Chipped Blades: What the heck am I doing wrong??

[EdipisReks]

I believe I might be the problem. I really paid attention to how I was cutting tonight and sometimes I would scrape or twist. I also do a lot of rocking especially with herbs then scrape them together. Obviously I know I need to work on my cutting skills but is it typical for this knife to be so delicate? I'm assuming the chips on the back end of the knife are from the rocking as well.

I've never chipped a knife doing that with herbs, and I've had and have knives both harder and thinner than Takedas. I think the issue is simply that you are twisting the knife when the edge is embedded in the board.

 

[Geo87]

I believe the o.p is talking about 'walking' through the herbs and scraping the edge across the board to gather them. Surely that is enough to chip a hard thin blade.

 

[EdipisReks]

I believe the o.p is talking about 'walking' through the herbs and scraping the edge across the board to gather them. Surely that is enough to chip a hard thin blade.

I've never experienced it as being a problem.

 

[Geo87]

Recently to everybody at works horror our cowboy exec borrowed somebody's laser against their permission. He rock chopped, walked , scraped the edge sideways & pounded the edge unnecessarily.

It had two small chips one out of the curve near the tip & one halfway along the edge.

If you have to gather / move food perhaps it's better to use the spine?

I just personally feel that dragging the edge across the board sideways is a bad idea... Could cause loss of edge retention, edge waving/ rolling over, chipping etc

 

[labor of love]

Ive had chips on brand new knives several times. I would sharpen them out and they would never chip again. I cant explain it. But there is a pattern.

 

[Chef Andy]

I always use the spine to scrape the board to collect food. It just has always seemed like a bad idea to me to use the cutting edge to collect food. I haven't had an issue with chipping with my new knives at all. I'm very careful with them, however. Never use a magnetic knife strip.

 

[orangehero]

Ive had chips on brand new knives several times. I would sharpen them out and they would never chip again. I cant explain it. But there is a pattern.

That's probably due to the edge being overheated during machine sharpening at the factory.

 

[labor of love]

That's probably due to the edge being overheated during machine sharpening at the factory.

The reason i mention this is because the OP's knife in question is new. Well, newish.

 

[mhpr262]

I always use the spine to scrape the board to collect food. It just has always seemed like a bad idea to me to use the cutting edge to collect food. I haven't had an issue with chipping with my new knives at all. I'm very careful with them, however. Never use a magnetic knife strip.

This, this so much. I have watched a lot of knife skills videos on youtube and EVERYBODY does that. I have only found one single vid where you are advised to use the back of the blade for scraping. It's like fingernails on a chalkboard for me when they use the edge.

That's probably due to the edge being overheated during machine sharpening at the factory.

Wouldn't overheating make the steel softer and chipping more unlikely?


PS great that we finally have a sharpeining subforum. When I first came here a few weeks ago I couldn't believe no such thing existed.

 

[orangehero]

Wouldn't overheating make the steel softer and chipping more unlikely?

Theoretically that makes sense, as you would think a higher heat would result in softer temper, but that's not what happens (or it does happen but the other resulting edge damage leads to cracks and chipping).

Here's some explanation from Devin Thomas:

This is a common problem in industry. Over heating can cause micro cracking on the edges of knives and tooling. The metallurgists at Crucible steel have been telling me this for years. They first learned about this when some of their customers had tool failure, which, when they looked at it under magnification, found the micro cracking. The customers were blaming the problem on the steel, of course. This can happen even with flood coolant when the abrasives get some what dull.

This does not happen every time. There are a lot of cases where it does act like a higher tempering of localized areas, like at the tip or at the heel.

Love and respect

Hoss

 

[JBroida]

more than the sharpening, consider this... thin edges during HT will heat up and cool down more quickly, causing that area to be harder and more brittle.

But take this for what its worth... i've taken the time to look at a lot of steel under microscopes, tested HT's in various ways, and used a ton of knives... the #1 culprit when it comes to chipping is user error and problems with knife skills and technique. I also happen to know these are fixable things, since i've helped a lot of people fix these problems.

 

[panda]

If a user has continued chipping issues then most likely technique, but often times once factory edge is ground off chipping rarely happens in a lot of blades.

I have seen countless knives that were used incorrectly and those chips are huge, not of the micro type.
In the OPs case I imagine its a combo of both brittle edge and user error.

 

[Robert]

Ive had chips on brand new knives several times. I would sharpen them out and they would never chip again. I cant explain it. But there is a pattern.

+1

 

[nepastovus]

Once you send knife back to Takeda for thinning he doest hesitate and puts a VERY thin edge, mine came back with 5-6 degrees per side edge. micro chipped like hell. I then put another 15 degrees bevel and it seems hold ok, still feels quite week though