Single beveled edged knives

I have a couple of knives that are only beveled on the left side, and it mildly irritates my left handed mother when she slices harder root vegetables and whatnot. Is there any benefit to it that I am unaware of before I grind a bevel into the right side?

 

Do you have pictures of your knives?

 

Kent I think we need to know if they are true single bevel knives or just have a left side bias?

 

It's a Yugo compared to the heavy metal I see from Youse afficionados . And not maintained very well...

 

My other one I steel on both sides, but it's a single side as well

 

Right handed knives are beveled on the right side.

 

You mean like the right handed screwdrivers?

You are right Jay, the bevel is on the right side

 

It's what called an asymmetric bevel (different from asymmetric grind). Basically, the knife is ground symmetrically to about .30 of an inch, and then on the leading hand's side, one cuts a wider bevel and on the opposite side a narrow one. Sometimes these are called 90/10 bevels, or 75/25.

This type of bevel tends to cut pretty well, but needs to be periodically thinned. That what I would do.

Marko

 

Ok so when sharpening I would just remove the burr from the narrow side? Or would I just sharpen the narrow side too, just less? I must have been doing it wrong all these years.

 

Sharpen both sides, maintaining the geometry if you like it. If you've been sharpening only one side for "years" the original edge asymmetry has been altered if you've used stones to sharpen. And do what Marko says!

 

Always do what Marko says! Even if Marko says not to do the thing he didn't not tell you to never do! :lol:

 

So here's a question that I've never heard a good answer for- single bevels are beveled on the leading hand side, and strong asymmetrically beveled knives are as well. But asymmetric gyutos and sujis seem to have the flatter side on the leading hand side, with a stronger (shorter) bevel on the off hand side.

Example: heiji suji, with the more pronounced bevel on the left facing side of the blade (sorry for the crappy ipad pic). My theory is that many single bevel techniques cut to the left side of the knife (eg sushi/sashimi slicing, etc), while western techniques cut to the right side.