Laurence,
You say the thinnest edge possible, can you give a measuremnet for that, I'm assuming you mean the thinnest possible without warping or other deformities during HT. I'm curious, because going down to .02 was making me a bit uneasy, I'll be watching it during the quench...well, checking right after it comes out, anyway.
What angle is generally used for edges on kitchen knives, does anyone know? Up until now I have done my sharpening by feel, the way I was taught to do it, I really can't knock it too much, it works, but I want to know the angle I set the edge at as I have had a couple of customers ask what the angle was, so I figured I had better know what it is. Not to mention, I like my knives to be repeatable, everything that can be. And it's good to know which angle performs the best for a given type of steel, grind, thickness, etc.
The knives I worked on last weekend I got them all the way down to .02, I "thought" I was getting down that thin before, but I don't think I was now that I actually measured with a good set of calipers, I measured before, but not with an old cheapo set of calipers, I've since gotten some better ones since the battery in the last pair died, I went ahead and bought a better set and it was an eye opener! Plus I've since bought a micrometer, haven't quite learned how to read it yet, but I can see the benefits of it. It should be even better at measuring the edges.
I'll be sharpening several knives I've been working on this past weekend, I hope to have some great info on setting the edge for these, 1 is a Santoku (in W-2), 1 is a camp knife (in W-2) (made a lot differently than any before) and the last one is a hunter (in 1084) or more of an skinner type blade. Looking forward to getting these 3 done,I usually don't work on more than 1 at a time, but I've got my boys in the shop with me working as well.They have talked me into getting back into hunting, I explained to them that money is tight with the building of the new home, and if they wanted to go hunting we would all have to have new equipment, and if they wanted to go, they will have to help me make a lot of knives to fund this new adventure! So, we are working on a "production run" of the hunter I mentioned earlier. Eventually, I'll post in the For Sale forum, explaining the why's, how's and how much's. These will be relatively inexpensive, all of the extra's will be in the way of labor, like adding a hamon to the blade, stuff I won't have to buy out of pocket. The sheaths right now will probably be Kydex, possibly leather, as I do have a good amount on hand right now. We will have to sale a lot of knives with the prices I have in mind!!! But, like I told them,
"It all depends on how bad you want to do something, because anything worthwhile, is worth working for!" Maybe they will learn something while having to invesulst their time and sweat into this and maybe they will appreciate the equipment they get a lot more! Thanks for the info, Rex