Chipped Knife? How to Fix It and Stop It Happening Again

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Updated September 2026 · 8 min read · UK Japanese-steel knife specialists

You have found a nick in the edge, and you want to know whether the knife is ruined. It almost certainly is not. A chip is a sharpening problem, not the end of a blade — and one that most people can sort out themselves in half an hour on a coarse stone.

The rule of thumb: chips up to about 2 mm deep come out at home. Anything deeper, or a snapped tip, is worth handing to a professional sharpener, because you are no longer sharpening — you are reshaping the blade.

And the second question, which matters more: chips are almost never caused by age. They are caused by five specific things, all of which you can stop doing today. Both halves are below — the repair first, then the prevention.

How to fix a chipped knife

The principle is simple, even if it sounds alarming: you cannot fill a chip in, so you grind the rest of the edge down to meet it. Once the new bevel sits below the deepest point of the chip, the chip has gone. Then you rebuild the edge through the finer grits as normal.

1. Find the deepest point. Hold the edge up to a light and look straight down it. The bright spots are damage. Note the deepest one — that is how far the whole edge has to come back.
2. Soak a 400-grit stone. Coarse and medium stones want a proper soak, until the stream of bubbles stops. Set it on a damp cloth so it cannot slide.
3. Grind at your normal angle. About 15° per side — the same angle you would sharpen at, not a steeper one. Work the chipped section with firm, even pressure, pushing away from you and returning with almost none.
4. Check every twenty strokes. Look down the edge again. The bright line will shrink. Keep going until it disappears completely; stopping early leaves a weak spot that will chip again in the same place.
5. Blend the rest of the edge in. The repaired section is now slightly recessed. Work along the whole blade, heel to tip, so the profile stays a smooth curve rather than developing a dip.
6. Flip and match. Do the same on the other face until you raise a burr along the full length. If you have never felt one, our guide to what a burr is explains what you are looking for.
7. Refine and finish. 1000 grit to set the working edge, 3000 to refine it, 8000 if you have it. Then a few feather-light alternating passes to take the burr off.

Expect fifteen to forty minutes depending on the damage. It is slow, dull work and it is entirely worth it — the alternative is a knife you stop reaching for. The full method is in our guide to sharpening a knife on a whetstone.

When to stop and get it repaired properly

Hand it to a professional sharpener if any of these apply:

• The chip is deeper than about 2 mm. Grinding that much off by hand tends to leave the edge crooked — straight one moment, dipped the next.
• The tip has broken off. Restoring the tip means regrinding the whole front curve, not just the edge. Get it wrong and the knife looks permanently odd.
• There are several chips along one section. The amount of steel that has to come off starts to change the blade's profile.
• The steel crumbles as you sharpen. Rare, but it points to a heat-treatment fault rather than damage — worth having someone look at it before you spend an hour on the stone.

What almost never justifies replacing a knife is the chip itself. Unless the blade is cracked or bent, the steel is fine — it is the last half-millimetre of it that has been damaged, and there is plenty more behind.

Why Japanese-steel knives chip in the first place

Our Japanese-steel knives are built around a hard, high-carbon stainless core — VG10 or AUS-10 — hardened to roughly 60–61 HRC. That hardness is what holds the edge, and it is also why the very edge is less forgiving than a softer European blade.

The steel in a Japanese-style knife is usually harder than the steel in a European one — typically around 60–61 HRC against roughly 56–58. Hardness buys you two things: an edge that can be ground much thinner, and an edge that stays keen far longer. What it costs you is a change in failure mode. A softer edge rolls when it meets something it should not; a harder edge chips. Neither is better in the abstract — but the harder one gives you a knife that cuts better for longer, provided you use it for cutting. If you want the background on hardness figures, we have a full explainer on the Rockwell hardness scale.

That is the honest trade-off, and it is worth knowing before you buy rather than after. We answer the buying-decision version of this question separately in do Japanese knives chip easily?

The five things that actually cause chips

1. A board harder than the steel

If the board is harder than the steel — glass, stone, ceramic, or a hard composite — the board wins every time. This is the single most common cause and the easiest to fix: use end-grain or edge-grain wood, or a soft plastic board. Our guide to chopping boards covers which is which.

2. Bone, frozen food and hard rind

Chicken bones, anything straight from the freezer, the skin of an uncooked squash, the stone in a mango or an avocado. A thin hard edge meeting a hard immovable object does not push through it — something has to give, and it is the steel. Use a cleaver or a heavier Western knife for bone, and let frozen things thaw. Crusty bread will not chip a blade, but sawing at it with a gyuto will dull one fast; that is what a bread knife is for.

3. Twisting, prising and levering

Halving a butternut squash by burying the blade and then forcing it sideways is splitting, not cutting, and it puts lateral load on an edge designed only for downward pressure. The same goes for prising open packaging, levering out a stone, or scraping chopped food off the board with the edge — turn the knife over and use the spine.

4. Drawer storage and knocks

A loose knife in a drawer is knocking against other metal every time the drawer moves. Most mystery chips arrive this way, discovered later with no idea what caused them. A magnetic rack, an in-drawer organiser or the knife's own scabbard removes the problem entirely — see our three methods for Japanese knife storage.

5. Sharpening the bevel too shallow

Around 15° per side is the standard for a double-bevel Japanese-style knife, and it is what we recommend across the range. Grinding a noticeably shallower bevel than that leaves an edge too thin to survive normal kitchen use, and chipping is the result. Our guide to the correct Japanese knife sharpening angle explains how to hold it consistently.

What we'd use to repair it — and stop it happening again

If you already own a 400-grit stone, you need nothing from us. If you do not, this is the gap.

So is chipping inevitable?

No. Time does not chip a knife. Every chip has a cause, and in almost every case the cause is on the list above — which is good news, because it means the outcome is in your hands rather than the steel's.

Wood board, no bone, no frozen food, no twisting, stored so nothing touches it, sharpened at 15°. Do those six things and a hard Japanese-steel edge will go years without a mark on it. Our full knife care guide covers the rest of the routine.

Frequently asked questions

Can you sharpen a chip out of a knife?

Yes, for small chips. You grind the whole edge back on a coarse stone until the bevel has gone past the deepest point of the chip, then rebuild the edge through 1000 and 3000 grit. It removes real metal, so you only do it when you need to — but it is normal maintenance, not a repair of last resort.

How big a chip can you fix at home?

Roughly 2 mm deep is the sensible limit. Below that, a 400-grit stone and some patience will take it out without noticeably changing the blade profile. Beyond that you are removing enough steel to alter the shape of the knife, and a professional sharpener will do a straighter job of it.

What causes a Japanese knife to chip?

Almost always one of five things: a board harder than the steel, bone or frozen food, a twisting or prising motion, a drop or a knock in a drawer, or a bevel ground shallower than about 15 degrees per side. Age on its own does not chip a blade.

Does a chipped knife need to be replaced?

Very rarely. A chipped edge is a sharpening problem, not the end of the knife. Even a knife with several small chips usually comes back with one session on a coarse stone. Replacement is only worth considering if the blade is cracked, badly bent, or the steel is crumbling as you sharpen it.

Can a broken knife tip be repaired?

Yes, but it is a reshaping job rather than a sharpening one. The profile has to be reground so the tip curve is smooth again, which shortens the blade slightly. It is doable at home with a coarse stone and care, but this is the case where a professional is usually worth the money.

What angle should you sharpen a Japanese knife to?

About 15 degrees per side for a double-bevel Japanese-style knife, giving roughly a 30-degree included edge. Going noticeably shallower makes the edge thinner than the steel can support at normal cutting pressure, and chipping follows. Going much steeper throws away the keenness you paid for.

Do Japanese knives chip more than European ones?

At the very edge, yes. A harder steel ground to a thinner angle holds a keener edge for longer, and the trade-off is that it chips rather than rolls when it meets something it should not. Used on wood, for food, without twisting, it is not a fragile tool — it is just less forgiving of misuse.

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