The hazards of a local pass around

I was interested in getting a little feedback on one of my recent knives. My next door neighbor is a local chef of some repute, so I asked him if he would like to try it out and tell me what he thought. It turns out that he is now teaching at a culinary branch of of an art institute and offered to take the knife to school with him to let the other instructors and maybe some students try it as well. I thought that sounded like a reasonable idea and went ahead.
The feedback was very positive, but not very specific, no real criticism and praise for its versatility.
Then I got the knife back. This is one with a mustard patina on the blade, and someone had cleaned the blade with sandpaper, it appeared, and removed most of the patina. Butt that wasn't the worst part. They sharpened it. From the looks of it, on a cement curb. You want a toothy edge? How about serrated???
Deep scratches all over the sides. I had to take it to a 240 belt and spend some time to get them out. At least they didn't run it though the dishwasher.

lol, that has SOS pad written all over it! :tooth:

That's so sad some people shouldn't be allowed to touch nice things

Lordy. You probably undersold yourself with the humility and whatnot. You gotta be a self-promoting ass to get street folks to take your stuff seriously, or else they figure you've got nothing on them and they'll show you how it's done.

Sucks, but at least you can fix it!

johndoughy said:

...Sucks, but at least you can fix it!

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+1. Back when I didn't feel comfortable doing fixes on nice knives, I lived in fear of this sort of thing. It only takes one careless moment to get a pretty big chip or a broken tip or a rust spot...

... horror stories should not be posted goddamit.

Should've laid out some do's and dont's prior.

Crikey...those AI's are the McDonalds of trade schools. :Ooooh:
Hope your knife feels better.

Dooh! That sucks!! some people should never be handed sharp objects, sounds like this batch of students and "teachers" have at least a few of them in there mix!!

Bet ya dont do that again, without laying down some ground rules!

Ground rules? I would just never do it again.

I'm not going to subject another of my babies to that. I had no idea that someone would break out a coarse sanding belt!

SpikeC said:

I'm not going to subject another of my babies to that. I had no idea that someone would break out a coarse sanding belt!

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I was always told because japanese steel is so much harder than German steel that it required the use of a 80 grit belt sander. DOH! :bashhead:

I just found out why the blade had been sos'ed and ground on. I cleaned it up and set it on the window sill in the kitchen, and used it today to prep some chili. When I picked it up with the sun on it I saw------- PITS on the surface of the blade! Like an idiot I assumed that an experienced chef and crew of instructors would have an understanding of carbon steel knives. Evidently it was allowed to sit around with Dog knows what on it and a good healthy layer of rust formed and was allowed to percolate for a while. So now I need to really regrind it to get below the pitting and see how much blade is salvageable. Here is the knife that I'm talking about, pre abuse:

Crappy! Unbelievable!

I always deal with this at work. Just wipe it down, it's not rocket surgery.

lol, rocket surgery. You are killing me lately Eamon, that Hellen Keller bit earlier... good lord.

Handsome knife Spike! I like the slight rise on the handle.

You have vastly overrated the skill and knowledge of both students and teachers at culinary schools. Sure, my school required me to buy an overpriced german knife kit and they kinda glossed over how to sharpen them, but no one there really knew what they were talking about. Most of the stuff they talked about were the same cliches about supposedly great cutlery we make fun of here. I didn't know how to care for a carbon knife when I in culinary school. Honestly, I wouldn't even let most professional chefs test your knives unless you knew what knives they owned and how they care for them.

JohnnyChance said:

You have vastly overrated the skill and knowledge of both students and teachers at culinary schools. Sure, my school required me to buy an overpriced german knife kit and they kinda glossed over how to sharpen them, but no one there really knew what they were talking about. Most of the stuff they talked about were the same cliches about supposedly great cutlery we make fun of here. I didn't know how to care for a carbon knife when I in culinary school. Honestly, I wouldn't even let most professional chefs test your knives unless you knew what knives they owned and how they care for them.

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+1. I don't care if you're working in Keller's kitchen, it's always more often correct than not to bet that a chef doesn't know anything about high end cutlery. It could have been a lot worse; you could have actually sent it to a western knife guy/sharpener, and those guys can REALLY screw up your knives. I know it seems counter intuitive, but chefs and knife guys in particular are most suspect in F'n up knives.

At first I thought Phan was going with ANOTHER Helen Keller joke, then I realized which Keller he meant! Haha
Hopefully the blade is salvageable, Spike. Stupid students....

phan1 said:

It could have been a lot worse; you could have actually sent it to a western knife guy/sharpener, and those guys can REALLY screw up your knives. knives.

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Unfortunately, someone must have let a "sharpener" have at it, as there were many deep scratches and a chewed up edge!

I have kind of given up trying to show friends/relatives that there are better kitchen knives to be had.

1) A colleague at work showed some interest in getting a nice knife for his wife to use at home. They kind of liked the damascus look and ended up getting a VG10 stainless knife that was thin and sharp. Thanksgiving comes, they invite a bunch of people to their house and the tip of the knife gets broken off anonymously. His wife goes out and buys a Henckels to replace it. The VG10 knife is now sitting somewhere in their garage but they're not sure where.

2) I gave a Tojiro and a TKC to a relative who works as a chef. Fast forward a few years, he's so busy at work that he doesn't have time to do much sharpening, so he usually gives them to the "sharpener" who comes around and does them on a grinding wheel. I got to see and feel the edge he had on the Tojiro, it was quite awful. If you're going to be cutting with an edge like that, there's basically no point using a J-knife, a Forschner would do just as well.

In many situations a big indestructible "knife" is just what the doctor ordered, maybe something like THIS.