The Recipe for Cutting Ability in CULILUX Knives

Part 5 of a 5-part series on blade geometry and cutting behavior:

1. Sharpness vs. Cutting Ability: Two Things Easily Confused

2. Why Sharpness Fades, But Cutting Ability Doesn't

3. Micro Bevel Instead of a Full Regrind: How to Preserve Cutting Ability

4. The Shoulder Creep: Why Every Regrind Changes the Blade

5. The Recipe for Cutting Ability in CULILUX Knives

   
   

By now we know why sharpness fades while cutting ability doesn't (Part 2), how the micro bevel keeps it that way for as long as possible (Part 3), and why every regrind comes at a price (Part 4). One question remains: how do you make sure a knife stays a pleasure to cut with for years? The answer isn't really a secret — it's the interplay of the right starting geometry and a few simple habits.

The Foundation: A Slim Grind From the Factory

Cutting ability doesn't start with care at home — it starts at the grinding wheel in production. Our knives get a slim shoulder and stay deliberately thin right behind the edge as well. That takes a steel that's hard enough (at least HRC 60) and fine-grained enough to actually support such a slim grind — for KYOTO that's NC62, for KOBE it's 14C28N. A geometry that's thin from the start needs to be reground far less often to stay a pleasure to cut with.

Day to Day: Honing Instead of Grinding

We described the most important — and most underrated — habit in Part 2: regular honing, whether on leather, a fine honing steel, or a fine stone. That maintains sharpness without touching the geometry at all. A knife that's honed regularly often stays sharp for years without the shoulder ever being touched.

When Honing Isn't Enough Anymore: The Micro Bevel

Eventually, honing alone isn't enough. As described in Part 3, the micro bevel is the next step: a small, controlled touch-up right at the tip that lets the shoulder creep only minimally. A useful side effect: this very step also fixes the occasionally discussed issue of the blade "biting" into the cutting board at very acute angles — just a few passes on a fine honing steel at a slightly wider angle, around 15°, are enough as a micro bevel to fix that, without changing the underlying geometry at all.

The Regrind: Rare, But Done Right

Only once the micro bevel reaches its limit is a regrind due. As shown in Part 4, the shoulder inevitably creeps a step during this — which is why it should be done at the original angle and needed as rarely as possible. Anyone who's honed regularly and applied a micro bevel in good time often won't need this step for many years.

The Recipe in One Sentence

Cutting ability isn't an accident — it's the result of a slim factory geometry, regular honing, and rare, cleanly executed interventions in between. That brings our little series on sharpness and cutting ability to a close — why we're so uncompromising about the geometry, in a way hardly any other manufacturer offers, and what that means for everyday use, is actually a topic of its own that we'll cover separately soon.