What to do?

Shop Knives and stones on ebay
Miura knives
Kitchen Knife Forums

Help Support Kitchen Knife Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Actually, the factory finish is still visible on the overground sections with some errant scratches from stone mud (can't really tell due to my camera skills). Mark said to call him, so I'll do that tomorrow. Anyways, I think Dave stated the issue best - holes in the edge later on.

Olpappy, the knife was quite far from evenly ground, and admittedly, I expected a bit better, even at the price point. I'll see if I can polish it up and take a picture to show you guys.

Steven, YEP. I agree. I briefly inspected the knife beforehand and found no issue, but they popped up when I put it to the stones.
 
olpappy said:
So you expect perfection? Nothing is perfect. Perfection is an ideal that knifemakers try to achieve but never can be achieved. If you expect perfection, I suggest you make some knives yourself and see how that goes for you. When you can grind a knife blade perfectly without overgrinds, only then should you make them available to consumers.

From the picture that was posted I can't tell if there was any imperfection to begin with, the original finish is no longer visible. All I can see is abrasions from stones. No knife has a perfectly flat face unless it is a custom, any knife made with grinding wheels will have irregularities show up if you start rubbing the face of it on stones. This is not a Doi yanagi we're talking about. Sharpening stones are made for sharpening, not for flattening gyutos. You CAN flatten the face of your gyuto and polish it, I have done it. OP, your knife will be fine, start flattening with 150 grit water stone, once that is completely flat then 220, 320, 400, 600, 1000, 2000, 4000, 6K, 8K, 10K etc. You can do it in about 2 weeks of grinding by hand. I have done it myself.
Click to expand...

Wow. You're kind of an ass. I didn't say I expect perfection nor did I say I was a maker or was going to do anything of the sort. Maybe my comments hit a little too close to home because you drive a POS. I don't know, but you completely misunderstood my post.

Whatever the reason, one should still be able to expect a high level of quality regardless of price. That's what I wrote - I didn't say anything about perfection.

Nonetheless, except for you and a few others, it seems that most people who have seen this objectively think that this is not a trivial defect. And, whether it's knives, food, giving legal advice, or whatever, the purchaser has a right by law to expect a certain standard of quality (not taking into consideration the length of time that has passed or the fact that he tried to thin it).

My point was, as a purchaser, he has a right to expect a certain level of quality in manufacture that includes receiving a knife that does not have such a large overgrind. (It is quite clear where the original finish is versus the area that he tried to thin. The fact that you cannot tell really hurts whatever argument you are trying to make.) For that matter, I have knives around that price that clearly don't have anything similar to this overgrind.

By your logic, if you're getting a deal on any knife and it's a good price, you should expect some defects, and this overgrind is an acceptable defect? Right?

Wabi Sabi, bro?
 
labor of love said:
But there are numerous performance setbacks that could potientally arise from divots of this nature.
Click to expand...

I don't think it would affect performance much. A situation similar to this would be a Granton edge knife with cullens. If they are halfway up the blade,you won't get into the cullens until a substantial portion of the blade is abraded away.

Some new knives actually have cullens extending into the edge area, see these pics:

http://www.granton-knives.co.uk/granton_edge_knives.html

http://www.stoddards.com/granton-10-inch-beef-slicer-w-granton-edge/

These knives were made this way deliberately, not by mistake.
 
James said:
I briefly inspected the knife beforehand and found no issue, but they popped up when I put it to the stones.
Click to expand...

If you put the sides of a chef knife on stones it will almost never be completely flat, although they may look that way. Usually the small imperfections are blended together in the final stages of the finishing process so that they won't be visible, and make it look better. Same with single bevel knives, a yanagi may look flat but if you put it on stones often the blade road is concave but you can't see it.
 
If the vendor himself does not have the skill to simply look at the reflections of light to be able to detect over/undergrinds, how can he expect his customers to have the same skill? All the people complaining about the 5 months stuff are acting like the OP bought some toilet paper, wiped his a**, and then tried to return it. What is actually the case is that most people can't spot overgrinds without thinning. Look at mhlee's post, he sure as hell knows more about knives than I do, and even he admits to struggling with just seeing these issues by eyesight alone. That doesn't mean that the product wasn't defective from the beginning. If you put your name on a product and market it as a good product, then be willing to answer to that. Otherwise, tell people you may be selling them crap that has a high likelihood of defects (because you don't know how to spot such defects) as a disclaimer at the beginning.
 
mhlee said:
Wow. You're kind of an ass. I didn't say I expect perfection nor did I say I was a maker or was going to do anything of the sort. Maybe my comments hit a little too close to home because you drive a POS. I don't know, but you completely misunderstood my post.

Whatever the reason, one should still be able to expect a high level of quality regardless of price. That's what I wrote - I didn't say anything about perfection.

Nonetheless, except for you and a few others, it seems that most people who have seen this objectively think that this is not a trivial defect. And, whether it's knives, food, giving legal advice, or whatever, the purchaser has a right by law to expect a certain standard of quality (not taking into consideration the length of time that has passed or the fact that he tried to thin it).

My point was, as a purchaser, he has a right to expect a certain level of quality in manufacture that includes receiving a knife that does not have such a large overgrind. (It is quite clear where the original finish is versus the area that he tried to thin. The fact that you cannot tell really hurts whatever argument you are trying to make.) For that matter, I have knives around that price that clearly don't have anything similar to this overgrind.

By your logic, if you're getting a deal on any knife and it's a good price, you should expect some defects, and this overgrind is an acceptable defect? Right?

Wabi Sabi, bro?
Click to expand...

Well, I don't usually like to compare knives to cars, but to me this is sort of like, my car looked OK when it was new but I took a grinder and ground off the paint, underneath I found a low spot on the door that was uneven, now I can't get it to look nice like it did before.
 
olpappy said:
Some new knives actually have cullens extending into the edge area, see these pics:

http://www.granton-knives.co.uk/granton_edge_knives.html

http://www.stoddards.com/granton-10-inch-beef-slicer-w-granton-edge/

These knives were made this way deliberately, not by mistake.
Click to expand...
no...James didnt purchase a granton knife...and FWIW atleast granton has some kind of pattern going on. That divot can most certainly create wedging problems down the road if its deep enough.
 
olpappy said:
Well, I don't usually like to compare knives to cars, but to me this is sort of like, my car looked OK when it was new but I took a grinder and ground off the paint, underneath I found a low spot on the door that was uneven, now I can't get it to look nice like it did before.
Click to expand...


Actually, It is more like I bought a car that looked ok new. Took some of the paint off and found that the door was dented from the factory and instead of replacing it like they should have, they just took a pound of bondo and made it look like nothing was there. Thats terrible QC, and quite dishonest.
 
cwrightthruya said:
Actually, It is more like I bought a car that looked ok new. Took some of the paint off and found that the door was dented from the factory and instead of replacing it like they should have, they just took a pound of bondo and made it look like nothing was there. Thats terrible QC, and quite dishonest.
Click to expand...

+1

I think this says it all. I also think that part of the price you pay for any item includes the QC that should be done before the product gets to the customer...for this I blame the manufacturer and the retailer...neither should be proud of selling a piece of crap like that. Both should be willing to stand behind the product, no matter who has the legal responsibility.
 
It is interesting MR did not replace your knife. I had an incident with my M390 Artifex and replaced it without question. I'm interested in what you wrote to him to get a "no" response. Attitude and perception can go a long way.

Pics of my incident. I was hand sanding with diamond pads and pop... (yes I had the blade on the board and about 5lbs of pressure on the handle to keep it steady)


 
That blade snap is quite interesting! It does look like it had a crack for quite some time, where it had rusted though. Could you see the crack before it broke?

Someone said the overgrind could create wedging. Could you explain this to me? I can't see how making a knife too thin in one spot would cause it to wedge. And people saying to throw it out? That doesn't make sense at all.
 
It most likely had a hairline crack before HT. I didn't see or feel the crack before thinning it.
 
Squilliam said:
Someone said the overgrind could create wedging. Could you explain this to me? I can't see how making a knife too thin in one spot would cause it to wedge. And people saying to throw it out? That doesn't make sense at all.
Click to expand...
wasnt talking about the overgrind. the divot above the edge if deep enough could cause problems with wedging.
 
heirkb said:
If the vendor himself does not have the skill to simply look at the reflections of light to be able to detect over/undergrinds, how can he expect his customers to have the same skill? All the people complaining about the 5 months stuff are acting like the OP bought some toilet paper, wiped his a**, and then tried to return it. What is actually the case is that most people can't spot overgrinds without thinning. Look at mhlee's post, he sure as hell knows more about knives than I do, and even he admits to struggling with just seeing these issues by eyesight alone. That doesn't mean that the product wasn't defective from the beginning. If you put your name on a product and market it as a good product, then be willing to answer to that. Otherwise, tell people you may be selling them crap that has a high likelihood of defects (because you don't know how to spot such defects) as a disclaimer at the beginning.
Click to expand...

Oh, good lord.

The "problem" was unnoticeable for five months, but somehow it's now a terrible defect? Really?

If this knife is truly going to encounter dropouts in the edge with subsequent sharpening (at which point it will lose at least a quarter inch of profile, if not more, while the area above it will be significantly thinned, too), then I guess you could ask for an exchange/refund. So far, I haven't seen anything yet to justify such a thing, other than the fact that a bunch of you dislike the vendor, and thus are predisposed to judge the product. Take any ten ~$100 knives from one of the preferred vendors here -- perhaps Hiromotos, Tojiros, etc. -- run them flat against a coarse stone, and I'll bet you a nickel at least half of them will show spots like those in the OP's pics.

Before you accuse me of being a shill, note that Dave said the same thing on page 2.

And what person encounters a problem with wedging an inch from the tip?

Silliness.

If you've got champagne tastes, great -- but don't complain about the PBR (or, to dial it back, the IPA).
 
I don't seem to have any such issues on victorinox...oh yeah, I don't buy them from ****.
 
mkmk said:
Take any ten <$100 knives from one of the preferred vendors here -- perhaps Hiromotos, Tojiros, etc. -- run them flat against a coarse stone, and I'll bet you a nickel at least half of them will show spots like those in the OP's pics.

.
Click to expand...
i call BS on this hypothetical. If thats the case, why arent their more threads about stuff like this? where are all the post for screwed up hiromotos, carbonexts and tojiros? not that they dont have their factory flaws, but to say half of them will have defects like this knife? BS
 
Well, several people have said they've seen similar things on their own knives, and Dave -- whose opinion is gospel here -- said it's common. If you don't believe me -- believe him:

Dave Martell said:
I'm always in for taking a stab at Richmond but in this case I'm not going to be able to. I've seen this type of thing on a whole slew of Japanese knives so I'm not going to be able to point the finger as this being an issue that is only seen on a Richmond knife. Yes it's crappy but not at all uncommon, just ask anyone who's ever laid a knife down on a flat stone and they'll tell you a story.
Click to expand...


So much handwringing.
 
Mkmk, I did not use the knife during the period and left it in the box after initial inspection (in which I failed to see the flaw).

Capid1 - WOW, your knife had a far more serious problem than mine. I'll let you know how this one is handled. Hoping for the best

It seems like this thread is getting a bit heated, so I'm just going to ask everyone to cool it down a bit. I'll report back tomorrow with good news hopefully :)
 
Here's a video from one of Richmond's boys that pretty clearly shows (by using the belt to grind away at the high spots) how these knives are ground. Normally I'd suspect that the person working the grinder might be making things worse but since this guy told me that he's an expert I'll remove him from the equation and let the results speak for themselves.

The good stuff starts @ around 5:00 and @ 6:40 on you can see the lows and highs showing up.


[video=youtube;dpZjPUAffZI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpZjPUAffZI[/video]
 
Definitely not crazy about that finger.
 
Ummm Finger Platen................
..........Awesome.
 
Ok, most knives in this price range need a little work. I would expect that. Rounding, thinning flattening, etc... For the average purchaser many of these nuances would go unnoticed; for most of us, any Artifex would need some serious tuning. That being said, a steel known for being extremely wear resistant, even experimental, sounds like a terrible idea. Right?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top