Nicks on the blade

[Mike DAustin]

Found a couple nicks on the blade near about 2/3 of the way toward the bolster. Just out of the blue on my Yamashin White #1 Santoku 165mm.
Never dropped the knife to had any run ins with bones. Any suggestions for how to remedy?

I've attached a photo.

Thanks,

Mike

[gladius]

Sharpen as needed and they will work themselves out eventually. They won't hurt cutting performance.

[Mike DAustin]

thanks!

[Peter Nowlan]

I would hold the knife at almost 90 deg, as if you were trying to embed the edge into the stone. Then shift the angle slightly to 80 deg or so and with light pressure on a coarse stone grind alternating from left to right, I.e. Shifting from working on the right side of the blade to the left. Just do this a few times then move to your normal sharpening angle. The knife will be quite dull of course but I don't like sharpening with nicks in the edge. You need to get to the bottom of those nicks and this is just how I do it. Just my technique, others work of course.

[ken123]

As Peter suggests.
The straight razor honers refer to this as 'breadknifing' the edge. Why I have no idea To me this edge is borderline doing a breadknifing or just sharpening at your normal angles. The problem you can get into sharpening 'normally' is overgrinding too much on one spot so you get a wavy edge shape. Peter's approach is IMO the safest way to go.

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Ken

[Peter Nowlan]

Thanks Ken, I had heard the term "breadknifing" but forgot to ask what it was, now I know.

[ken123]

Harrelson Stanley and even Cliff Stamp also have mentioned similar concepts as well. I came to this approach the hard way, trying to dig myself out of a mess that just kept getting worse. Some knowledge obtained by suffering burns itself into your knowledge base with a heavy footprint.

The Nubatama 24 grit youtube video is a particularly brutal demo of this technique.
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Ken

[Peter Nowlan]

As a matter of fact I think I learned this from watching Harrelson do it on a 500 SG.

[desol]

That's a sizeable chip. When you're done 'breadknifeing' it down, you'll have lost 1mm of core and lost 1mm of cross sectional geometry...possibly resulting in a now needed thinning. Some knives I've chosen to leave a chip that size, some I've chosen to take it right out. I'm very careful with expensive knives...cheaper knives it's not such a big deal to sacrifice core.

My advice is to try to focus on what caused it. Cutting something too hard? Twisting on the cut? etc...

You could bread~knife it a bit...and thin it a bit and when you're done it'll be close to gone and the knife will be thin and sharp.