Sharpening Service Fail?

jdspaw

jdspaw

Joined
May 21, 2013
Messages
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As the general manager of a mom and pop hardware store, I wanted to see what the greater knife community thought of the local sharpening service here in a corner of South Western Connecticut. As background, we had a very cantankerous old bastard doing our sharpening for years. He was mean and uninterested in customer's time frames, but he was excellent at sharpening. Chainsaw chains would come back like new and knife blades would be mirror polished. He fell out with the owner of the store though, and we had to find another service.
Below are a few shots of some knives we got back today:
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In my opinion, these knives were butchered by the service. Maybe these edges are what restaurants want, but I'm fairly sure my customer doesn't want his decent kitchen knives ground unevenly and rough. I know my own knives would never be sharpened like this.
For those of you who operate sharpening services, would edges like this be an industry norm? For those of you who are customers, would you accept these knives back and pay for them?
Thanks for your thoughts.
 
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Those appear to be sharpened on a grinding wheel.

Is your store prepared to compensate the owners of those knives? If those were my knives I would be demanding they be replaced, that is totally unacceptable. Even if the customer requested that small of an angle that job is horrible- uneven bevels, looks like <400 grit finishes, do they even cut paper?
 
They're fairly toothy and do cut. I am anticipating having to make some sort of recompense, then going after the service.
 
That is definitely not normal and not acceptable. I've had my kitchen knives sharpened a few times out and they came back looking brand new. Those have been butchered and I would be demanding a them to pay for the knives or taking them to small claims. It looks like the people had no idea what they were doing and just took a standard bench grinder then couldn't keep a constant angle. I feel bad for you if those are yours.
 
Wow! Those were butchered. That is not professional work.
 
I cannot imagine the look on your face as you opened that box...That is horrendous - have they never seen a sharpened knife before?
 
The pictures made me gasp ( and I'm at work).

My mother had a similar thing happen years ago, an entire set of kitchen knives were "sharpened" like that. She thought it was great until my dad saw them.
 
Wow! That is the worst sharpening job I have ever seen in my life! Those knives are ruined! It is very unfortunate that you are caught in the middle of this. It is very plain to see that the owner of those knives is owed new knives.Those knives are beyond repair. If this was done by a professional service,please post the name of the business and the details in the "Good Bad and Ugly" so others will know about the poor work that they do.
 
My reaction was something like "There's no freakin' way a professional service would destroy knives like this." It's why I started this thread; maybe there's some kind of standard for restaurant blades. I know this company handles several local restaurants and grocery stores.
 
Those edges look like someone held the knives to a curbstone from a moving car.
If i did that to my customers knives only once i would be out of work, and rightfully so.
 
Wow! It looks like a dog chewed on those. I would be pissed off. :mad:
sharpen my lawnmower blades with a 4 1/2" angle grinder and they look better than that. They should buy you new knives. Unacceptable.
 
jdspaw said:
My reaction was something like "There's no freakin' way a professional service would destroy knives like this." It's why I started this thread; maybe there's some kind of standard for restaurant blades. I know this company handles several local restaurants and grocery stores.
Click to expand...

I worked as a suds buster in a decent restaurant when I was a much younger man, but I still recall the cutlery. Mostly Dexter Russel with the white plastic handles. Stuff went out wrapped up nice, came back wrapped up nice, quite sharp and with very ordinary looking edges in terms of grind. The Chef's could keep em in good shape for a quite a few services with nothing more than a steel.

Those are a disaster by any yardstick. Should you need to find another service, send out a single blade for a demo, and keep it handy as a benchmark.
 
How did they do that? It escapes me on what they were thinking when they did that, even when I knew nothing about sharpening as a kid I would know that was beyond bad. And how could a "professional" sharpening service even send that out. I be too embarrassed to send that back to the customer, I would have given them a phone call and ask them how much the knives were worth and send them that and a new set of knives PROPERLY sharpened as a "Sorry we screwed up".
 
Chris_S said:
That is definitely not normal and not acceptable. I've had my kitchen knives sharpened a few times out and they came back looking brand new. Those have been butchered and I would be demanding a them to pay for the knives or taking them to small claims. It looks like the people had no idea what they were doing and just took a standard bench grinder then couldn't keep a constant angle. I feel bad for you if those are yours.
Click to expand...

+1... I had sharpening done before in the San Francisco Bay Area, I dropped my old Gerbers and CRKT folders at a Ace Hardware location, and the sharpening man picks them up there to sharpen in his mobile truck. It was obvious that he just ran my knives through a carbide sharpener. It was $10 each. If these knives were my Spydercos or Bokers I would have taken him to small claims court.
 
Wow, at least the professional sharpener got a little practice. Maybe he'll get better after ruining several more knives.
 
kwackster said:
Those edges look like someone held the knives to a curbstone from a moving car.
If i did that to my customers knives only once i would be out of work, and rightfully so.
Click to expand...

I laughed out loud when I read this. Thanks

Your description sounds about right. That is the worst butch job I have ever seen.
 
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