Guys, I really have no idea what's wrong with my Shig. Bought it brandnew from a well-known and trusted vendor in the US. This is how the blade looks after a couple of dinner-for-2 preps on end grain oak boards.
Help is pretty much appreciated - I am freaking out somehow!!! :sad0:
I had some microchipping issues with mine until I did the first sharpening and set a microbevel on it. Touch it up and set a microbevel and see if that helps. All I did was fix the chipping and then stropped on a rika 5k to set the microbevel and that did the trick. I have not had a single one since. My chips were a lot worse than yours.
Wasn't that edge amazing!?! I don't put on anywhere as near of a perfect an edge but I am totally happy with the performance and edge retention I get out of the microbeveled edge
what doesn't bend breaks right, so there's a cost to highly hardened steel. those chips wouldn't worry me at all, the guys are right just microbevel it. also, fwiw, i have found with my shig nakiri that i have to back off on the pressure coming down into the board because it's sharper than knives i have been used to. you are repeatedly hitting it into a flat plane after all.
the steel is hardened really high, it will be prone to microchips. keep it sharp and use way less force when cutting. use slicing motion when ever possible because that's what shig is best at.
At a reported 63 hrc...well, the other posters covered it. I tend to thin behind the edge and use a micro bevel on Shigs. A super small micro bevel will do the trick, in my experience.