep it in mind thank you


You're welcome. I've waited myself far too long.


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## Benuser (Jun 5, 2019)

https://www.knivesandtools.de/cart


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## Nemo (Jun 5, 2019)

Benuser said:


> The only flattening stones that really work are the Atoma, where a thin layer is embedded with diamond particles, and that layer glued on a deadly flat piece of aluminium. Works fast, and can be used as well to raise slurry. Get the coarsest one, the 140. Not the cheapest solution, but you won't regret.



This. Get an Atoma. Get one with a handle if you can.


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## Benuser (Jun 5, 2019)

Or have a cheap bridge.


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## Spokk (Jun 5, 2019)

Can i also ask you how fine do you sharpen your own knives and how fine would you recommend ?
I've seen people go up to 12k or even 20k but i think it was just for the pleasure of doing it one time to check how well that one knife could cut etc. But would it be accurate to go up to 6000 for example ?
Also as i mentionned i only have a cerax 1000/3000 dual face stone witht the stock holder atm. What "universal" holder would you recommend price/quality wise ?


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## Benuser (Jun 5, 2019)

Such fine grits make no sense with double-bevelled blades IMHO.
With most knives I use higher than 2k only for deburring, or for fun. If you have problems in getting entirely rid of the burr with your 3k, a small piece of Belgian Blue will help. The particles in it are rounded. If you keep its surface a bit rough it catches the burr without creating a new one.
I got my first Atoma from Tools from Japan and a simple bridge was included. Otherwise it costs €10-15 or so (haven't the CHF-rate ready).


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## chinacats (Jun 5, 2019)

I'd recommend skipping most of this (good) advice until you've settled on a single technique...youtube vids can be all over the place.

Check out the double bevel vids below before starting on your santoku (likely rebranded k-sab). After you develop some comfort move to the single bevel vids and have a go at the deba.

And Benusers point above regarding grits is spot on... your 3k will do fine. JKI sells a diamond flattening plate that works well and is a bit less expensive than the atoma (~$65 iirc). It's possibly in jon's videos but learn to draw a grid w pencil before flattening. If your waterstone isn't completely flat you'll have a hard time getting a crisp edge.

Cheers

https://www.japaneseknifeimports.com/blogs/media/63836741-knife-sharpening-playlist


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## Ochazuke (Jun 5, 2019)

+1 to @chinacats. Everybody gives good advice, but sometimes knowing too much can be a hindrance when you’re just starting out. Since it’s your first time, you’ll learn an awful lot just getting on the stones and forming a burr. Don’t be afraid to mess up. You will! That’s totally fine and usually fixable


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