Bevels
What Is a Knife Bevel?
The bevel is the angled surface that leads from the thicker body of a knife towards its cutting edge.
It is one of the most important parts of knife geometry, but it is also one of the most misunderstood.
The Simple Version
Imagine looking at the cross-section of a knife. At the spine a knife is most thickest ,then the blade becomes progressively thinner as it approaches the edge ( this called the taper ). The bevel is the final angled area created at the cutting edge.
On a double-bevel knife, there is a bevel on both sides. On a single-bevel knife, the principal cutting geometry is
concentrated on one side.
Bevel Width Is Not The Same As Sharpness
A wider bevel does not automatically mean a sharper knife.
Bevel width can be influenced by blade taper and thickness behind the edge. If a knife has become thick and needs
thinning, the resulting bevel can become visibly wider.
This is something we regularly explain to customers because a wider bevel can sometimes look drastic even though
the knife may actually be performing better. Sometimes aesthetics have to take a back seat to correct geometry.
What happens during sharpening?
Sharpening removes steel from the bevel area to create a clean cutting intersection.
If only the very edge is being refreshed, the bevel may remain relatively narrow.
If more geometry needs to be corrected, more material may need to be removed further back from the edge. The visible
bevel can therefore change.
This is one reason why 'just sharpen it lightly' is not necessarily a meaningful instruction. A correct edge requires the
correct amount of material to be removed.
Wider bevels and thinning the blade.
Thinning is a separate but related process. It addresses the geometry behind the cutting edge rather than simply
recreating the immediate edge.
At Blade & Butler, we sometimes administer thinning where we judge that a knife's geometry would benefit from it. The
resulting bevel can be wider because we are correcting the blade rather than simply polishing the existing edge.
A good-looking bevel is nice. A correctly functioning knife is more important.
Most standard chef’s knives fall between 12–18 degrees, while cleavers and some outdoor knives generally sit at slightly more obtuse angles to help prevent chipping. Every bevel is applied by hand to our strict tolerance guidelines.
Bevel size depends on the required angle and the thickness of the blade taper behind the cutting edge and we use our discretion to apply our bevel mostly in line with manufacturer's recommendations. As we remove the absolute minimum of steel, new bevels from tip to heel of blade can vary in size ever so slightly along the entire length of the blade due to variance in edge thickness along the existing blunt cutting edge. This difference in bevel size will be within our 2mm tolerances and is a result of existing blade geometry. Bevels will present with a grain that mirrors the stones used in the sharpening process. See image below.This is a signature of the sharpening process.
If your knife has a thinner taper—similar to a Wüsthof Classic, Victorinox, or many handmade Japanese knives— has never been sharpened, and is free from damage, you can typically expect to have a bevel of around 2 mm administered.
If the knife has been sharpened before, shows excessive wear, is considered excessively thick behind the cutting edge or has damage that needs to be removed, the bevel will be larger to restore the correct cutting-edge geometry.
We’re the only sharpening company in the UK to perform this thinning procedure at no extra cost—it’s completely free. More here.
We do not perform full taper re grinds. We will always administer a micro bevel to an existing tapered edge.
You can view detailed close-up images of our bevel work on our homepage image carousel.
