I was using the steel on my kitchen knife to straighten out the edge of the blade and noticed the tip of the blade has a 1/8th inch hook to the left …i’d say the entire left turn happens at the last inch of the blade and not very far up the blade maybe a 1/4 inch .
it’s a cheap santoku 5” cuisanart or kitchen aid ?? that has the scalloped blade so food doesn’t stick … so it’s a pretty thin blade .
should i pound it straight ? heat it ? stick it in a vise and bend it ? or leave it alone ?
here is a nicer version of my knife …a much nicer version
This, basically. Just try to bend it back straight. You can probably clamp it in a vise between two wood blocks and work it slowly to get it back straight. You definitely don’t want to heat it!
I wish someone would tell my dad this! I keep telling him to stop, but old habits n such… I think he’s only got about 2 knives left that he hasn’t snapped a half inch off the tip!
I knew heating it was a bad idea but figured bending and pounding is also heating it too ……
I’ll go all anvil on it …
i was using it to scrape the bottom of a Griswold cast iron skillet but i really wasn’t abusing it at all i was just slicing off years of gunk to see if it was a million dollar skillet …
thanks i’ll go give it a beating
It’s called “Cold Forging”, makes it sound more professional
I prefer to use a hardwood block for the ‘anvil’. This both protects that side from scratches and has just enough ‘give’ to deflect a bit past straight under the hammer blow- the metal memory will bring it back to true. A scrap of oak flooring does fine.
+1 thanks for the tip , I also have a Santoku knife that has some damage to the blade, already tried hitting it on a flat floor with a hammer but it is still not perfectly flat, will try the hardwood trick.
Cost benefit = equals don’t try.
Dad just got it gifted to him for x-mas.
Get get your self a good one (if you don’t have one) and hide it.
note that San is 3 so it literally is a knife for three things “The Santoku bōchō (Japanese: 三徳包丁; ”three virtues” or “three uses”) “.
Your dad just made a forth so tell him is it a special “Shitoku” knife, we will know it is a a four uses knife you could even go a grind a screwdriver end on the tip
This is the trick that works for me. Every material is capable of undergoing some elastic deformation. When you stop doing so, it pops back into its original shape. When you apply power beyond the limits of elastic deformation, plastic deformation sets in. The material no longer pops back into its original shape. Press even further and its snaps. The deformation before snapping is small for glass (BTW: ever seen a glass coil spring? Fascinating!), a bit better for aluminum and rather large for steel. Imho it’s useless trying to straighten it out with a hammer on a flat piece of hard wood, because you don’t go beyond elastic deformation. You have to “over”bend it in the other direction, before it can snap back into the desired straight shape.
So I use a vice, and I put a small piece of wood or an elephant against the middle of convex side of the blade (the bulge) to act as hammer. On the other side of the blade I place two small pieces of wood, to allow the blade a negative bend.
Than it is just a matter of gradually increasing pressure on the bulged side of the blade with the elephant, sorry: vice. You have to push things a bit beyond the elastic deformation. After a few seconds you let go of the pressure, the blade pops back and you can see it you have succeeded. If not, try again (a little) further. Beware of overbending unless you want to do the same exercise in the opposite direction. Succes!!
I beat it on a small piece of pine I happened to have in the kitchen and it came back to almost perfect …i think it WAS me using the tip like a scraper on the bottom of the skillet .I’m surprised it bent that easily ….i’ve been guilty of this before …using kitchen knives to carve and then found that I’d warped the blade by expecting too much out of a sharp thin blade … using it to scrape instead of cut …
, I also have a Santoku knife that has some damage to the blade, already tried hitting it on a flat floor with a hammer but it is still not perfectly flat, will try the hardwood trick.
