D. Martell Richmond Addict Upgrades

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Dave Martell

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Seems like these knives are going to be winners for the price point but a little thicker than what most here want from their knives. Consider sending these knives to us to get them tweaked and performing up to par. The extra cost added in will still get you a low cost knife but with the extra blade work being done they should perform much better and elevate the knives into a higher performance bracket.

Essentially what I'm offering is to pick up where the robots leave off, tweak to the max performance in blade thickness, profile grind, blade face resurfacing, and sharpened by myself to our standard.

We'd love to have the work. :thumbsup:
 
Makes good sense. I did this for a friend's Chicago Cutlery. It was his main knife and he got the set for Christmas, passed down from his parents. Cheap knife, was constructed like crap and didn't ever see a high level of finish or maintenance. Now he has a knife worth owning.

I'd say if anyone has one of these, Dave would make a fine finisher for it!
 
Looks like there's interest enough in this to give it a try. I've already got two maybes and one definite on the way....cool. :)
 
Dave,

I will be sending you my Addict on Monday and I cannot wait to see what you do with it.
 
What's the price for an Addict tune up?
Pesky

Hi Judd, I'm honestly not sure yet, depends on how easy (or not) the job goes. The first few that I do will be real cheap while I figure it out, I usually do things this way as a way of saying thanks for lending me your knife to play with. :)
 
Myself and my Nakiri thank you!
 
I just received the first addict knife to play with. My initial impression is that it's a Watanabe with not so great F&F (epoxy glob on the handle & sharp choil is why I say this - the spine rounding and blade finish is nice) but it's a little too thick behind the edge. The edge itself appears to be buffed over and as a result is rounded and slick - will not slice or push cut paper. The profile is surprisingly quite nice although it falls into a belly rocker type knife more than most but makes good contact along it's length.

I think that what it needs more than anything is thinning on the lower portion of the blade. I'll talk this over with the owner and see if this is something that we will try or not. I'll report back on what we end up doing.
 
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Looks like Mark @ CKTG has just put up an option to have these knives "finished sharpened" by one of his guys which is cool, but just to be clear, this is not what I'm offering. I'm offering to regrind the blade face to make the knife perform a lot better and then finish sharpen. I think that this distinction between edge and blade work is important to note. :wink:
 
I just finished working on the first Addict and I now have a good idea of what it'll take to do this job. The steel is very gummy and loads up the coarse Blaze belts real bad (something I haven't seen before) but it's do-able none the less.

I'll be sending this back out to the customer tomorrow morning for his critique. If he says it works better than this service is a go. :smile1:
 
These are the before (OTB) pictures.


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Here are the after pictures. I didn't do much more than a stock finish on the blade, it's been thinned from spine to edge bevel, most of the logo is gone although you can faintly see it in the right light set up, the choil has been smoothed over, and the handle has been oiled/waxed since it looked dry - I wish I could have done something with that glue glob though. So in the end it doesn't look all that much different but I'm pretty sure it's a whole new knife performance wise now.


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Dave,

I dropped my addict as well as my Konosuke 150mm White #2 petty off at Fedex and shipped them to you for some TLC.
 
Yee-haw, that is one ugly blade/handle transition!
 
Yee-haw, that is one ugly blade/handle transition!

yeah. the Takeda i owned had visible epoxy sealing the blade to the handle, but it was nearly applied and looked fine.
 
If only there were a way to thicken out the tang on those knives. I'd still not buy one, but at least they wouldn't look so awkward.
 
So Dave, how much did you end up removing from the blade as a whole? For the price it looks to be a decent mid-level knife. Now I don't own one but from what others have said that is what I'm thinking it as.
 
I didn't measure it before or after but I know that the person who sent me it did measure it beforehand so maybe I can talk him into re-measuring it again after. The reason why I didn't measure it is because I go by feel.
 
The knife was returned after Dave’s gentle ministrations, and the difference is night and day. It performs less like my Wusthof santoku and more like my Harner nakiri (don't worry Butch, it's nowhere near the same), and is a pleasure to use. Now, if Dave would have just fixed the profile...

Bottom line is that if you buy a Richmond Addict, send it to Dave if you want it to perform.

Rick

Weight: 188g (6g less)
Length of edge: 239.5mm (no change)
Height of blade at heel: 55.2mm (no change)

Blade thickness:
Spine at heel: 2.65mm (0.10 less)
Midpoint at heel: 1.60mm (0.05 less)
Edge at heel (right above bevel): 0.40mm (0.40 less)

Spine at midblade: 2.50mm (0.05 less)
Midpoint at midblade: 1.50mm (0.05 less)
Edge at midblade (right above bevel): 0.35 (0.30 less)

Spine at 1cm from tip: 0.80mm (0.25 less)
Edge at 1cm from tip (right above bevel): 0.35 (0.25 less)
 
Wow, 6g less! Thats quite some metal.
 
yeah, it really is. from the before and afters, it appears that the Addict is pretty thick at the edge, in stock form.
 
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