Can a chipped knife edge be repaired?

Yes. Small chips grind out on a coarse stone around 400 grit by lowering the edge until the chip is gone, then re-sharpening up through the grits. Deeper chips take longer but are usually fixable on a whetstone, or Knives and Stones can restore the edge for you.

Why Did My Knife Chip or Dull, and How to Fix It

Q: Why did my Japanese knife chip?

Chips usually come from contact with bone, frozen food or hard boards, or from twisting a thin edge sideways. Japanese knives trade some toughness for sharpness, so use a wood or soft-plastic board, cut straight down rather than prying, and keep heavier tasks for a sturdier knife.

Q: Why did my Japanese knife chip or go dull, and how do I fix it?

Chips come from hard contact (bone, frozen food, ceramic, the sink); dulling from normal wear or a bad edge. Grind past the chip on a coarse stone, then resharpen.

What causes chips and rapid dulling on Japanese knives, and how to grind out a chip and restore the edge on a whetstone.

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From the Knives and Stones workshop

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Restoring a badly sharpened Japanese knife: the cause and the fix. You probably seen one before

Fixing a Japanese Knife Chip, Cheap as Chips

Questions about this

Why did my Japanese knife chip or go dull, and how do I fix it?

Chips almost always come from hard contact: bone, frozen food, a ceramic plate, or the edge knocking the sink or a glass board. Rapid dulling usually means either normal wear or an edge that was sharpened at too steep or inconsistent an angle and never fully refined.

To fix a chip, grind the edge down on a coarse stone until the chip is gone along the whole edge, then work back up through the grits to restore a clean, even bevel. It removes a little steel, but a chipped edge only gets worse if you ignore it.

Our K&S take: a 400 grit (for example within a Naniwa Chosera 400/1000/3000 ladder) does the heavy repair, then the 1000 and higher refine. Keep the stone flat with an Atoma plate so the repaired edge stays true.

✓ Verified by Knives and Stones · James Zhang · Reviewed 3 Jun 2026

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