Resurrecting old kitchen cutlery

[silenthunterstudios]

I've become very picky in regards to the knives I get, and have started buying older knives to fix up for my own use. Several have been older kitchen knives, such as a Case XX Chromium butcher knife I found at a Good Will last year.

A friend of the family, a very good chef in his own right (he's actually been a chef in different parts of Europe), has been "saving" kitchen knives for some time. While at his wood shop(yep, a jack of all trades), we started talking knives. He showed me his high dollar Japanese blade that was a treat to himself. Then he showed me what he really uses. One was the customary Chinese shun style blade, a pretty good knife nonetheless. The others were knives that he had salvaged from restaurants. Good stuff, like Case, JA Henckels, Wusthoff etc. As he is a wood worker, he salvages the blades, sharpens them and makes new handles for them. Some are old and have carbon blades, others are not so old . I really enjoy my specific areas of knife collecting, wilderness themed fixed blades/slipjoints/higher end folders. However, saving old blades from the garbage pile, and turning them into useable works of art just seems like so much fun.

I was going to put this in the Embellishment subforum, but I put this here because I'd like to see your old, resurrected kitchen knives.

 

[grelcar]

I have restored quite a few kitchen knives. I have put together a few sets of vintage Chicago Cutlery (USA) sets that I picked up on the eBay cheap. I used to find these for a couple of bucks each, sets for ten bucks or so. I replace the handles with nicer wood (zebrawood, cocobolo, rosewood) and build a custom block or magnetic bar of matching wood. They seem to take and hold a decent edge. I have given these as gifts with lifetime sharpening to friends.

I once restored a jumbo sized vintage Brickell cleaver. The blade is 11" and hair shaving sharp now. It looked like scrap metal with a handle when I got it.

Greg

 

[butcher_block]

i have fixed up one or 2 for my gram but thats cause thats all she wants to use

 

[tomsch]

I'm fixing up an old Dexter 10" chefs knife. The edge was really bad but I was able to get it crazy sharp with my Edge Pro. Holds an edge much better than my Wusthof classic. The edge is great now so I'm going to sand and finish the handle.

I also have a few vintage cleavers that will be next after this. One Foster Bros I plan on taking off the original handle, buffing the blade, and rehandling with micarta. Not exactly vintage but it should be fun.

 

[tomsch]

I have restored quite a few kitchen knives. I have put together a few sets of vintage Chicago Cutlery (USA) sets that I picked up on the eBay cheap. I used to find these for a couple of bucks each, sets for ten bucks or so. I replace the handles with nicer wood (zebrawood, cocobolo, rosewood) and build a custom block or magnetic bar of matching wood. They seem to take and hold a decent edge. I have given these as gifts with lifetime sharpening to friends.

I once restored a jumbo sized vintage Brickell cleaver. The blade is 11" and hair shaving sharp now. It looked like scrap metal with a handle when I got it.

Greg

I have a Briddell vintage cleaver that will I'll restore soon also. Blade is close to 11" with a handle length to match. WIll be pretty crazy when it is cleaned up.