Five ways to break your knife

Japanese knives have the best reputation for being really stunning pieces of kitchen kitchen. This means you really want to test it to it’s limits to see if it’s really good and, hey, if it works for cutting, surely it is equally effective at a whole range of household tasks? Here are five thing a to try which are absolutely guaranteed to break your beautiful Japanese knife...*

1) KNIFE AS MULTITOOL: is your screwdriver lurking at the bottom of your tool bag? Need to get that paint can lid off pronto? Want to prod something that probably shouldn’t be prodded with something pointy? Well your Japanese knife is pointy. Give it a go... particularly effective in electrical sockets.**

2) DISHWASHER IS KING: sometimes giving your knife a wipe under the tap and on a tea towel is just too much effort. Those seconds aren’t well spent when you can just bung it on a 90 degree three hour hot wash in the dishwasher. This way you are really guaranteed to clean all those sticky bits of glue out of the handle, get your patina going nicely orange, plus if you stick it on that little cutlery rack thing on the top it gives it absolute protection - it was just made for Japanese knives. 

3) HARDCORE STEELING: you’ve seen all those billy big balls top chefs on the telly? Well they swear by taking a steel sharpening rod and running their knives up and down both side, so it’s gotta be Michelin-star effective? Steel is hard, so steel on steel has got to be super effective? Particularly when you do it hard and fast with almost no precision? Right?

4) GO THROUGH ANYTHING: Japanese knives are superior precision tools so this means they can go through anything no problem. After all those vegetable ones look like cleavers. Have a go... wood, bones, ice, stones. Hack away and if you chip the edge, just have another go and hit it harder, there’s plenty of edge to experiment with. 

5) KEEP IT BOX FRESH: hell you’ve spend a good whack of your pay cheque on it and it looks terrifyingly sharp so the best place for it is in the paper in the box in a drawer. Can’t hurt anyone there. Hide it away and it won’t cut you, cut anyone, or cut anything and it will keep that mirror polish blindingly bright.*** ****

*disclaimer: if it wasn’t abundantly obvious, this is highly tongue in cheek. Don’t do ANY of these things... for, hopefully, obvious reasons
** particularly this
*** this won’t break the knife as much as our hearts
**** in all seriousness, do use it, don’t abuse it. Most damage can be undone, just be sensible. And if you try and use one of those pull through ceramic sharpeners on it, you are a lost cause.

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