Glass cutting board!!! (Lol sigh fml)

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Drayquan

Drayquan

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Ok so this is just me venting, a mini therapy session.

So I have a neighbor I was helping out with their kitchen knives - turns out they have a large kitchen with lots of above average knives. They needed a ton of work; not much chipping, but some serious thinning etc.

I did a great job on them :)
Tho ... it took quite a long time. I definitely didn’t go all out with the highest grit polish/finish, I purposely finished them for strength and long lasting durable sharpness. Their hardware was around 58-60 hrc, and although I could have gone thinner and much higher grit, I stopped at a nice 3k (chosera) with a really slight tiny micro bevel to add a little extra longevity/edge retention for them).
A little stropping and done, everything flew threw push cutting newsprint, popped arm hairs off, great stuff.

I just found out they only use a GLASS CUTTING BOARD!

Why? Well, because they are afraid of injesting wood and plastic from those other boards.......

I very politely informed them the facts, gave additional links to other sources to back up these facts. Lots of concise info with legit science to back it up. Plenty of suggestions for quality mid to higher range wood, plastic, and even bamboo cutting board options. I don’t personally like bamboo that much because it’s usually relatively hard and not as forgiving on sharp edges, but still decent enough.

Nope they still insist on .....glass. No, they don’t have anyone in the fam with immune disorders or rare allergies or anything hyper sensitive to anything, they just don’t like the idea of using anything other than.... GLASS.

Thank goodness I didn’t finish their knives on 6k/8k/15k .. yeeesh.

...Those pesky toxic plastic particles that obviously fall off of good plastic boards in droves contaminating food and infecting everyone... All the deadly jagged wood splinters that come off of well taken care of, high-end wooden cutting boards to poke holes in your throat/intestines are too much ....apparently.

Sigh ...smh/fml

Ok venting over. Thanks guys.
 
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Acceptance - this first step you must master now your addicted to your sharpening/knife hobby.
Not everyone will try or want to listen to your advice: this cutting board is good this is better this is very bad.
The same goes for people that insist on using thick cheap paring knives and a thick slicer for all their tasks, and still don't want to listen to your advice when they complain about hardness of cutting.
People who don't see what's so great about an actual sharp knife.

The awesome thing to see is when people actually listen to you and you get them a tailored solution for their needs. I recently sold a half tang Tanaka to my sister as I could not get used to the weight. I actually let her hold and explained the basic difference between wa, half and full tang as well as stick tang, stamped knives, full flat, convex so on. I also showed the different handle material wood, burned wood, porous wood, easy to maintain wood, metal, rubber, fibrox and resin. I explained about maintenance and anticipated sharpness and edge deterioration as well fragility. It was awesome she even went out and got a wooden board.
Needless to say I'm happy, I'm awaiting my wa Tanaka and she's getting a kick out of cooking.

I definitely feel your frustration [emoji4]

Moral of the story you can argue about who has the issues [emoji4] you should definitely stop worrying about those who does not want to be helped and not spent 2-8 hours sharpening their knives [emoji14]
 
Maybe you could scare them with the idea that a glass "board" will cause more ingesting of small metal particles abraded off the knife edge, compared to a wooden cutting board. Would they rather eat more metal, or more wood? At least wood is organic.

A wooden board will also tend to suck bacteria and other nasties down into the wood fiber when it dries, rather than remaining on the surface. I'll bet a bacteria culture on their glass board would show more nasties than a wood board, even when it's dried (i.e.spores).

Probably a lost cause anyway, but a fun thought experiment for trying to convince someone with weird ideas.
 
Drayquan said:
I just found out they only use a GLASS CUTTING BOARD!

Why? Well, because they are afraid of injesting wood and plastic from those other boards.......

I very politely informed them the facts, gave additional links to other sources to back up these facts. Lots of concise info with legit science to back it up. Plenty of suggestions for quality mid to higher range wood, plastic, and even bamboo cutting board options. I don’t personally like bamboo that much because it’s usually relatively hard and not as forgiving on sharp edges, but still decent enough.

Nope they still insist on .....glass. No, they don’t have anyone in the fam with immune disorders or rare allergies or anything hyper sensitive to anything, they just don’t like the idea of using anything other than.... GLASS.
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Yeah, that is my sister in a nutshell. My BIL made a Boardsmith clone, and my niece has a smaller Boardsmith board. Knives include a 210 san mai j-knife I bought for my niece when she got interested in cooking, and a Harner line knife I bought for my BIL as a thank you for a woodworking project he did for my wife.

I was unable to visit over xmas due to being down with a virus, but my wife made the trek. My sister was using the Boardsmith clone as a platform for the dogs' food and medicine storage, and the smaller Boardsmith board was relegated to a cabinet drawer. Two large glass cutting boards were out on the counters. And, as usual, my sister told my wife she was not allowed to use the wood boards because it would make everyone sick. This has repeated itself multiple times over the last 6-7 years. If I am there, I just tell my sister to pound sand, and I use the wood boards. But my wife was not comfortable enough doing that.

Oh, and they just did a kitchen refresh, which included replacing the island. It is now surfaces with a nice marble. My wife was working on some cookie dough on the counter when my sister walked in a promptly pooped a brick, as apparently no food products should ever come in contact with the marble, which has 3 layers of sealer on it...

Some people just lack common sense, and want to believe what they want to believe. This includes not allowing the 4-bone rib roast to be pulled off the grill at 118 deg F because everyone will die from eating undercooked beef (no matte that carryover is ~10 deg). And forget about every seeing any cooked pork there that may have the slightest tinge of pink.
 
If the neighbor asks you to sharpen their knives again, politely decline, saying that because of the chipping, dulling, etc. resulting from glass cutting board use, it's too time consuming and difficult for you to resharpen.
 
I feel your pain, but at least they aren't blaming you for their knives going dull. What would be worse, is if they turned around and told you you did a crappy job because they were going dull so quickly. Start charging them money, and just realize some people just don't care. Either that, or just start putting a bug in their ear about shards of glass in their food being worse than splinters lol.
 
Benuser said:
I remember the story of one of the best sharpeners here, bringing back the knives he had worked on, and the chef while saying the kindest words about it, started to steel the blades.
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Yeah I've had this happen to me, as soon as I hand it back over to them they jump straight into steeling. It's bizarre.
 
milkbaby said:
Next time just tell them to get a Chef's Choice pull thru sharpener. :rolleyes:
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Actually, you could tell they used some kind of shoddy pull-through sharpening device quite a lot because of a scraping pattern just above the primary bevels on most of their blades. They'd have been better with the "chef's choice" branded one you mention rather than whatever device they were actually using... lol

The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that pull-through sharpening tools are actually made by the knife manufacturers to purposely wear down the knives faster, so people will need to buy new knives more often :p
 
Drayquan said:
The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that pull-through sharpening tools are actually made by the knife manufacturers to purposely wear down the knives faster, so people will need to buy new knives more often :p
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You wouldn't be alone. Mareko Maumasi said pretty much the same thing when interviewed on the Joe Rogan Experience #1168. But I think most people don't even bother with sharpening gadgets more than once. When your average Kmart, Walmart or local grocery shop knife gets dull, it's simply replaced for a couple of dollars.
 
I would of told them they could sharpen there own d#$@ knives, and then I would of dragged one across the glass cutting board to dull it. And then said something like " you will be ruining them anyways, let me help you." .
 
I didn't even realize that glass cutting boards were a thing until I looked on Amazon. Never ceases to amaze me how uncommon common sense is.
 
My gran used to use glass cutting boards and the exact same thing happened. My old man sharpened her knives for her and she went straight to slamming her way through carrots into the glass board. He never let her forget it! The thought of using one makes me feel physically sick!
 
Paraffin said:
A wooden board will also tend to suck bacteria and other nasties down into the wood fiber when it dries, rather than remaining on the surface. I'll bet a bacteria culture on their glass board would show more nasties than a wood board, even when it's dried (i.e.spores).
.
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Ill culture my boards (wood/resin) in the morn. Now if i just knew a dummie that owned a glass one to test.
 
That is a big pet peeve of mine....glass and ceramic cutting boards. Who in their right mind would even invent such a thing? You would have to be a total idiot to say, "Hmmm, I think I'm going to make a cutting board out of glass." But it is what it is. I bring it up to clients when I sell them a knife and I get it a LOT ..."It never crossed my mind to not use a glass cutting board!" What???
 
Not that long ago marble was considered acceptable. Well, at least you didn't have to worry about fatigued steel.
 
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