How to make your kitchen knives cut well.

[@jmedic25]

Thank you very much Don. You explained it perfectly. The tip on sharpening to find and maintain true center is awesome. You have changed the way I do things.

[@armageddonknives]

thanks for the video Don

[@rogierkraan]

Great info here. Am going to try this using my whetstone. If only to get the feeling for it. Hopefully later I can get my hands on some grinders

[@DonNguyenKnives]

Check out Jon's videos on thinning by hand at @jknifeimports. Great stuff

[@osirisbladeworks6219]

I’ve been following you in ur first year of knife making and was always impressed with ur work! The way u thin ur edges is the same way u grind a straight razor, u take it to a stone and do what I call the “reveal” it’s going to reveal where u need to grind more because where it’s thicker the bevel will be thicker, then u grind it till it it’s almost gone.... I always knew razors and kitchen knives were ground similar but had no idea how similar it was! One other thing I could request for a video is how u get ur facets on ur handles, I always love seeing all the cool patterns people come up with and i know u probably don’t want to show ur secret sauce on how u achieve some of ur more complex designs but maybe one just show the fundamentals of how u do it... you have a way of explaining things in ur videos that I always seem to understand so it would be cool to see that

[@DonNguyenKnives]

Thanks! I definitely have plans on eventually doing a video on handle design and shaping.

[@ahikernamedgq]

Thanks for sharing such great videos, Don. I have zero interest in knifemaking, but I love watching your videos. Super interesting, so clearly explained and informative. And, your work is beautiful. Thanks for sharing your process!

[@cameronchicken8439]

i’ve been thinning my knives for a couple years and the first knife i messed up was because i did something wrong. where i apply downward pressure changes the angle on the bevel and when it takes several days to do that gives me a lot of control so i just need to focus on keeping the bevels flat but where i messed up was when the hand i hole the handle of the knife with because i was holding the knife the same with that hand no matter which side the blade was on so it was causing uneven wear which is difficult to correct for once you’ve gone too far. like i was putting downward pressure on the right place but i was consistently getting better results on one side because i wasn’t changing my grip when i flipped the knife over.

[@73FORGE]

Just got a disc sander and a Kevlar vest, pray for me!! 🤙🏼 great video Don

[@DonNguyenKnives]

Be very aware of anything that can catch, make sure you're comfortable with the speeds and directions, and build up that muscle memory with slower speeds!

[@73FORGE]

Don Nguyen Knives Thanks for the advice bro!

[@KenMelby]

great tip on the used paper for sharpening. I'll try it out!

[@noahnipperus7320]

Every video is better than the last one! I would love to hear grits and such as you go in the video for us beginners (saw you answered in the comments though!) Looking forward to the next one!

[@noahnipperus7320]

Checking back in 2023 and didn't remember how wild the soundtrack for this video is

[@noahnipperus7320]

music.kzbin.info/www/bejne/moaVaZ9jmqhsmas&feature=share

[@muchadesign]

Super helpful video. Thank you Don!

[@WormyLeWorm]

I like the push stick technique. It seems more intuitive, coming from using stones and relying almost entirely on pressure directly with the fingers to hit the right areas on the sides of the blade. I'm assuming when people don't seem to be using their fingers or a push stick to apply pressure along the full length of the blade, they've already taken it to a zero grind so they're still hitting the whole bevel they created evenly by locking into the angle of it.

[@fieryiceforge]

Awesome video man. That is the stuff.

[@rudigertaghinejad6607]

Nice work as usual Don 💪

[@job852]

I'm making my first knive and this video is so damn helpful. Thanks Don

[@redangrybird7564]

How did it go?

[@job852]

@@redangrybird7564 turned out pretty well, got nice and thin and sharp. Cuts really nicely. Use it daily when cooking. Heat treat prolly wasnt perfect, edge retention is so so but a quick strop and its slicing through tomatoes no problem

[@redangrybird7564]

@@job852 I see, thanks. I would like to make a knife but I don't have much space for a workshop here in this house. I just sharpen the ones I presently have.

[@job852]

@@redangrybird7564 I made most of it in my student house on the balcony/in my room, with a hand held belt sander as most sophisticated tool. You can do it if you put your mind to it.

[@redangrybird7564]

@@job852 I will start with an old knife that needs a new handle and I'll reshape it to make it look more modern, I hope it will go all good. 😁👍

[@knickly]

Dude yes! Awesome timing! Thanks so much!

[@RainyDayForge]

Great video. Always something to learn.

[@lsubslimed]

Great tips, Don! I've been meaning to re-mount my disc so I can flip it from vertical to horizontal. I've sharpened a few times on my disc in the vertical position but it still feels a bit too unnatural, although I'm fine with flattening bevels in their vertical position. Anyway, thanks for sharing.

[@charginmahlazors]

Very informative, I've always stuck with a flat/distal taper, or slight concave. Convex is a whole new world to me, but it makes alot of sense. I've come to learn how important weight distribution/balance is! of course through getting it wrong haha

[@chopsddy3]

I’m all in with the concept of a horizontal grinding disk. I’ve been inspired by jeweler’s faceting machines. Personally, I think an adjustable speed horizontal wet disc grinder, with access suitable for knife grinding would be the “mutt’s nuts”. Have it accept diamond discs, stones and waterproof adhesive backed paper . If one is capable of hand sharpening to a razor’s edge with manual stones, why change your technique so dramatically? Why change to accommodate a machine that can destroy more in a second than you can perfect in a day? I’m not knocking 2x72 machines, but i think this critical part of the work would be better done on the horizontal machine. It would certainly be more relaxing and less subject to burned edges. Your blades give me the urge to slice something. Really nice work . Especially where it counts. 👍 Effective video.👍 Thanks.

[@DonNguyenKnives]

I can't live without the disc. It IS more convenient in horizontal position for the muscle memory, but it IS more dangerous if things catch. You have to be very, very aware.

[@DonNguyenKnives]

The 2x72" is great for different reasons. I cannot make knives just with the disc, it'd be too slow. The more surface area you have, the slower things go. It's all about doing things in stages.

[@chopsddy3]

@@DonNguyenKnives Definitely. Grinding and buffing can be the most dangerous jobs in the shop. Since we’re on this subject, and I’m old enough be your great grandfather , I want to give you a word of warning. Unless you are extremely fortunate, as you attain more advanced age you may need corrective lens. Reading glasses. At that point, you can work but not the way you used to. Lenses will distort straight lines and mess with depth perception. When this started happening to me , two blades got away from me. One buffing and one grinding. I am extremely lucky to still have all my parts and that I was working alone. I did ruin the 10” work/drive wheel on my grinder (cut through the rubber and into the aluminum) and a good buffing wheel. Start considering solutions to avoid such a scenario now to avoid ugly surprises in the future. You have forty or fifty years to prepare.😁👍

[@dittagecoeco2738]

Great video, great craftmanship

[@jisley7371]

Related to edge geometry, I think there's way too much industry focus on wear resistant steels. Inherent steel toughness matters even more on thin delicate knives. Tough, resilient steels let me take an edge down super thin without concern vs that chippy carbide rich "super steel". Great video.

[@MicahYT]

Thanks for the info!

[@wadeinaustralia4009]

Wow so much info and very interesting , this is great don, cheers 4 sharing sir.

[@andrewschwab6730]

Good video brah. Super informative.

[@DonNguyenKnives]

tenks holmes

[@rodneylangstroth4577]

Great tutorial. Thank you for your help

[@DonNguyenKnives]

Thank you, glad it helped

[@MrBrokenwrenches]

Thank you for the lesson.

[@dombond6515]

Hey thank you for this vid! Very very helpful!

[@FoxHandmadeKnives]

Good info bud!

[@DonNguyenKnives]

Thanks Scott

[@kreech68]

nice video thank you

[@galafever]

Thanks Don! Very informative. Any suggestions on how to hold your angle consistently on the disk grinder? What grits are you using on the disk and belt?

[@DonNguyenKnives]

36 grit for rough grinding, 120 to sharpen, then 80 to thin on the grinder. For consistency, it's just practice to be honest. Do the 90-45-22.5 check at first, try to remember that feeling, then take a pass and remove some metal. When you switch to the other side, do that check again. Eventually you'll get a feel for it and it'll be easier. It's also not super critical at this stage, because all we're doing is trying to hit the burr, not go for a perfect bevel.

[@swapnilmule3922]

Perfect 👌👌👌👌👌👌 keep posting..

[@millerbrosmediaoffgridflyf7767]

Great video! Can you tell me at one point you do your heat treat in the grinding process?

[@DonNguyenKnives]

For a lot of the more straight forward knives I do the heat treatment full-thickness, then establish my centerlines and foundation and go to rough grinding. After grinding, then I go to this stage.

[@millerbrosmediaoffgridflyf7767]

Don Nguyen Knives Okay thanks man!!

[@coatizao1]

Love the technical break downs! What are you using as a push stick. Is that wax?

[@DonNguyenKnives]

Teflon! High melting temperature and less friction

[@JamesBond-pf6gv]

@@DonNguyenKnives where do you buy these at?

[@DonNguyenKnives]

@@JamesBond-pf6gv you can get teflon rods in different sizes from mcmaster carr, then just and shape them to your needs

[@andrewvoigt1133]

I think you will find that a 300 / 400 grit belt is going to cut a bit faster than that (120?) grit belt. the lower grits are really better for wood or plastic hogging. The finer grit has more contact points with the metal leaves a finer surface and will hold water a little bit better. good work though it looks like a good grind.

[@danielsantiago4559]

Lindas facas , voce ta de parabéns..👏👏

[@FredrikSpare]

Great, lots of information! Thanks! I would of loved to se how the taper of the crosscut is. What I mean is how thick it goes say half an inch up the bevel. I think its hard (as a maker, on the grinder) to maintain a good taper towards the point of the blade combined with a good taper towards the edge. Anyway, really like your videos, please keep it up! :)

[@DonNguyenKnives]

Thanks! Yeah, that's a tough one, and tricky too because every knife is different. A laser and a workhorse are going to be VERY different, but they both do share the commonality of a thin edge.

[@FredrikSpare]

@@DonNguyenKnives Absolutely, I understand what you are saying. It's just.. So fricking hard to balance the edge thickness and the overall thickness of the blade. Personally (coming from a chef background) I do NOT want an overall very thin blade, but it seems thats what people are prefering and looking for. Thanks for the reply, following you on instagram, eager to learn more.

[@DonNguyenKnives]

@@FredrikSpare Yeah this is where it's up to every maker to do their own R&D on their blades. I have a zero edge on my knives, but my geometry overall is not a laser. I like to have some beef overall and then have it convex to the zero. There's less flex at the edge because of it, but it's strong and it cuts well. And it feels awesome.

[@FredrikSpare]

@@DonNguyenKnives Ok, will try that on the next one. I usually do gradual convex all the way to the edge. Sturdy, but not so elegant. :) Thanks!

[@Crazyknives]

Don Nguyen Knives Hi Don!! Do you thin Knives? I have a couple of Knives that are too thick behind the edge, and I don't want to do it myself, since I don't have experience, can you please give me your email address? Thanks

[@arsknivesofficial]

The best brother

[@bitsindustries9848]

Great video Don! A+

[@DonNguyenKnives]

Thank you!

[@chopsddy3]

That is a nice scribing tool. Did you make it?

[@DonNguyenKnives]

Nope! You can find them online. I see them called "Knife Centerline Tools", "Knife Center Scribe", or similar.

[@chopsddy3]

@@DonNguyenKnives Thanks.👍

[@Lichupaf]

Don, do you have your belt grinder positioned that low so you can watch from above? I think it's a smart thing to do and haven't seen many knife makers position the grinder that low

[@DonNguyenKnives]

It's actually more for sharing the same muscle memory with hand sharpening. Ideally if you want to use it more sight based, it would be vertical so you can look at the angle relative to the disc.

[@seanchou9049]

Hi an odd question here. If my knife’s bevel is already ground really thin like the knife in this video, would sharpening the knife’s edge at a steeper angle make it a whole lot sharper? Thanks

[@DonNguyenKnives]

Hey Sean, good question. The angle of the very cutting edge does make a huge difference, but it is one of many factors that come into play as far as cutting performance goes. That angle, and how polished it is (how high in grit) determines how well it initially cuts through the surface of something. The geometry BEHIND that edge (what this video focuses on), determines how well that knife continues and finishes the cut, and it matters a huge amount in bigger, denser foods. All the variables interact together.

[@seanchou9049]

@@DonNguyenKnives that’s a perfect answer to my questions. Thank you so much!

[@jchan0425]

Don, when you use the disc grinder, how do you keep the water and dust in check?

[@DonNguyenKnives]

Most of the time the dust isn't really a huge issue, since I don't run it like crazy like a belt grinder, and I dip often. When the paper gets some use on it, it gets more easily saturated with water, so it doesn't really kick up that much dust, it just flings a ring of steel sludge all around in a ring :)

[@jchan0425]

@@DonNguyenKnives cool. Thanks for the explanation. I have a habit of wiping dry my blade. May be I should stop doing that.

[@DonNguyenKnives]

@@jchan0425 It's a good habit in every other scenario haha.

[@GuiltyMalice]

How thick is the stock you start with? I never made a kitchen knife before but I wanted to try, although I’m not sure what a good thickness is to start with.

[@DonNguyenKnives]

0.125" is a pretty good place to start for an all-purpose kitchen knife. I wouldn't go thinner than 0.100", and I generally wouldn't go above 0.156" unless if you really had a feel for geometries and performance.

[@GuiltyMalice]

@@DonNguyenKnives awesome thanks man. You do some awesome work thanks for sharing bro.

[@h2tym]

Thank you so much for sharing this info, very helpful! What is your push stick made of? I’ve tried using micarta but I get scratches on the blade face during finish grinding.

[@DonNguyenKnives]

It's teflon, and I still get scratches when grinding. Mine has a bunch of metal dust smooshed into it though, I don't know how well it would actually work if it were totally clean... It might help?

[@h2tym]

Don Nguyen Knives I think that’s what happens to my micarta too. I guess it doesn’t matter if you’re going to hand sand after. But if you’re going to finish out on the grinder would you just push stick with your fingers?

[@DonNguyenKnives]

@@h2tym I don't have much experience with finishing off the grinder, but if I did, I THINK I'd do it freehand. Other makers would probably know better than I do though

[@h2tym]

Don Nguyen Knives thank you for the advice! Looking forward to future videos

[@ignM1995]

Awesome tips! Thank you very much. Few questions. What belts do you use on the grinder? Do you grind before or after hardening? If before, do you grind all the way to the edge or leave the edge a bit thicker so the blade won't warp?

[@DonNguyenKnives]

I'm using 36 grit ceramics here (started using the Shredders from Combat and I like them quite a bit, but I'd been using Cubitron II's for years). Grind full hard, if you grind too thin before HT it will be much easier for it to warp on you.

[@myxboxcnq]

How thin is this knife? 0.2mm 3mm from the edge? Thickness at 15mm?

[@MrPtrvazq]

Is the tip broken..is it part of the design, or do you grind it like a k tip at the end?

[@DonNguyenKnives]

Part of the process. I leave the tip blunt like that while I'm grinding and thinning it so that it stays more rigid and acts as a heat sink. When the blade is closer to finished I grind it into any kind of tip.

[@MrPtrvazq]

@@DonNguyenKnives awesome thanks . I sort of do that...I form the tip, but leave it thick...then just thin it at the end. I treat the tip kind of like a separate grind

[@mwblades6553]

Do you run your grinder speed at about 30%?

[@DonNguyenKnives]

Actually much higher, probably around 70%.

[@DonNguyenKnives]

But if you're learning, I'd start much slower.

[@esnyd]

Good stuff Don, you should be charging for this content?

[@DonNguyenKnives]

This is only the tip of the iceberg :) I'm currently still writing out my full-on course that I'll offer when it's done. It'll be similar videos like this, in full detail, for every step of the knife making process.

[@Crazyknives]

Don Nguyen Knives that is something that I want, I going to keep checking here, you explain every step very clearly, thanks for sharing!!

[@jeffhicks8428]

When you're doing fine level of grinding, why not just use whetstones at that point? So much more control. Like for sure power tools are where it's at for all the rough grinding. No comparison. But the fine work, a whetstone man. Way less likely to overheat the thing too. A good aggressive stone for thinning like a 240 sigma select would get that shit done accurate and precise and decently quick, with less stress and worry and way less chance of messing up big time OR better yet... you should get a round whetstone for your disc grinder. Thats the move and how a lot of OEMs do it. Get a couple water stones for the disc grinder... Thats the move.

[@DonNguyenKnives]

As you said, efficiency. We actually do go to stones to clean up towards the edge, but only after we've already pretty much established everything on the disc. For us, we have pretty good control on there regardless, sandpaper cuts cool when it's saturated with water, it's interchangeable, etc. A stone disc would be cool, but, gotta prioritize purchases.

[@buddyfrench5158]

Talks too much about non-essential stuff.

[@TheMusicalKnokcers]

Sorry guys what's the white thing ? Huge chalk ? I saw a video someone using chalk to push idk why so here's where i come from.

[@DonNguyenKnives]

Teflon. It's got low friction and a high melting temp which helps.

[@TheMusicalKnokcers]

@@DonNguyenKnives thank you, still i do not fully understand it's advantages cause chalk has higher fusion point than PTFE and when accidentally ground it goes in fine dust so that the belt is unharmed (at least i didn't notice clogging) + it has a lower hardness than steel and corindon so it does not scratch the knife or wear belts. Chalk grips on the steel I'd argue teflon rips cause it's so slippery. feel free to point where i'm wrong, i'll try anyway cause you are the master and i trust your practice but it could save me some time.

[@DonNguyenKnives]

@@TheMusicalKnokcers I'm definitely no master and I'm constantly learning things. That's interesting about chalk and I actually haven't heard of it being used like that before. I just use teflon because so far that's worked for me; it doesn't scratch the knife unless if it gets particles stuck into it (and almost always I'm not concerned about scratches when I'm at any stage of grinding using a push stick), I like the slipperiness so that I can pull and guide the blade along easily, and I haven't found it to be obtrusive if I accidentally boop it into the grinder. Generally the problem with belts I find is not clogging, but breaking down the abrasive. Maybe when all my teflon is gone I'll try chalk out

[@markdudley3831]

There's another asian on the internet that looks exactly like you doing exactly what you're doing ..has only been around 10 yrs or so ... maybe he's trying to steal your copy write ! Hahahaha .

[@ColossalSwordFormAndTechnique]

Thinning takes way too much metal. Might as well buy a new knife, or just get good with whetstone sharpening. People who get choppy thick edges probably use it to chop bones and or wood, and probably use manual knife sharpeners. Hand sharpening with whetstones will keep your edge good for years. Edge thinning will decrease your blade very fast. Making sure, you but new knives for sure. Costing even more money.

[@DonNguyenKnives]

Um, what? Thinning is part of the long-term maintenance process, or if you're a knife maker, a crucial step in making it perform well. Of course you need to sharpen your knives, but what is happening during sharpening? You're removing metal, and through removing it, you're steadily making that edge thicker. It's about being smart and knowing where you're taking it away, and most importantly, why.