Bad grind on gyuto, should I exchange?

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oldcookie

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I picked up a 240mm gyuto because it was on sale. :D It arrived today, but I noticed a problem with the grind on the right side to towards the heel.

lcxp48El.jpg


Basically the grind is extremely uneven there.

What do you guys think? Should I exchange or just flatten it myself?
 
I can't see a 2d pic in 3d, but if it is overground thru or close to the centreline, you will have problem with thinning and/or raising the blade road. It doesn't look jut like a wavy line in the Hamon (I like this aesthetically personally), but does look like there is depth especially in the top 1/3 of the red circle

EDIT I'd wait to hear from others who done rehabs with issues like this more, I haven't even encountered something this serious looking onmy old Moritaka AS
 
If that bad grind is also showing up into the blade then you won't be able to flatten it yourself.
 
yeah there's actually very noticeable depth for about 1cm right at the top third, there another smaller sunken part just above the red circle. It's hard to photo, but very noticeable IRL.
 
If that bad grind is also showing up into the blade then you won't be able to flatten it yourself.

Running my finger through it, I can feel the bad grind line all the way up to kasumi portion. So I guess it's better to exchange then.
 
Running my finger through it, I can feel the bad grind line all the way up to kasumi portion. So I guess it's better to exchange then.

I'd exchange for a different maker...
 
i swear i freak out every time i see one of these threads... i always hope i didnt miss anything this severe. I feel like i have nightmares about this kind of thing.
 
i swear i freak out every time i see one of these threads... i always hope i didnt miss anything this severe. I feel like i have nightmares about this kind of thing.

Jon if you get a lemon like this knife is it hard to approach the knife makers when there is a issue?
 
i swear i freak out every time i see one of these threads... i always hope i didnt miss anything this severe. I feel like i have nightmares about this kind of thing.

Haha, don't worry, it's not one of yours Jon. This one is actually from a reputable maker, so kinda surprised when I first took it out of the box and looked at it.
 
Jon if you get a lemon like this knife is it hard to approach the knife makers when there is a issue?

yeah... its almost impossible for me to tell them they did something wrong unless its really serious. The problem here is fixable. This is why i spend so much time training under the craftsmen we work with. That way, i know how they do their work and can easily repair stuff like this in the manner in which they would, without having to complain to them each time. Many of the craftsmen see these things and dont consider them to be serious flaws, so its hard to explain to them that the customers consider them to be flaws. Keep in mind that knives are more a function of labor cost than almost anything else, so when the knives are less expensive, they are often so because of decreased labor costs, which can (but not always) result in grind errors, f&f issues, etc.
 
Jon, I am actually curious, how you would fix something like this? Seems like one would need to remove quite a bit of steel.
 
it depends... i guess i'd have to see it to understand exactly what the problem was and how severe it was
 
Best way I can describe it is that, looks like it was put on the the grindstone at an incorrect angle a couple of times. So there are a couple of grooves towards the heel, each one forming a bit of a bump that's perpendicular to the edge of the knife. The deepest grove is the one where you can see the line on the hagane.

Intuitively, I think I can fix it by sort like thinning. Seems like a lot of work though. Beside, I just checked the knife for straightness, and it's not very straight. May be I should just take Chinacat's advice. :p
 
What knife is this? Did you happen to get it from a ... canadian retailer? If so would you care you let us know how the return process goes... Thanks!
 
One of the most important things to remember in a situation like this is...DO NOT try to fix it yourself before you talk to the vendor. If you try to fix it and it doesn't work, the vendor may deny you a refund or exchange. This isn't a matter or the vendor being a dick, it's just a matter of the vendor not being able to know what really happened because you've now changed the condition of the blade. I fell into this situation once when I received a yanagiba that had a rust spot on the back side of the blade. I figured I'd try to fix it myself first, but discovered that the rust had actually pitted the blade. The vendor honored the return, but asked me to contact them first if anything like that happened in the future. Where as you might be thinking "I know what I'm doing, there's no reason for the vendor to have a problem with this", the vendor (who may deal with hundreds of customers a day) is thinking "now I've no way of knowing what condition the blade actually showed up in". Make the phone call, it'll make life easier for everybody. I hope this makes sense.

Be well,
Mikey
 
Yeap, a Canadian retailer that was clearing out some inventory. I sent an email yesterday, will probably give them a call today if I don't hear back.

Kinda hesitant to mention the maker, cause like Jon said, these things happen and most of these are probably fixable by someone more knowledgable than me. This is one of their cheapest lines, so was expecting F&F to be a bit rough, but wasn't expecting it to be this bad. :p

Will report back on my experience on the exchange/return.
 
Pretty obvious thing to say to most, but for what it's worth you're most likely to see stuff like this with KUs. I don't recall owning any KU knives that didn't have more foibles than you'd expect with, say, kasumi knives from the same makers.
 
Quick update, the retailer got back to me, offered a full refund or $60 CAD to get the knife fixed. So response was pretty good. Now I just have to decide if I want a refund of if I want to make another trip down to Tosho to check how much it is to get it fixed. Wish I had gotten the knife a day earlier, I was just there yesterday.
 
what exactly is the issue, you cant tell from the photo. and how does this affect performance? or is this just a cosmetic flaw that bothers some people..

Concern imo is that the overgrind could be deep enough to cause a problem in the knife when you get to that level...in other words if the overgrind is more than halfway through the blade then when sharpened to that point, it would result in a hole in the edge. You are correct that you can't tell from the pic and it's possible to not be able to tell even when holding the knife.
 
Yeap, basically what Chinacats says is the main/first concern. I am just not experienced enough to say how the edge will behave if I start removing steel. I think it might be ok, but not 100% certain. The second part is that the blade warped, and bends to the right. Which is fixable, but seems like too much trouble for a blade at this price range. So I'm leaning towards a refund at this point.
 

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