Once more on the Ikenami 240mm gyuto I bought (see
#post226)
I managed to grind down the protruding heel somewhat so it is a non-issue now.
With its almost 240g over a length of 240mm, a heel of only 48mm and a spine of constant thickness, I realized the tip is way too thick though!
I literally had to push it quite heavily to make vertical cuts into an onion!
So what do you do with a knife that cost 300$ plus shipping plus 28% of total import cost
that does not perform very well?
Sell or send to knife-pimp-shop?
I decided for the latter and send it to a knifemaker here in germany (
@Jaeger ) that i luckily found out about here at KKF.
I decided it would be too much work&money to grind it into having distal taper from heel to tip
but decided to work on the tip section only.
The taper Fabian applied starts at almost 10cm from the tip.
The last 5cm of the tip are really quite thin but not overly so.
(2mm thickness and 9g of metal were lost in the process)
For me he made the perfect choice between performance and still not overly fragile.
Also this is a very workhorsey knife/grind so a scalpel tip wouldn´t be the right choice.
The knife now performs magnificently with its tip especially.
Mid and heel sections were very good cutters already before
although Fabian did point out that the knife isn´t consistently convex but has flat and concave spots too.
See the pictures for a comparison of the tip before and after.
And a final picture of the knife with the satiny finish Fabian applied.
Although the knife in total ended up being quite expensive I absolutely feel it is worth its price in the end; mainly thanks to Fabian´s great "pimp job" so once more "thank you so much!!".
so what do/did we/i learn from this:
1. Obviously ask for more detailed specs before buying especially so if the knife is on the heavy side and the "distribution" of weight is unclear.
I mean, I could have guessed that a 1g/mm-knife with a heel height of only 48mm is going to be a thicc boy and also that the tip is going to be very thick considering a constant thickness of the spine.
2. A thick knife that lacks performance can be turned into something that performs extraordinary if given to the right people.
Don´t give up on a knife, especially if you like almost all of its characteristics.
Give your local bladesmiths some business.
Chances are they will transform its performance and price/value-ratio into different heights.
3. Get a custom knife right away that you know will have a good and consistent grind that also performs well.
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