Description Of Euro/American And Asian Blades; European/American Blades - Chef'sChoice Hybrid AngleSelect 290 Manual De Instrucciones

DESCRIPTION OF EURO/AMERICAN AND ASIAN BLADES

Over the years, the European and American blades have been designed to prepare foods
common to their own culture and heritage – namely for heavier foods including a wide
variety of meats and more fibrous vegetables. As a result these knives are generally heavier,
thicker, and sharpened with sturdy 20° edge facets (40° total angle) (see Figure 3b). By
contrast the Asian foods have been lighter, designed primarily for seafood, and less fibrous
vegetables. Consequently many of the Asian knives are thinner and sharpened with the more
delicate 15° facets (see Figure 3a). Sharpened correctly they are exceedingly sharp.
In recent years, as cultures and foods of the eastern and the western countries have
become more ubiquitous and available on a global scale, the knives commonly associated
with those foods also have become widely available. Many European and American brands
are selling Santoku blades and certain traditional European styles are now manufactured
with the narrower 15° edge angle.
The Model 290 is designed to sharpen virtually any of this growing variety of blades and
to maintain the angles and edge designs of their tradition.
If one can identify the manufacturer of a knife or establish the country of origin of the
knife's particular design it is relatively easy to classify the edge as Asian (15°) or as European/
American (20°) and to sharpen accordingly. For example the Santoku knife is characteris-
tically sharpened as an Asian blade (15°) regardless of where the knife is manufactured.
Otherwise if you are using a given knife for heavier cutting or chopping it is probably best
sharpened as an European/American blade at 20°. If you use a small or medium size knife
only for light work such as paring, peeling, or light slicing you may prefer to sharpen it as an
Asian knife at 15° in order to take advantage of its
increased sharpness.
The following descriptions may be helpful in
identifying your knives or in explaining their edge
structures.

EUROPEAN/AMERICAN BLADES

(20° FACETS)
European/American fine edge blades are universally
double beveled and are sharpened on both sides of
the blade. Most of the Euro/American knives, shown
on the right, Figure 4 have a thick cross-section
designed for heavier work. However, the associ-
ated conventional paring, fillet and utility blades,
are smaller and have a relatively thin cross-section
well suited to their intended application.
CONTEMPORARY ASIAN KNIVES
(15° FACETS)
The most popular Asian style blades; the thin,
light weight Santoku and Nakiri for example are
generally double faceted (sharpened on both faces
of the blade) as shown in Figure 5.
Figure 4. European/American blades are
generally thicker.
Figure 5. Double faceted contemporary Asian
style blades are usually thinner.
5