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Sharpening Q & A

Sharpening Service

Ever wonder what happens to your knife when you send it in for sharpening? How do we fix a broken tip, anyway? How long will I be without my beloved knives?

You’ve got questions, we’ve got answers. Plus, some tips for always getting the most from your beautiful knives.

Lightbulb with text Pro tip

Inspect your knives every time you use them.

Check it for cracks, chips, or rust. If you spot any of these things, send it to us for a thorough inspection. The sooner you spot it, the easier it will be to solve. Learn how to inspect your knives.

Service is free

We will sharpen your Kai cutlery for free, for as long as you own it. You pay for shipping & processing, our sharpening services are FREE. Learn more about our sharpening service.

Walk-in service

If you are in the Portland metro area, you may also bring your Kai knives in for free sharpening. Learn more about walk-in service.

Before sharpening, try honing.

Even though your knife may feel dull, it may not need sharpening. As you use your knife your edge rolls over to one side or the other. This is normal. Honing straightens out a rolled edge.

A honing steel enables you to re-align the edge so that the razor-sharp edge is once again gliding through the food as you cut. To hone, align the flat side of the blade with the 16° angle guide on the hand guard of your Shun honing steel. Maintaining that angle, gently pull the blade down the steel from heel of blade to tip. Some cooks hone once a week, some hone every day depending on usage. Learn more about sharpening vs honing.

When your knife is dull and honing no longer provides improvement, it’s time for sharpening. You can send it to us for sharpening, or we offer a variety of tools to sharpen on your own. Shop sharpening and honing tools.

Cross section of a knife blade showing a rolled edge and severely rolled edge

A cutting edge can roll to one side or the other, and varies along the blade. Honing can straighten this out, as long as it isn’t too severe, making your knife feel sharp again.

Dull edge? Broken tip?
We can help.

There are a number of reasons why a knife tip might break, or the blade chips—apart from accidentally dropping it on a hard surface. Learn more about your knives at our FAQ page.

Good news - we can sharpen it back to a pointy tip, or a flat edge! Rolled edge that honing can’t correct? We can fix that too.

We re-sharpen your knives on the same type of sharpening wheel used to put the original edge on the knife. Called a hiromai, it is a horizontal wheel that uses a wet sharpening method to protect the knives from over-heating during sharpening, so they retain their tempering.

Because sharpening removes metal from your knife, your blade will look different than it did originally. This is normal and to be expected.

For standard sharpening it removes very little blade material. But to repair a broken tip, or chipped blade we have to remove more material to bring it back into shape.

Sharpening a knife at our US headquarters

Repair a broken tip

To re-form a broken tip, we must remove material from both the spine and cutting edge. This means your repaired blade will have a slightly different shape and be shorter than it was originally.

Repair a chipped edge

We can sharpen out small chips (2mm or under). To do so, we need to remove all the metal in line with the chip making your blade narrower than it originally was. This should not affect its performance. The cutting edge will be thicker so it may not feel as sharp as brand new, but it will be precisely the same cutting angle. Severe chips or cracks that extend into the cladding may not be repairable.

If you have any questions for our warranty and sharpening team, please email us at warrantyinfo@kai-usa.com

A knife before and after sharpening to repair a broken tip or chip.

Why did this happen to my knife?

There are several things that can cause damage to your knife from improper cutting surface to micro-corrosion. Learn more about your knives at our FAQ page.

Do you sharpen shears/scissors?

We’re sorry, but our warranty service center does not have the proper equipment to successfully sharpen scissors/shears. However, we would be happy to hone any of the shears Kai USA sells. Honing simply brings the edge back to true; it does not remove metal from the shears.

If your shears have grown dull or the edges are damaged, we recommend looking for an experienced shear sharpener in your area.

If you have Kasho professional hair shears, please send them to Kasho for sharpening. Learn more at their website.

If you have Kai textile shears, please take them to a experienced shears sharpener in your area.

Shears partially open

Do you sharpen serrated knives?

We’re sorry, but our warranty service center does not have the proper equipment to successfully sharpen serrated knives. However, we would be happy to hone them for you. Honing simply brings the edge back to true; it does not remove metal from the blade.

Bread knife with sliced bread