Forschner Restoration

I’ve had my WE for 14 months now. This past weekend I finally decided my Forschner’s  edge needed restoration. Using it daily on a hard maple board to cook for myself, I watched the edge slowly accumulate microchips. My sweetie was cutting just fine; I just thought about a dozen chips were enough. Plus, half her edge was no longer responding to maintenance.

I’m very happy to get that much service out of an  edge on a lower tiered blade, just stamped chromium steel.  I now understand why the Forschner was considered one of the best  values for the money for years. I don’t know where they stand now; my 12″ is 25 years old, so I’ve been out of touch.

Microchips are a fact of life; it is  normal wear/tear of a knife edge, IMHO. Any edge is going to endure terrible stresses as they cut and chop. That edge is going to roll over, like it or not. Repeated roll over/straightening cycles merely weaken the metal at any given point on the edge, just like working a metal wire back and forth until it breaks.  A technician can do some things to slow the microchip forming process, but getting a whole year out of my sweetie makes that consideration moot. One  shouldn’t immediately suspect the quality of his  blade if he see a microchip. I’d get worried if my blade accumulated chips by the dozen, however.

This was my first restoration; I didn’t know what grit to start with. I tried 600, but being too slow,  moved to  400. Paydirt! Taking my time, I got my sweetie polished and lethal in about 45minutes. The WE is very impressive.

3 users thanked author for this post.

NotSharpEnuff, tcmeyer, Marc H