How can you tell if a knife is perfectly straight?

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bechler

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I guess I have two questions. The first would be how difficult is it to mistakenly bend a knife? My roommate rolled off the couch and kind of laid on my knife bag for a bit. From what I can tell everything looks fine. Just curious how one can gauge whether or not the blade of a knife is straight? Also do knife bags do an adequate job of protecting knives?
 
What's the knife?
What's the bag?
What does your roomie weigh?
 
You can try looking down the length of the spine, almost as you would if looking down the sight marks of a rifle. If it isn't straight you will see bending in the blade. Knife bags are fine, but if you don't have any kind of blade protector the knives could get bang up a little if there knocking into each other.

Tell your friend be careful when rolling off the couch could help also. good thing the knives were in your bag. That could of been ugly.
 
Hold the knife edge up with the point facing you and sight down the blade. Any bends or warps will be apparent. To check further, hold the knife horizontally with the edge facing you and look for bends and warps.

If you have something really flat, like a granite reference plate, you can put the blade against it to check.
 
First you need to get a laser and a set of prisms so that you can triangulate the vertical vectors. You will need a set of granite surface plates that are true to .000002" per thousand meters. And then..............
 
eyeball it yourself and then let someone young with good eyesight do it. :doublethumbsup:
 
Hold the knife edge up with the point facing you and sight down the blade. Any bends or warps will be apparent. To check further, hold the knife horizontally with the edge facing you and look for bends and warps.

If you have something really flat, like a granite reference plate, you can put the blade against it to check.
+1. However, you don't need a super flat reference plate. I use my BoardSMITH as a rough guide. It's pretty damn flat near the edges. If there is a significant bend or twist, the edge will curve toward or away from the surface of the board.
 
First you need to get a laser and a set of prisms so that you can triangulate the vertical vectors. You will need a set of granite surface plates that are true to .000002" per thousand meters. And then..............

lol. Once again, Spike, like a laser shoots through the murk and muck to ensure all things remain obscure. I love your twisted wit man :)

k.

Edit: as for the OP, I just eyeball it, but if it isn't straight, you will realize it when sharpening the blade.
 
i will try to describe this as best as I can. When i check the spine, I look down the blade towards the point. I then grab the handle or tang and hold it out i front of me at eye level in my right hand with the edge away from me and the tip pointing to the left. You have to look at it straight on. I you look at it off angle, it will look like it is a bit bent. But, if you move it around, or switch hands and it looks like it is bent equally in opposite directions depending on whether the edge is too high or too low or going from your left to your right hand, then it is probably straight. :big grin: I usually stand in the door of my shop and use the wall across he driveway was a back backdrop.
 
Thanks everything seems fine. Taught me not to plop my knives down next to the couch after work...
 
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