Rescue Me

In an earlier posting about the kitchen knives I have accumulated, more than one was a rescue knife.  By rescue knife I mean it had been abused in the past and left for dead.  I don't find good ones in that shape very often but when I do I snatch them up and give them a little TLC.  The two rescue knives in the pic are the 2nd up from the bottom on the right side, and the 2nd down on left side. 

This rescue knife is the 2nd down on the left.  It is a J. A. Henckels 10" Chef knife.  New, this knife probably went for $100.  I got it at a thrift store for $0.50.  You can't really see in this picture how badly it has been treated, but trust me, it was in bad shape.  It looks as though someone took it to a grinding wheel thinking they could sharpen it that way.

Here you can get an idea of how it was treated.  There are deep scratches, scuffs and grind marks going every which way.  The edge was damaged in places and there was no way this could be used in the state it was in.

So the first thing I do is make a plan and try to stick to it.  I look it over and see that the cutting edge is uneven but the spine is straight.  The tip has been ground down and there are battle scars on the spine.  The guard/bolster area needs to be taken down a bit for the knife to cut properly.  As you can see in this pic I have drawn a line at the tip that I will cut off at the portaband.  While cutting it I dipped it in water many times to keep the steel cool.  After cutting the tip off it's time to take it to the knife grinder.  When the tip was cut it left the area thicker than the tip should be.  My first step is to thin the tip down so it flows with the rest of the blade.  I can't tell you how wet my hands got grinding this blade.  It went into water after every second or two of grind time and I touched it to make sure I didn't let too much heat build up and ruin the heat treating.

This was a very slow process and after an hour and a half of grinding it looked pretty good.  Unfortunately I had to grind off the makers mark but it had to be done.  I turned my attention to the handle which had some scarring.  First I tried to buff the handle but it instantly caused friction burns.  Next I got out the sandpaper and went at it with that.  It will not have the shiny handle it once had but it will still feel good in the hand.

I notice the edge isn't as rounded, when compared to my 8" Henckels chef knife.  The edge is more like that of a Sabotier.  From the handle, the edge is fairly flat 75% of the way to the tip.  It should perform well in the kitchen though.

It needs to be sanded a little more to make everything nice and even looking.  Then it will get a good sharpening.  At that point it will be ready to give away to some unsuspecting victim...I mean to one lucky reader of The Backyard Pioneer.

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There was a minor setback with the Give Away knife.  It seems to have a crack in the blade close to the handle.  I noticed it as I was hand sanding the blade.  A line kept showing up perpendicular to the edge as the 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper went over it.  After seeing it happen a few times I turned the blade over and tried on that side.  The line was about 12mm long and went to the edge and around the other side the same distance.  Looking online, I found J. A. Henckels website, printed out their customer relations information and packed the knife up to send back to them.  It went in the mail on March 26th.  Hope their customer service is as great as their knives are.  I informed them that this knife was going to be given away and their reputation was on the line.

When I hear something I will update the post and proceed from there.