Gustav Emil Ern

[Gossie]

My husband's father ran a pizza place many many years ago. We have the butcher knife from that place (we have an old pizza pan too). They both mean a lot to us.

The knife is about a 12" inch butcher knife, might be 14, I don't have a measuring tape. It looks like someone used it to hack down bushes. It has about 3 small triangular nicks in the blade. Do you think that it can be reground??? Makes me sad that someone would abuse it that way.

 

[Andy M.]

The nicks can be ground out and the knife will still be good. Take it to a pro to fix the edge and sharpen it.

Will you use a 12" to 14" butcher's knife?

 

[Gretchen]

She may be talking about a total length and not just the blade which would make it a more manageable size.

 

[thymeless]

You don't really need to worry about the nicks. Just sharpen it, steel it, and use it. Over time, you'll sharpen the nicks out. Just accept them as part of the character of your Father in Law.

Only if the nicks are causing problems in your work would I bother to have it reground. Grinding can take a lot of life out of the blade.

I had a Wusthof 10 inch chef's knife that I loved. It got knocked off the counter one day and landed right on it's point. Snapped in two pieces. I kept the handle end with about 4.5 inches of blade for a number of years. It was sort of an early blunt Santoku and cut great. Ugly, but it was a great knife just the way it was.

thymeless

 

[Gossie]

The blade is about 12" ... I'm estimating. It could be 10", what do I know.

The nicks are almost in the center of the blade. A little higher tho. One is a good size nick. I thought maybe when I made pizza, I could use it for cutting into slices. I don't want to stress the blade too much. I'm thinking if I do use this too too much, that I WILL damage it. It has been sharpened before, I can tell. Funny thing is, before I even knew my husband, when I was in my early teens, I remember this knife. I remember seeing his father using it to cut slices into pizza. Yes, I used to go to this pizza house w/my parents. Hmmmm Hmmm good. Wish I had the recipes. The pizza place was owned by 3 brothers, so I'm hoping one of the brothers' families has the recipes.

By the way, Steve's father's name is NICK!!! LoL Steve says I cook very much like his father, I take that as a very high compliment.