When is a grind issue not an issue?

Recently I purchased a knife and returned it due to some grind issues.

Yes, it was a Moritaka, and yes, it was from CKtG. The response from Mark was "It's not a big deal, just return it if you don't like it, I don't want you keep it if it bothers you." when I was politely seeking a solution. So I ended up paying the two-way shipping and wasting my time for nothing, and after that there was no explanation, not a single word from him.

I don't want to start a bashing thread since stories like this are already well-documented, and sadly I really had to experience it to believe it. Now what I truly want to know, are the answers to the following questions:

1. When is a grind issue not an issue? Where is the line between a no-biggie and something serious?

2. Does the customer or the end-user have the right to expect a blade without any defection or blemish that could hinder the performance, or should the customer be responsible for correcting/repairing things by him/herself?

3. Things may not be perfect every time, so what kind of blemishes and imperfections can be considered acceptable from an end user's perspective? High/low spots on the blade road? Over/under grind of the secondary bevel? A crooked/warped blade? A poorly installed handle? The blade profile being different than advertised?

4. Can sellers play self-preservation games like this, claiming there is no problem then asking the customer to return it and eat the shipping cost? I read it in this forum that Watanabe also did this for his warped knives.

Attached are the pics of the knife I returned, it's not a typical Moritaka overgrind, there are two high spots on the secondary edge and I recon they could alter the angle when I sharpen the knife.

Cheers,
Lean

Lots of questions OP. I will say that high and low spots are a pretty normal thing. A crooked/warped blade is cause for return in my book.

I don't see anything here that wouldn't fall under random variation one knife to the next.

IMHO that it s not a big issue.
You could take it off after sharpen the knife for the first time.
Any way if you didn't feel comfortable with it you did the right thing send it back.
Cheers matteo

In my mind a high spot is probably much more preferable to a low spot.

The "grind issues" you're pointing out (on a wide bevel knife no?) don't look like they would appreciably affect performance.

What's more, it seems like Mark was more than happy to take the knife back... not sure what more he could have done for you. If you wanted to exchange the knife, you should have said something. If you felt you shouldn't pay return shipping, you should have said something.

At the end of the day you're buying something which is handmade. These handmade knives will never be perfect. The more you sit around looking at a knife the more imperfections you will find in it!

Judging by your photos, you would probably return Carters.

I do not like wonky grinds and do not like dips or wobbles, but they are pretty much everywhere.

General opinion in favor of Mark? It's going to be a busy day in the sky...watch out for any falling pigs!

I don't see a problem.

I was put off buying a Moritaka years ago because I was intending to send it directly to Dave to be fixed up prior to receiving it (as I'm overseas). I wanted assurance that if Dave examined it and deemed it to be unfixable that it would be OK to return for a replacement. I was told it was not, so it does seem that the service you received was better.

In general CKtG is not selling particularly high end knives, and they seem to be selling at low margins. I don't see what more he could have done, and it wouldn't have been fair for him to eat the cost for what doesn't really appear to be a flaw.

If that was my knife, I would have hit up Dave Martell to refinish it and even it out.

In the UK we have legislation called 'Distance Selling Regulations' to cover this kind of thing, it essentially gives a 7 day inspection period for items bought unseen, is there anything similar in US?

If not he wasn't actually required to accept it back.

Don't go to Wal-Mart looking for high end goods...I would actually say it was wise to return since you weren't comfortable with it...I'm glad you actually got decent service (money back)...sounds like he's improved over the years.

I've never seen a wide beveled knife with a perfectly flat/even blade road.

I don't even see what's wrong with it? Moritakas are not good cutters to begin with..

I'm not into the whole Chef Knives-etc-website bashing, but sounds to me like the attitude with these is 'people buy them, so we'll sell them, and if they complain...' well, then they just throw up their hands and so, you don't like it? we'll just take it back (and avoid fuss). But I'd imagine that they know they're selling an imperfect product. ... But then again, Moritaka are on the cheaper end of things and so, being what they are, what should they do? They're never going to be the best, and probably sell because they're some tradition with the name in the US due to them being sold for a while, but not because they're anything special otherwise. My impression.

What's acceptable? Well, with KU knives you'd expect more grind f'd-upness than normal, but it shouldn't threaten the edge, as in come down to the edge so as to create contact gaps with the edge, even if the blade has been thinned and sharpened a lot and the height diminished. If not, then I think it's okay but annoying. However, as others have said, unevenness is pretty standard. If there's a higher level of finish on the blade - ie. it's non-KU - the blade should be quite a lot more as we'd hope.

Thank you guys, a lot of good stuff here.

Now my intention of starting this thread isn't about discussing on this return experience, I am merely using it as a start point to initiate a discussion on a broader topic. I am pretty much over it now. If I can learn something useful from this experience, I would say it's worth it. It didn't cost me that much after all.

What I was particularly unhappy about was Mark's attitude of "no-biggie but I am not responsible". There is either an issue or no issue at all, if there IS an issue then the next question is "who's responsible for this?", and then the next step is to ask, "how to correct it?" If there is no issue at all then SHOW me WHY my concern isn't something that I need to worry about. The puzzle here is that, is a no-biggie an issue or not? Why is there a need to return a no-biggie? Why not show me how to fix it rather than asking me to return it? To say it's a no-biggie without any explanation and asking me to return it at my own cost is simply saying "I don't care about your concern, I only care about saving myself some trouble." To be totally fair, my experience with Mark had been good before this purchase/return, perhaps this is why I got so disappointed.

@preizzo, @spoiledbroth, actually what the second pic shows is truly something minor, but the high spot in the first pic is like 2"-3" long. Normally I won't consider a high spot near the kurouchi side a problem, but this one is just way too big & long, the pressure won't be concentrated on it when the knife is sharpened, so it might not just disappear as high spots usually do. It would raise the sharpening angle "around" this huge high spot, then the textbook Moritaka "hole" might develop.

@XooMG, I own two Carters, one is made by Murray and the other is a free, included, apprentice paring. The by-Murray knife is absolutely perfect in every way. The apprentice paring however has the same kind of grind blemishes of this Moritaka but to a much lesser extent, since it is free and it is a paring, I don't really care if it ends up being like a Kukri after being sharpened... :lol2: Actually these days Carter Cutlery sells those knives with blemishes as "second" with discounts, and those normal Carters are all supposed to be blemish-free.

@MAS4T0, I don't think CKtG sell things at low margins, forum vendors here usually have better prices for the same products. I buy stuff from UK on a regular basis, and once there was a defect that popped up after 6 months the seller still got me covered. I believe what you described as the 7-day period is more for not-liking-it returns and it doesn't imply that the warranty is only valid for 7 days, and CKtG has a standard 30-day return policy. What disappointed me in this case was that Mark didn't even give one thought to the concern I addressed and treated it as a not-liking-it return. I am well over the negativity now, but I want to know you guys' opinions on this kind of grey-zone issues such as the uneven grind and unstraight blades.

@chinacats, thank you and well said, but Wal-Mart at least has good prices and good customer service.

@Asteger, well said, but what if the seller gave you all the they-are-THE-best impression before the sale, refused to be confronted with the concern that the blemish could threaten the edge, then asked you to return it at your own cost? To me at least, it was an outrageous way of doing business. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the finishes of KU knives, it is very informative and helpful. :doublethumbsup:

Cheers,
Lean

leansmancave said:

@Asteger, well said, but what if the seller gave you all the they-are-THE-best impression before the sale, refused to be confronted with the concern that the blemish could threaten the edge, then asked you to return it at your own cost? To me at least, it was an outrageous way of doing business.

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Oh yeah, then that's sh!te. I'd think that the return should be at their cost. However, I wonder to what extent they hedge things, as in: 'okay, only certain people will buy these knives and, if things go wrong, they're not the most sophisticated buyers anyway ...' and it's easy for them to challenge your views of the knife's faults? Also they'd have a problem that, if they admitted some fault and allowed your return, then what precedent would it set for other cases? Maybe you'll publicise it on forums, etc. I guess that sort of thing could threaten their core business, since most of it isn't with the best of the best knife-wise. (And even if it appears that it is 'best' - hello, Konosuke Fujiyama - then it still isn't.) Not the best view toward having long term customers who buy better and better, but probably good for whatever they're aiming at.

I've made very minor purchases from there 2x, come to think of it - nothing close to knife buys - and even that's been screwed up.

I didn't realize that was so big problem so well done😄.
Anyway I had a same problem with a fujiwara purchased from the same seller. The knife it s bend and overgrind. After tell them about the problems the guy answer me that it was not his problem and suggest me to contact the maker. Since then I stopped buy knives from them.
Definitely in your case he should had cover the shipment cost, it s a basic service he should offer to everyone.

leansmancave said:

@MAS4T0, I don't think CKtG sell things at low margins, forum vendors here usually have better prices for the same products. I buy stuff from UK on a regular basis, and once there was a defect that popped up after 6 months the seller still got me covered. I believe what you described as the 7-day period is more for not-liking-it returns and it doesn't imply that the warranty is only valid for 7 days, and CKtG has a standard 30-day return policy. What disappointed me in this case was that Mark didn't even give one thought to the concern I addressed and treated it as a not-liking-it return. I am well over the negativity now, but I want to know you guys' opinions on this kind of grey-zone issues such as the uneven grind and unstraight blades.

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Hi Lean,

The reason I mentioned distance selling regulations was because I was of the understanding that this was a "not-liking-it" kind of return.

Unless I'm misinterpreting the pictures, it doesn't look like a fault to me. Moritaka are well known for this and it seems to me like you got a petty good one.

I have bought from CKtG before, and in each case it was because the knives were cheaper from there than from anywhere else in the world (even taking account of import tax and shipping to the UK).

I'm sorry you had a bad experience.

leansmancave said:

What I was particularly unhappy about was Mark's attitude of "no-biggie but I am not responsible". There is either an issue or no issue at all, if there IS an issue then the next question is "who's responsible for this?", and then the next step is to ask, "how to correct it?" If there is no issue at all then SHOW me WHY my concern isn't something that I need to worry about. The puzzle here is that, is a no-biggie an issue or not? Why is there a need to return a no-biggie? Why not show me how to fix it rather than asking me to return it? To say it's a no-biggie without any explanation and asking me to return it at my own cost is simply saying "I don't care about your concern, I only care about saving myself some trouble." To be totally fair, my experience with Mark had been good before this purchase/return, perhaps this is why I got so disappointed.

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I was recently denied a return on a knife with a poor grind because I was stupid enough to explain that I tested it on a single carrot to verify it was not just a cosmetic problem but rather a performance problem. Their response to the problem was to advise me to thin it (thanks professor!). Not CKtG and the company is generally well-liked by members here. It happens. If I were to post more information, I'd be met with a flood of folks publicly telling me about how smooth their dealings were, and a few people behind the curtains would mail or message me that they had trouble too. There is a lot of backchannel negativity toward most makers and quite a few vendors, including some on this site. There are some upstanding folks in this field, but I regard them as the exception rather than the rule.

@XooMG, I own two Carters, one is made by Murray and the other is a free, included, apprentice paring. The by-Murray knife is absolutely perfect in every way. The apprentice paring however has the same kind of grind blemishes of this Moritaka but to a much lesser extent, since it is free and it is a paring, I don't really care if it ends up being like a Kukri after being sharpened... :lol2: Actually these days Carter Cutlery sells those knives with blemishes as "second" with discounts, and those normal Carters are all supposed to be blemish-free.

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Owning two Carters (and extensively modifying one) and seeing the grind work on several others, irregularities seem pretty normal. My Muteki (apprentice-made) were indeed wonkier, but not significantly. Flaws are usually not as obvious as Fujiwara Teruyasu or the cheapest kurouchi knives, but they seem pretty normal nonetheless. Most knives, including many expensive ones, have some degree of grind irregularity to them (if flat stones are to be believed), but they are masked cosmetically and the edges are trued on the wheel to avoid immediate detection.

It may well be that your Moritaka is particularly funky, but your photos are not showing anything egregious or abnormal.

Asteger said:

Not the best view toward having long term customers who buy better and better, but probably good for whatever they're aiming at.

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Well said.


@preizzo Thank you for sharing this, I guess their CS stops when a problem pops up.


@MAS4T0 Why feel sorry for this, I am having a good learning experience, and one bad experience can really save me from future headaches. I am not being sarcastic here, I am probably just having a great day. :laugh:

Now I just put some arrows near the high spot, so that it can be seen more clearly. The whole shining long&narrow area near the KU is the high spot. The subtle line near the edge is the clad line.



Their price might be good some while ago, but recently I just found that the price for the same knife could be significantly lower elsewhere. (Sukenari hairline, Korusaki, etc)


@XooMG Sorry to hear your experience with CKtG and the Carters, and thank you for sharing your thoughts and knowledge.

I guess my Moritaka wasn't particularly funky compared to whose with wavy edges, but it still has a huge bulge as shown in the pic above. It looked and felt like a chunk of mental wan't removed and stayed there.


Cheers,
Lean

leansmancave said:

@XooMG Sorry to hear your experience with CKtG and the Carters, and thank you for sharing your thoughts and knowledge.

I guess my Moritaka wasn't particularly funky compared to whose with wavy edges, but it still has a huge bulge as shown in the pic above. It looked and felt like a chunk of mental wan't removed and stayed there.

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I have never bought from CKtG, but I don't doubt they have their share of problems. Carters are what they are; they generally cut well but they are not meant to be cosmetically perfect. They can be cleaned up, but sometimes it takes a lot of work on stones.

I'm not telling you to put up with the Moritaka's issues, and if you are worried that a return would be rejected by doing a single test (you could just lie about it; I was foolishly too honest but nobody would have known otherwise), it is better to send back a knife. I like to check and see if what looks bad actually affects performance. Sometimes it does, and sometimes it works out just fine. Sometimes if the performance is modestly affected and the rest of everything looks promising, it may be a worthwhile project knife. Still, it's nice to get something that just comes out of the box with no modification necessary.

Wheres Dave hiding? If Dave Martell doesn't post in the thread it might be worth a PM to find out for sure if this was a problem, I'm sure he's fixed more of these than anyone else. As you weren't happy it's for the best that you returned it.

I wonder if Moritaka and Takeda are still super popular, I seem to remember the prices soaring and the quality dropping simultaniously.

MAS4T0 said:

Wheres Dave hiding?.

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I don't know much about his business, but one thing I know also gave me my impressions of Moritaka knives: I remember Dave annoumcing at some point that he'd no longer accept Moritaka for repair. You can guess why; too many of them would be so poor that he wouldn't be able to help. Sounds pretty bad

Asteger said:

I don't know much about his business, but one thing I know also gave me my impressions of Moritaka knives: I remember Dave annoumcing at some point that he'd no longer accept Moritaka for repair. You can guess why; too many of them would be so poor that he wouldn't be able to help. Sounds pretty bad

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Indeed.

Dave would know whether this is the kind of issue which would work itself out our the kind of thing which gets worse over time.

The knives that we all purchase are highly functional, hand crafted tools. Because they are hand crafted, there is going to be the possibility of defects. For that reason, before making a purchase, it is important to consider all of the following:

1) What is the probability that the maker let an unacceptable defect reach a re-seller. (corollary: is your definition of an unacceptable defect more stringent than the maker's?)
2) Do you trust the re-seller to examine each knife to meet your standards of quality before they will pass a knife on to you? (again, is your definition of an unacceptable defect more stringent than the re-seller's?)
3) What is the re-seller's return policy if they allow a knife with an unacceptable defect reach you? (will you need to take it up with the manufacturer? Will you have to pay for shipping and/or restocking fees to return it? Will you just be SOL?)
4) If the seller requires you to talk to the manufacturer, what's the manufacturer's policy?

I don't think that it's productive to argue what a seller should do, nor is it productive to rant about a seller when they are consistent with their customer service policies. We would all like sellers to stand behind the products that they sell, inspect every blade before it's sold and eat the full cost of shipping both ways for returns without charging restocking fees. When it comes to Moritaka and CKtG, you should already know exactly what to expect. You are rolling the dice on the quality of the knife, you know that the seller might not spot defects before shipping products and you know that they will take the knife back, but you will have to eat the shipping cost. If that is not a risk that you are willing to take, then don't buy Moritaka knives from CKTG.

Back to the OP's specific questions:

1) An overgrind is a serious problem; you can't grind steel back onto a blade. Undergrinds can be fixed, but it's up to you to figure out if it's acceptable to you. From the pictures that posted, I don't see anything seriously wrong with that knife, but I can't tell much by just me looking at a picture. For a $220 Moritaka, I wouldn't expect much better and I would have kept it. If it was a $650 Teruyasu Fujiwara it would be a different story.

2) I think that a customer is responsible to do their own research. At $220, a 240 Moirtaka Gyuto is one of the cheapest AS knives that you will find anywhere. There is a reason that $1000 knives cost $1000. Given the price point and all of the information available about Moritaka knives, there is no reason to expect a perfect knife out of the box.

3) I wouldn't accept an over-grind, but I'd be willing to grind down an under-grind on a sub $250 knife. With laminated blades warps can happen, but I wouldn't trust myself to fix it so I'd have to work with the maker/vendor or a 3rd party expert. I'd be less willing to accept a warp as the price point goes up. I would return an expensive knife if the handle install was sloppily, but I'd fix it myself if it was a cheaper knife. Wrong profile means that they sent you the wrong knife; the vendor better eat the cost on correcting that. It's up to you to decide what blemishes are acceptable or not at a given price point.

4) Resellers will do whatever resellers will do. If you are really being shafted, you can try to sue - good luck with that. It is best to figure out which sellers (and makers) you can trust and which ones you should avoid. There was a time when the story would have been "There was a severe hollow in the edge due to an over-grind. The vendor denied that the knife was defective and only agreed to take it back after a month long e-mail exchange and several angry phone calls. In the end, I had to pay for shipping both ways plus a 20% restocking fee." In this case, although the knife wasn't perfect it doesn't sound like the knife was severely defective. The vendor didn't argue with you and he took the return. He didn't take the extra time to make sure you were filled with warm and fuzzies and the vendor didn't agree to eat the shipping costs, but he didn't demand a profit from this exchange either. All-in-all I would say you had a pretty neutral experience. If you expect better, take your business elsewhere.

The vendor took it back without a fuss. I'm not sure what the issue is. If unhappy and the vendor refused to address it then I would say there's a problem. These are knives commonly known to have issues. I have very expensive hand forged knives which have inconsistencies. Are the issues going to cause performance problems? If no, then I don't see them as flawed. If so, then that's a problem. Even with an expensive blade, I expect to fine tune a bit to suit my personal preferences.
If anything, I'd be a bit annoyed about paying return shipping but given the possibility of being stuck with a knife you aren't happy with, then it doesn't seem that significant.

Well said Comp (and some others). At the risk of sounding supportive of Togo it sounds like the OP may be expecting to pick up a turd by the clean end. Mark seems pretty reasonable in his accommodation. Damn - did I type that out loud?(

I wasn't going to comment because I always get beat up when I do (people don't always appreciate honesty for what it is) but after having a look at the pictures and thinking about it I thought I'd weigh in anyway.

In this case I can't see any typical Moritaka problems (in the pictures attached) that are severe enough to warrant concern for an over grind. Yes, the bevels look like crap in both being uneven in height and showing amatuer-ish facets ground down the length but the typical overground hole-in-the- edge Moritaka thing isn't showing here. *FYI - most Moritaka hole-in-the-edge overgrinds are seen near the heel.

For the record, I still reject 7 out of 10 Moritaka knives for service for having either blatant holes in the edge or severely suspect over grinds. Nothing has changed in this regard for many years now.

Thank you all guys! A lesson well learned.

:thumbsup:

So...long story short you won the Moritaka lottery and actually sent it back.

Jovidah said:

So...long story short you won the Moritaka lottery and actually sent it back.

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lus1:

That's what I was thinking.

High spots are not a problem. It's the low spots that you need to worry about.