Broken Knife Tip Advice Topic

[RagallachMC]

The main weapon in my knife arsenal is a 10' Schaaf First Class chef's knife. I first encountered Schaaf knives in a little knife store in Bozeman, Montana. It was love at first sight. I couldn't afford to buy one then, but when I could, this was the first one I bought. I've been working with it for about four years now and I still love it as much as the first day I bought it.

A couple of weeks ago I was prepping in the kitchen and got called away to some meeting. Usually I would roll my knife up in a towel and place it back in my box. For whatever reason, I didn't this time. When I came back from the meeting, I found my knife on the floor next to the table. Someone had obviously bumped the table (more than once, I think) and caused my knife to fall. It hit the ceramic tile, and the tip of the knife broke off. Needless to say, I was EXETREMLY pissed off and peppered the air with some loud curses. I only lost the very tip of the knife, but I've found that to be very annoying when I'm trying to work.

So, what do I do? Can the knife be given a new tip, or am I forced to buy a new knife?

[HKDave]

I assume you mean 10", not 10'....

You need a new knife. Depending on how far down the tip snapped off, a custom knifemaker may be able to grind and polish the tip smooth again. But there's no way to add to the tip, so you can't get the former shape back, and you won't be able to use the tip for fine work. And the cost of having this done will be about the same as a new knife. Plus the balance will be off because the blade is now lighter. Again, a knifemaker could remove some weight from the pommel to compensate for this, but it's just not worth it. It's new knife time.

Find out who did this and kill them, obviously.

[rbm]

Shouldn't be a problem to regrind the tip. The easiest and least disturbing to the edge geometry is to regrind from the back of the blade rather than the cutting edge. If you don't have a grinding machine yourself, enlist the help of a friend with one or a professional machine shop. Reshape the back edge so that it gracefully meets the cutting edge at a point again, but lower down the edge than when it was new. So now, your 10 foot Shaaf will only have a 9 foot - 11 15/16 inch blade.

TIP: Only use aluminium oxide stones (white), not carborundum (grey) as the latter will quickly heat up the tip and ruin the temper in the metal. Also, if at all possible, use a slow RPM grinder (1725 RPM) instead of a high RPM machine (3250 RPM) because the lower RPM machine will keep the heat buildup in check and save the temper on the edge. If you haven't a choice, use a very light touch and cool the blade often. If you get a slight blue tinge to the metal after grinding, you've ruined the temper and the blade may have to be rehardened.

[Bicycle Lee]

a good grinder could defintitely restore your tip...depending, of course, on how much is missing...

[Carolyn Tillie]

Find out who did this and kill them, obviously.

AFTER you've had the knife re-ground and have a fresh tip with which to do the job, obviously.

[McDuff]

A long time ago a buddy of mine got annoyed at my neighbor's in the condo complex I was living in and he used my Henckel's paring knife to flatten all four tires on their car, breaking off the tip while doing this. I reground it, on a grinding wheel, to a sheep's foot shape, and it was, and still is, much improved blade geometry. This repair is not a big deal. Get the yaller pages, find a machine shop, take a guy 5 minutes to do this. It is going to change the knife in a subtle way. But it is very definitely salvageable.

[bourdain]

Sorry.

It's over for the knife.

Grind away all you like--it'll never be the same.

Get a new one.

Then find the perpetrator and use the old one to rudely hack out a kidney.

[pjs]

A long time ago a buddy of mine got annoyed at my neighbor's in the condo complex I was living in and he used my Henckel's paring knife to flatten all four tires on their car, breaking off the tip while doing this.

Yup, steel-belted radials are a bitch. The pros stick the sidewall. Less metal in that area.

BTW I've broken paring knife tips venting frozen pastry. Since then I only use the cheap disposable ones.

PJ

[RagallachMC]

Thanks for the advice, and for mocking my typing error

Since I'm getting conflicting advice, I guess I should take it to my local knife sharpening professional and see what they think.

A blood sacrifice of the person who did this is obviously the first order of business for my new or reground knife.

[winesonoma]

Thanks for the advice, and for mocking my typing error

Since I'm getting conflicting advice, I guess I should take it to my local knife sharpening professional and see what they think.

A blood sacrifice of the person who did this is obviously the first order of business for my new or reground knife.

Blood sacrifice only with the old knife. Why fuck up the new one.

[Sentiamo]

Chuck it.

Have a burying ceremony, light candles, sing a well known dirge, ( or better still, compose your own) and then have the replacement knife inflict severe pain on the perpetrator of tip loss, as a lesson to both. You could always bury the body parts with dead knife too of course, and arrange for weekly deliveries of flowers to the burial site.

On second thoughts, a quick wrist action into your trash can with damaged goods will see it over in a flash. And....think of all the good fun y'all have searching for the next Mr/Ms Right!! ( or left, whatever hand ya are!)

Bloody ceramic tiles. Carpet ya kitchen I say.

[rbm]

I really don't understand the advice in this thread that it's over for the knife.

If the knife struck the ceramic floor from counter height, it can only be a small part of the tip that has broken off, maybe 2mm max. So a simple regrind will restore the point. But how much of the knife's balance can be put off by the loss of about 20 grams of metal at the tip???!!! You can compensate (if one can even sense this imbalance) by adjusting the rear of the handle. But we're talking about removing maybe 5% of the total mass of the knife. That's _noise_ (in electrical terminology) -- it has little or no effect. Even if you look at the moment arm changes caused by reshaping the tip, it will push the CofG backward a millimeter or less! Who can feel this small change!

This is a knife for cutting food. You're not throwing this knife in a circus display!

As one poster pointed out, you can regrind the tip to get better performance than before the breakage.

Geez, if you're going to chuck the knife, RagallachMC, mail it to me! I'll take it!

[McDuff]

Since I'm getting conflicting advice, I guess I should take it to my local knife sharpening professional and see what they think.

You're not really getting conflicting advice. You're hearing from people who have been/there done/that with the grinding thing, and from people who have no idea what they are talking about. Go look at the thread on sharpening with waterstones, started by this guy rbm who appears in this thread, and ask yourself, does this guy have a clue? Yeah, I think so!

[LaurieB]

I think some conflicting advice that you're getting is to remove a kidney, or other vital bodily part, with the knife AFTER it's been reground. I would suggest removing that body part BEFORE. Then take it to the knife guy.

In my opinion.

[Samhill]

As people above have said, you don't want the edge or sides touched, just the back/spine opposite the edge. I've done this to a 12" carbon chef's that my mom had been using in the garden, the tip was very rounded off. I just clamped it in a vice, edge down, and went to town with a 12" Nicholson "Mill Bastard" single cut file, It took a little time, but it was pretty simple. These files should be available at any good hardware store for about 15 bucks. No chance of drawing the temper of the blade with this technique, there isn't enough heat build up, and the process is a lot more controllable than with a grinder.

Don't throw it away.

[McDuff]

proof that a light touch on a grinding wheel will work.

[Samhill]

I just clamped it in a vice, edge down,

I should add, the vice had wooden jaws, if it has metal jaws, you'd want to pad them with thick leather or pieces of wood to protect the blade. Also, you can clean up any file marks with 320-600 grit "wet or dry" sandpaper on a wood block.

[Samhill]

proof that a light touch on a grinding wheel will work.

No doubt, I used what I had available. I'm also partial to hand tools over power tools. I was just passing along how I did it...

Edited April 13, 2004 by Samhill (log)

[HKDave]

Since I'm getting conflicting advice, I guess I should take it to my local knife sharpening professional and see what they think.

You're not really getting conflicting advice. You're hearing from people who have been/there done/that with the grinding thing, and from people who have no idea what they are talking about. Go look at the thread on sharpening with waterstones, started by this guy rbm who appears in this thread, and ask yourself, does this guy have a clue? Yeah, I think so!

I think the conflicting advice you're getting is from people that expect the tip of a chef's knife to have the classic shape, vs people that know a lot about grinding metal. Both groups might be right.

If you follow the advice above and work from the back, leaving the sides and blade intact as much as possible, you'll end up with a more dropped tip shape. It would be a useable knife, but it's not the shape your knife was. Maybe this new shape will work for you, but if you have classic French knife technique and/or you use this knife for any fine work, I bet you'll end up getting a new knife. There's a reason that chef's knives look like they do.

The alternative would be to take the blade back far enough so that you could get the original shape back. That means working from all sides, and would result in a shorter blade. I do think that would remove enough metal to affect the balance, but I defer to the metal-grinders expertise on that.

Anyway, nothing to lose - give the repair a try, use the 'fixed' knife for a shift, and tell us if it worked. Have you killed the perp yet? I think we all agree on that point.

[Bombdog]

BTW I've broken paring knife tips venting frozen pastry. Since then I only use the cheap disposable ones.

I did this once too....with a Henckles paring knife.

My EX, who thought I was waaaaay to anal about my knifes thought it was funny.

She laughed a second time when I opened an ice pick on Christmas Day.

Did I mention she was my EX?

[thebaker]

Last night during service my Henckels chef knife took a spin of the counter and a good chunk of the tip snapped off. (ahhhhh)

Does anyone know of a place in NYC that can retip it

But on a stone, not on a grinding wheel...

thanks for the help...

[Rebel Rose]

Why don't you just sharpen it on the Henckel's Birch Cutting Board?

[Sam Salmon]

I think I understand why you want a stone used instead of a grinding wheel-you're concerned about losing the temper of the metal.

However if a low speed grinding wheel is used with care that won't happen.

It will cost you a fortune for someone to hand shape a new tip on a stone-much more than he cost of a new knife.

[Samhill]

1)Buy a 10" Nicholson 'Mill Bastard' (Yes that's what it's called) Single Cut file. $14 bucks at a decent hardware store.

2)Put knife edge down in a wood jawed vice, or pad a metal jawed vice with door framing shims bought at same store.

3)File *back of blade* until back of blade meets edge of blade.

4)Sharpen knife.

*edit

Edited June 16, 2004 by Samhill (log)

[iriee]

send it back to henkels,,,there guarenteed for life,,,im on my third one. call a henkel dealer or look it up on the web to find out where to send it. good luck!