About the Cutting Edge Curve

I’m sure many of you have struggled with the curvature of the tip, haven’t you? Especially with the tip curve of the Deba knife, it always tends to straighten out… Recently, I’ve noticed some Deba knives in repair requests starting to straighten out. I can’t help but think that if I sharpen them as they are, the curve will disappear and they’ll become straight. Once it starts heading in that direction, maintaining the curve becomes extremely difficult. Even if you consciously try to maintain the curve, it just keeps trying to straighten out! Since we sharpen the curve with a flat-faced stone after flattening it out, it’s only natural that the curve wants to become straight. It’s theoretically correct, but… Hmm… I pondered how to prevent it from heading in that direction while sharpening. Once it starts, it’s not easy to revert back, if not impossible. Reverting would require sharpening from the tip to the base. That’s what I thought. While the Deba knife that’s trying to straighten out was only a temporary fix, I tried sharpening it back in the direction of recovery.

• 2009-03-03