I Do Knife Repair — Broken or Bent Points or Tips

When people bring me knives to be sharpened I am often brought knives that need repair. The most common reason that a knife is brought to me for repair is because of a broken point.

The very end  of a knife is called the point — though most people call it the tip.

Henckel Knife with Broken Point

Here is a 'before' picture of a Henckel knife with a broken point. The usual cause of a broken point is using the knife as a pry bar, and trying to break apart frozen food.

Henckel Knife with Reground Point

Here is the after, after the knife was reshaped to restore the point. I see in this picture that the tip of the blade does not look as smooth as the repair looked in real life.

Kitchen Knife with Bent Tip

Here is a knife with a bent tip. This can be repaired. Sometimes the tip can be straightened, sometimes it can't be straightened and the tip has to be removed and then reshaped.

Other common problems that I see and repair are chips in the blade, loose handles and rust spots. I usually clean up rust spots that are on the knife as part of the sharpening, along with most chips in the blade. Loose handles can be repaired — glued usually — right during the sharpening, though in some cases I would want to take home and return to the customer the next week.

Pitted Blade on Shun Chef's Knife

I can remove pits, nicks and chips on the blades. This picture is a Shun knife with a pitted cutting edge. The pits are bad news because — while the blade can be sharpened back to as new condition — to do so means grinding off a fair amount of steel... I see a lot of pitted blades on Shun knives.

Broken Point on Kitchen Knife

A GIANT portion of the tip was broken off of this knife. The decision was made to simply reshape to a blunt tip — as the condition did not warrant a complete reshaping.

Kitchen Knife with Reshaped Tip

Here is the finished knife. The tip was reshaped, the bolster was trimmed back, and the knife was sharpened — all ready to go back to work!

Serrated knives can be sharpened — I sharpen them all the time. What can't be done is to replace or restore worn serrations, or teeth. After a certain time a serrated knife can be worn smooth — and can no longer be sharpened as a serrated knife.

Very Worn Serrated Knives

The picture above shows two serrated bread knives brought to me for sharpening. I explained to the customer that the serrations were too worn to sharpen as a serrated knife. 

We decided to sharpen them as a plain edged knife.

Serrated Knives Sharpened as Plain Edged Knives

Here are the knives after sharpening. These knives were serrated bladed knives that were sharpened as a plain edged knives.

The knives are sharp and have a nice, proper cutting edge. There are visible remnants of the serrations — the decision was made to sharpen to just where the cutting edge is restored and then stop. The remnants are cosmetic only — and will gradually disappear after repeated sharpening.