I’ve not contacted Shun (yet i may still, gonna see if I can work it out on my own). I’m actually surprised that you claim they have great prices for their quality. They’re widely considered to be good quality but over priced. But Shuns are frequently on sale, which tends to bring them into “good deal” or “appropriately priced” territory. I paid a bit less than half MSRP for mine.
BUT ANYWAY. I was a bit shocked when it started happening as well, and I’ve done a lot of searching online to figure out what’s gone wrong, or what I’m doing wrong. Apparently Shun’s steel can be (or could be in the past) pretty inconsistent. Supposedly a few lines have been discontinued, or steel mixtures abandoned because of problems like mine. From what I gather from consumer complaints and blade geeks online who’ve tried to fix these problems there’s one of a few things going on. Some of the knives with this problem have tiny but visible air bubbles in the steel. Others have incredibly minute bands of much weaker and heavily corrosion prone steels in them. Basically what happens is the knife is fine out of the box and for a good while afterwards. But after you sharpen it a few times you expose the flaws in the metal. The bands in steel either fracture because their so weak, or corrode out from moisture in the air. And you get tiny little square bits of metal mysteriously flaking off your blade (which is what I’ve got). With the bubbles you typically thin the metal over them enough that it gets brittle, when it flakes off you get a blade that weirdly pitted, and potentially big ass cracks. Grinding out the damage just exposes more flawed metal and it starts over again.
Now from what I understand Shun’s VG-10 steel was one of the ones with a big problem with bubbles, they’re still using it but quality control is supposed to be a lot better. My knife is a Shun Pro Nakiri. The line was discontinued/rebranded not long after I bought it (why I got it cheap). Seems to have been replaced by the “Shun Classic Pro” line which uses the VG-10. The older ones were vg-0165n, another steel that was supposedly problematic. And I’ve seen the Pro and Pro II lines specifically called out for having bad quality control, and poorly designed blades.
None of this seems to be particularly well known, I had trouble finding info on it. Still its entirely possible the metal has been thinned too much at the edge, the knife as some goofyness over all in how it was ground at the factory. I also can’t shake the feeling that its pretty unlikely I got one of the bum knives, and I’ll find out I did do something wrong with my sharpening. So I’ll grind it out at least one more time before seeing if Shun will replace a discontinued knife. I’ve heard conflicting things about replacements from them.
i guess i’m comparing them to higher-end japanese knives with vg10, if you look into a 270mm vg10 yani, you’re talking ~$300 if you can find one that cheap, but shuns go for less than $200 with the same steel. mine was a christmas present from my parents, but i figured out where they got it and it was ~$120… i’m assuming that was on sale, but that’s dirt cheap for a yanagi with decent steel. according to my reading at the time, vg10 was outperforming hitachi’s crazy popular blue/white steels in blades.
i’m surprised there’d be problems like that with japanese steel. i bet someone got seriously fired. lol…
I agree, it shaves metal off the knife longitudinally, destryoying the aligned grain structure, while using a whetstone or diamond plates in a somewhat diagonal motion preserves the grain. Even though numerous professional sharpeners use rotating sanding belt systems run on electrical motors or sharpening wheels, I stay away from those because they build up heat and can detemper the blade, weakening them and lessoning the life of the edge. The best system, IMHO, is the Wicked Edge, as offered by www.WickedEdgeUSA.com I have the basic system with a paperstone base and added the 800/1000 grit diamonds and get my kitchen cutlery scary sharp. Yes, I paid exactly $400.000 for everything I have at the time I purchased them, plus shipping, but it’s been a sound investment, not to mention that I’ve also sharpened other people’s kitchen cutlery, pocket and hunting knives and a few combat knives for co-workers, and made every dime back and got a bit of a profit out of it.
I love my wicked edge sharpening system, bought some used kitchen cutlery at an estate auction some years back and they were duller than dull and my wicked edge brought them back to life. They were Henkel’s as well and a couple of Wusthofs, paid maybe a few bucks per, ten at the most for about fifteen knives. What surprises me most is that a lot of people pay good money for cutlery sets, and not knowing how to properly care for them.
I would say scary sharp, enough so that you wouldn’t know that you accidentally cut yourself, until you see your own blood staining your cutting board and food.
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Eh quality control is quality control. You get a bad batch of steel and don’t catch it your gonna put out some funky product. People seem to fetishize Japanese knives/steel. But, particularly when dealing with mass manufactured products, there’s really nothing objectively better about it. Also from what I understand provided your using an appropriate modern tool steel the heat treatment has much more to do with the final product than steel choice.
But I think its a bit important to note that Shun is not a Japanese company. They’re owned/run by KAI/Kershaw an American company run out of Oregon. And the knives are largely targeted, and sold, to the American market. Managing your quality control and supply chain from across the Pacific is going to be a bit more difficult (and less consistent) than if your a short drive from your factory and suppliers. Honestly I’m surprised they have had as few issues as they do, and that they seem relatively quick to move past them.
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Some steel and (more rarely) aluminium swarf is like that. And some glass shards.
Don’t ask how I know…
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