Bora-Pirge collab knife

[MES]

So this is just a small review about a knife I acquired when I was in Istanbul last week.

The knife itself is a 'butchers' knife and was made in Bursa, which is quite known for it's handmade cutlery ever since the Ottoman-Russian war.
It's about 12 inches long and weighs about 6 ounces. It's designed for somewhat bigger hands but fits my hand nicely.

Here are a few pictures:

Seems like an alright, be it somewhat big utility knife right?
Well until I used it for a few easy kitchen tasks. The edge rolled on me after cutting vegetables(!).
That's not the worst tho'. It appears the wooden handle has shrunk and now it wobbles on the tang.
If that's not bad enough the handle started splitting too.
Here is the damage in pictures:

All in all pretty pathetic I guess. I heard many positive things about Bursa's knifemakers maybe I made a mistake by not buying from them directly but through a shop in Istanbul. But still. This obviously shouldn't happen. But oh well. On to the next!

 

[puukkoman]

Aww.... what a shame. I hope you didn't spend too much on it.
Hey, maybe this means that you now have a fun project in the pipeline, to add your own touch to the collaboration, by replacing the cracked wooden handle with something better!

 

[kootenay joe]

Do you think the shopkeeper knew you were a tourist (or visitor) and keeps good looking but very low quality knives to sell to people he knows are unlikely to be in the neighbourhood again ?
kj

 

[MES]

Aww.... what a shame. I hope you didn't spend too much on it.
Hey, maybe this means that you now have a fun project in the pipeline, to add your own touch to the collaboration, by replacing the cracked wooden handle with something better!

That's a very good idea! I was thinking more in the way of trying to repair the handle. But it might be more fun to just do away with it all together and make a new handle from scratch. Perhaps find a nice slab of micarta or something else that's less prone to shrinkage.

 

[kootenay joe]

I would try to re-sharpen the edge to see if it can actually take a sharp edge. Then i would use it a bit to see if the new edge would hold. It could be that the tempering was so poorly done that it is not worth the effort of trying to re-handle it. From the pic you posted of the edge after cutting a few veges, i think this blade is very soft steel, maybe Rc less than 40.
kj

 

[Old & In The Way]

That's about as bad as it gets; but it's good to see that you've got a healthy attitude about the experience. :thumbup:

 

[MES]

Do you think the shopkeeper knew you were a tourist (or visitor) and keeps good looking but very low quality knives to sell to people he knows are unlikely to be in the neighbourhood again ?
kj

There were lots of Turks in the shop, in fact I was the only foreigner there. So probably not. But you never know..