Editing Blog/2026-01-27/Life Is Intense (section)

== The Knives ==

When Julie and I combined our household supplies we each had a nice Japanese carbon steel knife and then someone gifted us one for our wedding. For the first few years that I owned my knife I took pretty good care of it, but I wasn't entirely professional with it and if you know high-carbon-steel knives they eventually get all these marks and this and that, and they're also harder on upkeep.

Anyway, I took the knives to Bernal Cutlery who have a massive backlog but are familiar with the Japanese edge-bias and with the double-bevel of the Sabatier. It took them a month to get to them, which is perfectly fine (though it seems they get most of their business through the rush orders which take a few days) and it cost me $82 for the total of 25 inches or so including fixing a chip on one of them.

I brought them home and tried to cut off a thin slice of a grape and I did adequately well, I think. If there was a flaw in performance it wasn't the knife's fault.