Or, one man’s story of seduction and betrayal by Calphalon knives.
Once upon a time, on a whim, I bought a Calphalon santoku (see above) at BB&B. For a long time, it lay in a cupboard as some kind of backup knife to be used for experiments in honing or sharpening or anything else kitchenistic that might come up. Because, although Calphalon was famous for their pans—and for good reason, they invented and dominated the high-end non-stick market—I was skeptical Calphalon knives were anything special. A knife was a knife and a pan was a pan. Different engineering.
Then one day I actually dug out my Calphalon santoku from its hording place, released it from its packaging, and took it on a test run. Lo and behold, even through it lacked the proper pedigree of a knife made, say, in Seki City, Japan, or Solingen, Germany, it had a great feel. My hand loved the shape of the handle, the balance, the size of the blade. It felt really really comfy. And I thought, Huh, maybe Calphalon knives aren’t too shabby. So I continued to use my santoku and then, even before it fully dulled, sent it out to my favorite sharpening service (i.e. Seattle Knife Sharpening) for a thorough refurbishing. (Below: my santoku’s handle)
Professional Sharpening Always a Plus
Well, Seattle Sharpening being what it is (outstanding!), my Calphalon santoku came back significantly sharper than the original factory-sharpened blade. It had been transformed into a slicing monster. Which won it even more into my good graces and made it one of my favorite slicing knives, reserved for tasks like slivering cabbage for slaw or cucumbers for salads. Buuuuuut . . .
. . . because Calphalon was a newbie knife marketer and had, most probably, outsourced their manufacturing to Lord-knows-who, I was still skeptical. Plus, the blade said, “Made in China,”—China, who didn’t have a long history of creating high-quality blades. I knew the odds were slim the steel could hold an edge as well as a knife engineered by a name brand maker from Germany or Japan. Nonetheless, I was curious how long the edge could hold—and so far it was holding very, very well. This went on for years.*
Bad News Descends
Then, one day, in Feb 2017, I discovered on the internet that my sweet Calphalon santoku was on a official recall list. What? Manufacturing deficiencies had allowed 3,150 Calphalon knives to break—27 resulting in lacerations, four requiring stitches. (Nothing more serious, thank God.) Two million knives needed to be recalled. Pretty embarrassing. Especially for such a major, well-respected company like Calphalon.
What happened? Well, corporate liability being what it is these days, I knew it wasn’t worth bothering trying to get an answer to that question. So I shrugged and registered online at Calphalon’s knife recall web page—which I’m grateful was simple and fast—and about three weeks later received my official knife recall packaging kit.
Knife Recall Kit
The recall kit was a doozy. It had cardboard knife covers (of course), bubble wrap, a sealable tube for aforesaid bundle, special large round black stickers to keep things together, and finally, a good old-fashioned knife box. Oh, and of course, detailed, 4-color instructions in exactly how to properly pack my knife up. I guess Calaphon wanted to be super-sure there were no more accidents. It did make me chuckle though, and wonder, if Calphalon had taken as much thought and care with their manufacturing as with their recall packaging, maybe they’d be in a better situation.
Moral of the Story
Are we to conclude that Calaphon is run by a band of money-grubbing weasels who thought they could get away with pawning off crappy knives to a trusting, unsuspecting public? I don’t think so. On the other hand, somebody at Calphalon didn’t do their homework. And they ended up trusting some Chinese manufacturer who wasn’t worth trusting. I have heard of Shun knives chipping from being dropped on a tile floor, and of Wusthofs and Henckels getting a tip snapped off from being used as a stand-in for a screwdriver. But entire blades snapping while in use? That’s a new one.
Fortunately, nobody got seriously injured. And Calaphon has done the right thing by recalling two million knives—which is a whole lot of knives. Mine being just one of them.
Back to our moral . . . because for me, there are two timeless truths to be learned from this tale:
1. Knife making is a serious business. And there ain’t any room for short cuts. What it takes to make great knives is not only quality steel, but quality heat treating, and excellent quality control all along the production line. There’s good reason some of the major knife manufacturers have been around for decades, even centuries.
2. Home cooks need to learn to treat their knives right. When I think about how the majority of home cooks tend to abuse their knives (sorry friends, I can’t help but observe), I’m surprised we don’t hear more stories of broken, snapping knife blades. Was I just lucky that I had no problems with my santoku? Maybe . . . but I do know how to properly care for a kitchen knife. And I’m not going to use it to saw through a frozen baguette or power through a chicken leg or some other monkey biz. As a matter of fact, because of the incredible sharpitude of my Seattle-Knives-sharpened blade, I was very very close to not shipping my santoku back. It was painful saying goodbye. But I did.
And I’m waiting on a brand spanking new replacement . . . and, BTW, what is my current opinion of Calphalon knives? Have I banished them from having a right to exist? No, not really. If you’re truly sold on Calphalon and can’t afford to pay more—buy them. (Here’s mine: Calphalon Contemporary 7″ Santoku.) Odds are very slim the same disaster will strike twice—for one would assume the folks at Calphalon have learned their lesson.
But I still think there are better made knives around that will hold their edges longer. And although they’ll cost substantially more, generally, they’re worth the extra moola. See my Best Chef Knives—Six Recommendations for more details.
P.S. For those who want to follow suite and turn in their Calaphon knife, here’s the place to go to find out more:
https://www.calphalon.com/product-recalls.html.
I’m interested to hear how your replacement knife performs! Judging from their recall web page, it looks like quality defects aren’t rare from Calphalon. I was wondering if you’ve encountered similar recalls from other knives in your collection? Is the occasional recall expected from most knife manufacturers?
Hi Ken,
Ha! You know, although I am fond of the feel of the Calphalon santoku, I do have a lot knives to choose from. And most of them have significantly sharper edges than Calphalon’s factory edge. So, to answer your question. . .it’s been sitting in the drawer :(
As far as other knife manufacturers are concerned. . .no, I’m not aware of any knife I own of suffering a recall. Most of my knives are name brand blades and it’s inconceivable to think of Henckels or Shun or any of the other major knife manufacturers issuing a major recall. They all manufacture knives as their core business and take quality very seriously. If they didn’t, they would go out of business. Yes, you do hear of cases of blades cracking or chipping, or tips breaking off, but 9 times out of 10 this is from customer abuse. And depending on the circumstances and knife, the manufacturers still will replace the blade. Here’s one story: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/broken-henckel.368884/
Best, KKG
Love the article. I know for myself I wouldn’t ever expect a knife to snap like that. But I guess people think their knives are all-purpose tools for around the house.
Truer words were never spoken. Although I think the defects were worse than that. . .because I don’t Calaphon would honor a guarantee if a knife broke when being used to pry open a door or something. These knives failed when being used for regular kitchen tasks. Well, who knows, some of the tasks might have been extreme, like hacking through a frozen pork loin or something :)
Best, KKG
Fair enough!
Thanks for the detailed response and the link to the broken Henkels saga. Fortunately, I’ve never broken one of knives, but if I do, it’s good to know that Bed, Bath and Beyond has such a forgiving warranty policy!
All the best,
Ken
Good one !
But I want to know little bit about best kitchen knife sharpeners
Hi Willson,
I have an entire tab (at the top of every page underneath the logo) dedicated to sharpeners and sharpening. You should read articles like:
The Sharpening Cycle and my series about Professional Knife Sharpening Services. But, in a nutshell, my solution to keeping my kitchen knives razor sharp has been to send them out to a high-quality professional sharpener and hone them regularly.
Best,
KKG
My wife wanted this brand [Calphalon] for Christmas, so I bought a large set with self-sharpening, except for the steak knives. Now, three months later, I see four or five rust-type marks of 1-3 mm over both sides of a steak blade. Including the cutting edge.
I work a lot with coins, so I am used to looking at metal, and this cannot be right to happen in only three months. Many of the knives in the set are discoloring or rusting (oxidizing).
I decided to look at the knife with a three-power loop, and the edge was very jagged and even had a flange of tiny metal on it that came loose when I touched it. I can’t imagine what is happening when you sharpen these knives. Where does the metal go?
I do not know what to do next. . .
Wow, this is really interesting. I had an 8″ chef’s knife, years ago (10-15?), that snapped off at the bolster while I was using it. Really spooked me. No one was hurt and I wrote it off as just…strange. I don’t remember the brand of the knife, but I wonder if it was a Calphalon…
I’m glad I found this. About 10 years back, my mom and stepdad bought my wife and I a Calphalon santoku. And the year after, my stepdad bought us a Wusthof. The latter was blazingly sharp right out of the box, but I had to work on the Calphalon about half an hour to get a reasonable edge on it. The Wusthof gets used a lot; the Calphalon only when somebody mistakes it for the German knife.
Now I’m glad to know there are other quality issues with Calphalon—as, quite frankly, I’ve suspected ever since my wife and I were subjected to the continuous loop from Calphalon for their cookware at places like Dillard’s when we were registering for wedding gifts back in 1996. I remember thinking “nobody with a really good product has to advertise that hard.”
KKG at your service, BikeBubba!
Ironically enough, I must admit, I have pretty positive feelings about my Calphalon 7-inch santoku. I absolutely loved the feel and balance of the original one I bought. It was soooo comfy in my hand. On the other hand, it wasn’t that sharp out of the box—just average, nothing special.
No surprise, the brand new replacement Calphalon sent has a so-so edge. I have so many knives nowadays that I haven’t bothered to get it sharpened. So it’s sitting in a drawer. Ha! And that’s the epilogue to my Calphalon story :)
Best, KKG
Good article. I am surprised about a lot of website. I would recommend your website to my friend. My friend has a problem with knife sharpening.
– Sinta
First of all, thank you for all your hard work and dedication to sharing this knowledge! Secondly, I have a few questions! 1.) I am very curious to know what is your favourite/go-to chef knife 2.) If you didn’t have all the knives you have now, and you had $1000 (CAD) to spend on knives, which one(s) would you get? 3.) I have been looking into Miyabi recently and have been very intrigued by their style and seemingly high quality. I saw on one of your knife sale blogs that Miyabi possibly deserves a spot on your 6 knife recommendations, but they have a few different lines and I am not sure which one is a quality choice (Miyabi Black looks good, but I am not sure what makes them almost 2x as expensive as their other stuff).
Thanks again for all your hard work, Ethan
~Actually same thing with the birchwood line for being so expensive
Do you think its fine for knife which is only sharpened with stone?. I think I should buy pocket knife maintenance guide. I follow your sugget for beter cause my knife get useless already. Thanks.
Out of curiosity I was doing a search on Calphalon knife quality and found your site. Although I haven’t had a blade snap off, I have found that the blades chip. A 7” Santoku, 6” Chef and 4 ½” Parer all have chipped on me. I did send an email to Calphalon regarding this and did not ever get a reply. I was lulled in by the Calphalon name, however these were found at a local Marshall’s so maybe I should have done some research before buying them.
Hi Don,
Everybody—large established brands to small start-ups—wants to cash in on kitchen-knife gold. But making a quality knife in large quantities takes rigorous quality control. . .mainly due to the challenge of properly heat-treating the steel. That’s what causes knives to misbehave (such as Calphalon’s) and not perform as well as the established knifemaker’s.
There is no free lunch ;)
—KKG
I would recommend your website to my friend. he got problem with knife. thank you so much good article.
GUDE a small private German manufacturer in Solingen using traditional methods offers some of the finest knives i’ve used. Never a problem.
Cool. Yes, I’ve heard of GUDE, they ring a bell. Thanks for turning us on to the brand!
BTW. . .your comment would probably be more helpful if you entered on the “Best Chef Knives” page. . . :)
Best, KKG
I have a Calphalon 7×2 knife that has cracked and would like a replacement for it . Love the knife 0862512 #
Here’s the Calphalon website page to process your recall replacement. It appears to still be active. Good luck!
https://www.calphalon.com/product-recalls.html
–KKG