Damageplan

HI,

What is up with all the damaged knives I have been receiving, and all of them Japanese?

Except for the ones below and these are the exception.  Seven of the hand made Japanese knives I get to sharpen are damaged, they have nicks in the edges and some as bad as these ones.

I know it must be very frustrating for people who finally pull the trigger and buy themselves one of those fancy hand made knives that everyone says are the best.


I am often asked if I could sell Japanese knives, like Masakage, Takeda, Misono. Well to be honest, I am glad that I don't, it would be pretty stressful handing one of those over to a customer only to have it returned the next day with a chip out of it. This is after me telling the person how good it is.

It would only take a few of these incidents to start impacting my sharpening business and it would be freaking stressful to deal with.  Yes, I could tell people what to avoid, what to expect but it still happens.

I have 3 damaged knives inbound from Ontario all with damage and in my experience, it is not always neglect, not something stupid the owner did. In the pictures here, it is neglect, you can tell that they used the knife for something it was not designed for, like cracking lobsters open.

Everything can be fixed, that is not the issue, the problem is that we/they are telling people that Japanese hand made knives are the best in the world but I have seen thousands of European knives and Grohmanns come in without any damage at all.  Of course the steel is softer and has more flex, it is more forgiving. I think that is the key, you screw up with a knife with that measures 64 on the Rockwell hardness scale and you're going to pay for it.

On the other hand, that knife can take an astonishing edge and slice like a dream and some folks never have an issue.

Nothing wrong with this one, I just put it here :)

The picture above is a 20 year old Henckels that had never been sharpened beyond the factory edge.

ON another topic and the picture above reminded me of it.

I am sure you have heard that a knife with a edge that is highly polished like the one above will not slice a tomato well, it is so fine that the edge will run over the tomato and not bite in because it has no "teeth"

This is true in many cases but not always, IF the knife is sharpened so well that the two planes meet perfectly at the apex, i.e. with a lot of precision, the knife will bite regardless of the final stone used.
I've proven this many times, and there are times when I am a little off and I do have to apply some pressure but other times, especially with those Japanese knives (before they break that is :) ).

I personally like a polished edge but we can achieve that now with stones in the 2k range, quite easily so we have the best of both worlds.






To sum up:
Am I trying to say not to buy a hand made Japanese knife from a place like Knifewear or Chef Knives to go or Paul's Finest?

HELL NO. They really are quite something to use, the edge is pretty cool and if you just know that it can't take any twisting while stuck in food, think of it as a little fragile but don't be scared of it. It is a knife, the blade smith made it to be used, not to be treated like glass. 

What a freakin life eh.