Just started Practicing - How to remove blade chips?

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Lemarque

Joined
Jan 16, 2017
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So this is a 15 year old cheap kitchen knife that's been kept in the bottom of the utencil drawer. Just for grins I did a quick 180 grit stone on my toohr3 at at 15 ° using the included Chinese stones. I used the sharpie method to determine the angle.

Sorry, but I didn't take any before images. What you see in the attached is, many of the chips were either totally removed or reduced in size considerably. I'm trying to wrap my head around, if I wanted all the chips removed, should I increase the angle to say 20 degrees? Could I then change the angle on the Toohr back to 15 °, re-sharpen so that the knife bevel is "factory"?

I've watched more YT video's than I have binging Netflix series and this is my first of many (maybe a few) posts I have in mind. Such as:

Burr removel using a guided system. I've seen various techniques.
Sharpening - Push, pull, saw or swipe.

https://imgur.com/a/tNhHWVe
 
With big chips, you will need to clean up profile first, then bevelsand

You have to decide if it's Worth it to take so much life out of the blade?
Each knife is different.

For instance, in a rare "user" id just live with small chips
 
Thanks @ Crag the Brewer

For some reason I'm not receiving email notifications.

Are you saying to re-profile the edge to say 25 degrees to remove the chips (use a sharpie to mark how much of the blade I need to remove) and then sharpen a 15 degree back bevel?

This is a throw away knife and like I said, just getting started and practicing.
 
Lemarque said:
What you see in the attached is, many of the chips were either totally removed or reduced in size considerably. I'm trying to wrap my head around, if I wanted all the chips removed, should I increase the angle to say 20 degrees?
Click to expand...

You only need to keep sharpening until the remaining chips are gone. The more your sharpen, the more steel is removed, and the smaller the chips will get until they are eventually gone. Just keep doing what you did before.

You probably don't want to increase the angle because it's a kitchen knife. Its main job is slicing food, right? A wider edge angle will make it less slicey. Just imagine it in terms of the difference between a thin wedge and a fat wedge.
 
Guy McVer said:
You only need to keep sharpening until the remaining chips are gone. The more your sharpen, the more steel is removed, and the smaller the chips will get until they are eventually gone. Just keep doing what you did before.

You probably don't want to increase the angle because it's a kitchen knife. Its main job is slicing food, right? A wider edge angle will make it less slicey. Just imagine it in terms of the difference between a thin wedge and a fat wedge.
Click to expand...
I'll keep at it then and post back the results.
 
Lemarque said:
I'll keep at it then and post back the results.
Click to expand...

Just make sure that you aren't making any new chips just by sharpening it. You did say it was a cheap knife. ;) I guess it's possible that the steel could be so bad that it is very prone to chipping.
 
The most direct way to remove damage like chips or severe edge rolling is to draw the edge perpendicular to the surface of the stone, as if attempting to cut through the stone. The goal is to grind the apex flat to a sufficient depth such as to completely remove all of the damage, leaving strong & stable steel behind. Then grind new bevels and resharpen to a new apex at your chosen angle. This type of work is more quickly done on a coarse bench stone.

As mentioned above in an earlier reply, you could also do it gradually over time with successive resharpenings at your preferred angle. But as long as remnants of the chips remain in the edge, the damage might leave the edge less stable in use until the chips are completely ground away. If the steel is actually chippy, instead of rolled or dented, it would also be prone to cracking further (like a chipped windshield on a car) and propagating more chipping, unless or until all the damage is completely ground away back into strong & stable steel. On a cheap kitchen knife, maybe it's not worth all that work in one effort. Such damage on cheap kitchen knives is usually more about deep denting or severe edge rolling, as the steel is usually not hard (brittle) enough to actually chip, but will roll or dent instead. But it's the better method if/when a more expensive knife at higher hardness might suffer such damage, for the sake of preventing further cracking or chipping. It's a good technique to practice for this reason - and a cheap 'beater' knife is a great starting subject for such practice.
 
Obsessed with Edges said:
The most direct way to remove damage like chips or severe edge rolling is to draw the edge perpendicular to the surface of the stone, as if attempting to cut through the stone. The goal is to grind the apex flat to a sufficient depth such as to completely remove all of the damage, leaving strong & stable steel behind. Then grind new bevels and resharpen to a new apex at your chosen angle. This type of work is more quickly done on a coarse bench stone.
Click to expand...

Ah, just to clarify this, what he means here is to purposely dull the entire apex and completely re-profile the edge.

So instead of the normal sharpening method, where you hold the knife on the stone at the angle of the edge, you would hold the knife vertically straight up and down at a 90 degree angle to the stone and then run the edge forwards and backwards on the stone. This will completely flatten the apex, which obviously makes the knife totally dull.

After that, then you have to sharpen the knife until a new apex is formed.

If you're going to do something drastic like this, then I would do it on a brick. I would not want to ruin the the surface of my whetting stone.
 
Obsessed with Edges said:
The most direct way to remove damage like chips or severe edge rolling is to draw the edge perpendicular to the surface of the stone, as if attempting to cut through the stone. The goal is to grind the apex flat to a sufficient depth such as to completely remove all of the damage, leaving strong & stable steel behind. Then grind new bevels and resharpen to a new apex at your chosen angle. This type of work is more quickly done on a coarse bench stone.

As mentioned above in an earlier reply, you could also do it gradually over time with successive resharpenings at your preferred angle. But as long as remnants of the chips remain in the edge, the damage might leave the edge less stable in use until the chips are completely ground away. If the steel is actually chippy, instead of rolled or dented, it would also be prone to cracking further (like a chipped windshield on a car) and propagating more chipping, unless or until all the damage is completely ground away back into strong & stable steel. On a cheap kitchen knife, maybe it's not worth all that work in one effort. Such damage on cheap kitchen knives is usually more about deep denting or severe edge rolling, as the steel is usually not hard (brittle) enough to actually chip, but will roll or dent instead. But it's the better method if/when a more expensive knife at higher hardness might suffer such damage, for the sake of preventing further cracking or chipping. It's a good technique to practice for this reason - and a cheap 'beater' knife is a great starting subject for such practice.
Click to expand...

This.... I'm just crappy at explaining.
I also wondered IF you had a real chip?

Most mass produced crap is too soft to readily chip.... My knives failure mode is chipping, because I like them thin and Hard. Harder than usual. And thinner bte than usual. Less than .015" and less than 15degrees. I shoot for 12ish

Chipping isn't as common, unless the knife was used Hard/abused.
 
Guy McVer said:
Ah, just to clarify this, what he means here is to purposely dull the entire apex and completely re-profile the edge.

So instead of the normal sharpening method, where you hold the knife on the stone at the angle of the edge, you would hold the knife vertically straight up and down at a 90 degree angle to the stone and then run the edge forwards and backwards on the stone. This will completely flatten the apex, which obviously makes the knife totally dull.

After that, then you have to sharpen the knife until a new apex is formed.

If you're going to do something drastic like this, then I would do it on a brick. I would not want to ruin the the surface of my whetting stone.
Click to expand...

That's what I meant to originally say, too...haha
 
An afterthought, re: flattening the apex to remove the damage...

It could also be done with a mill bastard file, with the blade clamped in a vise with the edge UP. Cheap kitchen knives' steel won't likely be hard enough to resist that. And no worries about mussing up the surface of a soft(ish) sharpening stone, although the right choice of stone makes that not much an issue anyway.

I wouldn't use a file on harder steels though, as it may exacerbate chipping issues, if that's what's actually going on. A proper stone with grit that's actually able to CUT the steel efficiently would be better for that.
 
I just love saying "bastard file". 😄

A rock would work too. Preferably a river stone.

Knives and clamps can be a dangerous combination though, so always be extra careful when working with a clamp. Because the clamp doesn't allow the knife to be pushed away if you should happen to accidentally bump into it, any resulting injury can be that much worse.
 
I'm still not getting email notifications so I'll just use this post to say thanks to all for the feedback.. I have a variety of the old Kai knives that are in a similar state. So I'll be able to try the various suggestions and hone my skills <ducking>

As for @ Guy McVer's warning "Knives and clamps can be a dangerous combination though, so always be extra careful when working with a clamp. Because the clamp doesn't allow the knife to be pushed away if you should happen to accidentally bump into it, any resulting injury can be that much worse."

At the range we call that an Accidental Discharge and it can get you suspended for a period of time. So red flag up when I'm working on knives.
 
At this point, those chips look small enough to not even worry about. Just use and sharpen the blade normally and it won't be long before they're gone.
 
Lemarque said:
So this is a 15 year old cheap kitchen knife that's been kept in the bottom of the utencil drawer. Just for grins I did a quick 180 grit stone on my toohr3 at at 15 ° using the included Chinese stones. I used the sharpie method to determine the angle.

Sorry, but I didn't take any before images. What you see in the attached is, many of the chips were either totally removed or reduced in size considerably. I'm trying to wrap my head around, if I wanted all the chips removed, should I increase the angle to say 20 degrees? Could I then change the angle on the Toohr back to 15 °, re-sharpen so that the knife bevel is "factory"?

I've watched more YT video's than I have binging Netflix series and this is my first of many (maybe a few) posts I have in mind. Such as:

Burr removel using a guided system. I've seen various techniques.
Sharpening - Push, pull, saw or swipe.

https://imgur.com/a/tNhHWVe
Click to expand...
Is that some kind of coating that is flaking off? If so that really cheap stuff isn't worth learning on.
Go down to the second hand store and pick up some Chicago Cutlery or something like that for a few bucks. That stuff will at least take an edge ad serve you pretty well for next to nothing in cost.
 
garry3 said:
Is that some kind of coating that is flaking off? If so that really cheap stuff isn't worth learning on.
Go down to the second hand store and pick up some Chicago Cutlery or something like that for a few bucks. That stuff will at least take an edge ad serve you pretty well for next to nothing in cost.
Click to expand...
Will do and I agree but in my town there are no 2nd. hand stores (well, maybe one). They are branded as antique and or collectibles $$$ 🙄
 
Lemarque said:
I'm still not getting email notifications
Click to expand...

If you are using Yahoo mail (or related ATT mail), this forum has trouble sending emails to those domains and maybe a few others. Better to switch to another email provider for this forum. This is especially important when it come to password recovery and two-factor authentication.
 
SharpBits said:
If you are using Yahoo mail (or related ATT mail), this forum has trouble sending emails to those domains and maybe a few others. Better to switch to another email provider for this forum. This is especially important when it come to password recovery and two-factor authentication.
Click to expand...
Well I received notification of your reply. I use Gmail.
 
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