Tag Archives: Blue Aoto #2000

How to sharpen a Global knife as a professional

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How to sharpen a Global knives

How to sharpen a Global knife

Some beautiful Global knives

Global knives outperform any of the German knife brands.

I know they were super popular in the 70-80s, but they haven’t gotten the attention they deserve. Maybe because they sold so many of them, and many have been neglected over time. Many of the ones I get need reprofiling and thinning, and most have had bad sharpening jobs.

I love Global knives, they are light, they stay sharp, they look good, and they are easy to keep clean. They are affordable and available everywhere. So it makes me sad, to see how many of them are ruined from bad sharpening. Miss-aligned edges, wrong edge formation, and wrong edge bevel angle. Some are so overheated from grinding machines and belt sanders, that they look like rainbows. If they are sharpened correctly, they are one of the best affordable knives you could have.

This is how you sharpen your Global knives

–          They should be hand-sharpened and deburred on stones.

–          The edge formation should be slightly convex on the top of the bevel to blend it into the blade.

–          The edge should have an angle between 11°-15°, and a 2000-4000 grit finish is optimal.

Global knife performance: Catra test of new knives report

The little video above shows what performance you should be able to expect from a newly sharpened Global knife. Maybe not, if you prefer an edge with more bite, but you should at least be able to slice thin slices of tomatoes and shave with it when it is newly sharpened.

It is definitely possible to get a Global knife way sharper than it was when it was new, check Global’s CATRA report on the “Hand sharpen performance” link above.

My process for sharpening a Global knife

  1. Assessment is it clean, straight, any damages? This is what I take care of first.
  2. I start with a thinning blade right above the edge bevel. 0.2mm thickness behind the edge is sufficient no need to thin more.
  3. After that, I set the bevel at 10 degrees with 700 grit Bester. Making sure I raise a nice even burr, before finishing the bevel with a couple of edge trailing strokes.
  4. After each stone, I test the edge before I continue. My tests at this stage are, does it bite into my wet fingernail and can slice a hard-rolled Kleenex effortlessly?
  5. The second stone is a 2000-grit Bester. I raise the bevel a little to 12 degrees and blend the top edge of it into the blade, rolling it down a little at the end of the strokes. Finally, I deburr with a couple of trailing strokes.
  6. After this stage, I test in the same way as earlier, but also make sure it’s shaving sharp.
  7. For the final stage, I use a natural Japanese stone. Usually, an Aoto of some kind gives a nice finish and bite. The final stone could be anything, but I wouldn’t go over 4000 grit on a Global knife. For finishing I get very light-handed, to refine the edge without building up a wire edge. I just use edge-leading strokes in this step. And I deburr with one stroke on each side at 65-75 degrees, super light not even close to the weight of the knife, on hard super fine stone 10k plus.

Magnus Pettersson hand sharpening, call or text 310-486-6068 or email.

Knife repair, giving new life to a broken knife

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Santa Monica Knife Sharpening
old broken knife with chipped edge

Unsharp broken knife before regrinding

This knife was given to me by a good friend, at first look it doesn’t look to bad except for the big chip right there the heel starts. After a closer look I realized that the primary bevel was concave and parts of the edge was folded over, I also realized that the secondary bevel was way wider in the back and at the tip. Look at that tip I could have folded it by hand, it was thin as aluminum foil. At the moment I just saw two different ways to fix it, one was to leave the primary bevel concave and try to give it a new edge on the side of a sharpening stone, or regrind a new flat primary bevel and give some sort of compound edge. I decide to give it a new primary bevel to get rid of all edge damages and big scratches on shinogi.

illustration of edge before and after regrinding

Illustration of edge before and after regrinding

Above is a little illustration what it look like before and after, and what I would like to achieve. First I went to work with a large blacksmith file, because of the amount of material that I needed to take off, just to realized that it didn’t give me much precision, tried a bunch of different coarse stones, the one that eventually seams to do the best job was Beston #500. With this stone I worked until I got an even flat primary bevel all the way to the edge, I also used it to set the secondary bevel. After that I changed to King #1000 to smooth both bevels out and did some initial sharpening. After that just a fast brush with Bester #2000, before starting with my favorite stone it’s a man made blue Aoto rated to #2000 but feels much finer. This blue Aoto gives that perfect mist to the soft steel on the primary bevel, its super soft and have great feedback; the only thing is that if you don’t want your hand to look dirty for days after, use glows. For final sharpening and finishing on the secondary bevel I use Kitayama #8000 also a great stone, after this just some light stropping, before setting the micro bevel with Shun #6000 wish gives a nice bite to the edge.

I also did some clean up and light polishing just to make it easier to clean, I’m using it daily now, and its one of my favorite knives. I realized that I’m not good at always cleaning and drying the knife after use, so it started to get some stains/rust on the pretty mist on the primary bevel, so I gave it a light polish with #2000 sandpaper and all is good now. Yes of course its sharp, not hair popping sharp, but sharp enough to shave with or to slice cigarette paper into small strips. Pictures of the knife after regrinding below.

Knife after repair, regrinding and polishing

Knife after repair, regrinding and polishing

Magnus Pettersson hand sharpener, now serving the whole Westside with free pickup and delivery: Santa Monica, Brentwood, Pacific Palisades, Venice, Marina Del Rey, Culver City and West LA.

For free pickup and delivery on the Westside, call/txt 310-486-6068 or email.




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