Thread: Question on Murray Carter's honing technique

Originally Posted by kevint

I've never seen a jp boning knife, nor a paring knife that I really liked, or their cleavers. Some of those old occidental knives are really quite lovable. one of each of those and a santoku sums up my kitchen knife needs.

If I really wanted to cut down, pare down to necessity. It'd be the bridge cutlery clever and the santoku.

(im not really sure it should be called a cleaver. 1.5 inch at the heel. 2 inch at the toe. being thickest at the hilt and distal tapered to both ends it is really well made.)

I have used a petty knife that is very thin and convenient for deboning small stuff, but for true debonig and filleting the right specialized knife should be used.

Originally Posted by Johnny J

I've been practicing this quite a lot. I put the stone on the counter (with a towel under it so it doesn't slide around), wet it with water, and lay the knife across the stone at about a 45 degree angle so I can pretend the stone is wider than it really is. I am left-handed, and I do both sides with my left hand. Suppose I were holding the knife straight out in front of me, edge down: I will call these the left and right sides of the knife.

When I'm doing the left side of the knife, I lay my index finger along the spine. When I do the right side of the knife, I lay my index finger on the upward-facing left side of the knife. This is for stability.

I place the knife on the stone and initially find the angle by looking and feeling with the fingers of my right hand. Then I make circles on the stone, slowly drawing the knife from heel to tip. (I don't bend my wrist, I use my whole arm). When the angle is just right, I can feel a suction effect like there's honey smeared on the stone, from the two wet, flat surfaces rubbing together. This is exactly the same feeling I get from arazor on a wet Swaty.

I finish the Murray Carter way. I backhone a couple of strokes to put in a tiny primary bevel & remove the burr. Then I lightly draw the edge through soft wood to remove any burr remnants. Then I backhone a couple more strokes. That's it.

From Dwarven Chef's picture, it looks like the secondary bevel is very uneven and is not meant to be used as an angle guide a la Mora knife. So Murray really is freehanding it with both hands, back & forth. Well, his way may be better than mine, but I can't do it the way he does it. My grip might be weird but I'm used to it, for good or ill.

Hope that was comprehensible.

I don't know who you are talking about, but being a chef I've sharpened thousands (well maybe not thousands) of knives usually my own and all by hand. I never understood why some people couldn't sharpen knives (some were so affraid of getting cut and all that). I used to do the finger trick on the spine and angling the knife against the stone to get more steel on the ston at once, but to get some of tose bevels no knives like an old japanese sushi chef taught me to use a smaller stone put the knife on the edge of the table and look for light between the two. It really helped getting those higher angle bevels like some japanese knives. I have seen some angle setting machine where you set the knife and run the stone across the knife. If you need more help try britishblades.com.

Hi Everyone,
I'm new to these forums but not new to Murray Carter or his knives. His knives are almost all laminated steel (or Damascus) with a carbon steel core approaching Rc 64. His geometry is pretty much the same as other knives in the same usage profile. There are two primary things he teaches in his videos:

1 - To 'feel' the taper of the Secondary Edge and adjust it until it seems to vanish between your fingers as you pinch the blade between your fingers and draw them from spine to edge.

2 - To hone the 'final' strokes for the Primary Edge on both the 1000 grit and 6000 grit stone ONLY away from the edge. This is counter to conventional sharpening practice for a straight razor.

The factors that produce a face shaving edge are:

1 - The relationship of the angle of the Primary Edge to the Secondary Edge. It is shallower than you would ordinarily sharpen a 'working' knife.

2 - The honing process goes an extra step to a much finer stone. In Murray's case he is a pure fundamental minimalist and uses Newspaper or Cardboard (after the 6000grit) since the clay content is perfect for final polishing of the edge.

He makes the point several times in his 2 videos that the grits of the stones are not really important until you get to the 'last' honing and that is determined by what you want to use the blade for. In fact, he demonstrates shaving hair on his arm after sharpening with a cement block and cardboard as a final hone.

The last part I have to offer is that the 'flatness' or 'triangular profile' of the Primary bevel is the important one not the Secondary Edge so much. The Primary bevel 'should' be very small, almost a line of light against the Secondary and this is created by your choice of Secondary and Primary geometry. The small bevel makes it 'easier' to hold a constant angle since only a few strokes are required to remove the needed last bit of metal and finally polish.

I hope this helps clarify.

BTW I own a neck knife and outdoor knife made by him and I can, by changing the geometry from working geometry to more acute 'shaving' geometry, shave my face with either of them. In my experience, his knives are unmatched for performance, but that is only my experience and I haven't tried every one out there

For those of you who may be frustrated with the honing, it can take quite a bit of time to get the skill down. I watched his videos about 15 times and sharpened over 300 knives before it really started to make sense. So if you want to be a freehand sharpener, practice! You WILL get it if you pay attention to your blade. It doesn't hurt to have his videos too and a dvd player with good slow motion and frame by frame control.

I've heard that Japanese knives are incredible. Maybe someday I'll spring for a Carter knife. At the moment, I don't do any filleting, most of the cooking I do involves slicing or chopping vegetables. My ancient Chicago Cutlery chef knives seem to do that job pretty well, once I've reground the bevels to my liking. But make no mistake, although you can slice tomatoes with them, you cannot shave with them.

lol.. My first set of knives, bought in 1975, were Chicago Cutlery. I still have them. I still use them. They are wonderful knives though there is not much blade left on some of them. You are right though, there seems to be no substitute for a good laminated blade with a carbon steel core. I had no experience with such knives at the low angles used for the kitchen until I ran into Carter Cutlery and now, for me, there's no going back.

BTW Murray once told me that the best straight razor he ever owned/used was a broken kitchen knife.... I can hardly wait for that run of straight razors he's going to make.

Originally Posted by DwarvenChef

Yup both western and Japanese

I'm curious who else signed up for a kamisori or a western, and what either will look like. He recently told me I'm #2 on the customs list. I -- Can' -- Wait!

I was on the fence and couldn't decide so I just asked him to pick for me. It'll be cool either way.

Originally Posted by bassguy

I'm curious who else signed up for a kamisori or a western, and what either will look like. He recently told me I'm #2 on the customs list. I -- Can' -- Wait!

I'm still in talks with him... Most likely going western but not sure of that blade profile yet... I want a stiff blade

Well, you guys are the experts when it comes to razors. I shaved for a couple of years with a Wade & Butcher... lol... 40 years ago. After I found this forum I dug it out and started up again and, gee, it still works and the batteries didn't even corrode. So as you can see, my experience is not exactly vast, but I figured that I could learn all I need to get going again here. As to the stiffness, the Japanese style is probably going to be stiffer from what I can see of photos I have looked at on EBay where some of the vendors show cross sections. But I've never held one in my hand. If any of you have any advice on a choice, I'd be grateful for the input since I'm not committed to a particular one yet.

Are the Japanese razors going to have an asymmetrical Japanese grind? One thing confuses me about the Japanese grind. IIRC, only the concave side is supposed to go against your skin? You can do that when shaving someone else, but how can you do that when shaving yourself?