Chipped knives and knives with broken tips

It happens and it happens frequently.

Some brands are more prone to chipping than others, in fact, 1 of every 5 knives I get are chipped.

Several have broken tips or a combination of both.

Damaged Global, repair picture is below.

The good thing is that this damage, even as severe as the picture above is reversible. Don't throw out a knife if you've damaged it. Also, neglect is not always the cause, some brands have extremely thin edges that won't stand up to any type of unusual force such as twisting the blade while in a semi frozen product for example.

People drop knives.....DON'T EVER TRY TO CATCH IT.  It just happens and tips can come flying off or bend, even on new knives but as I said,  it can all be fixed.

These knives were damaged as seen in the first two pictures but they as good as new now.


I usually don't even charge extra for this work, you just pay for the sharpening.

How is it done.
You need some very important items:
A coarse stone or diamond plate
A good belt sander with special sharpening belts
Technique
Courage.

I mostly use the amazing Atoma Diamond Plates for this work and I do the chip repair at a very obtuse angle to remove the damage. Once the repair is complete, I lower the angle and sharpen the knife at the normal sharpening angle which can range from 12 to 22 degrees per side.

The repair angle is about 34-45 deg.

Atoma 400 grit diamond plate.

The edge of a damaged knife is basically removed until the damaged area is gone and then the re-sharpening process can take place. I cannot add metal to a damaged knife so the metal adjacent to the effected area (s) is ground away until the entire edge is even.
Unless you have put a nick in the blade that a dime could fit into, the repair work is very subtle, you won't notice the metal that has been removed, it isn't enough to impact the balance of the knife in most cases. The chips are usually very small.

Besides.....it isn't like you have much of a choice, so what if the balance is off a fraction, are you throwing the knives or something?

Repaired Knives

These two had significant damage to the tips and edges but as you can see, the repair work repaired them, it didn't just make them look normal again, unless you plan on joining the circus and you're going to balance these knives on your finger tips, they are good to go. 

So don't fret if you have a damaged blade, in all but the most severe cases the knives can be brought back to life.

If the tip damage is severe, I will use a belt sander working from the spine of the knife to do the initial work, it is much faster and extremely effective. 

This edge was never damaged......i just like the picture :)

I like this one too.

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