• Wash and dry the blade by hand immediately after use.
• The knives are not dishwasher safe.
• Use a soft sponge to clean the blade. Avoid abrasive dish scrubbers and powders as they can damage the finish.
• Do not cut through bones, this can chip the blade.
• Never cut frozen foods.
• Never twist, wrench or cleave with the blade.
• Always use a wooden or plastic chopping board.
• Avoid bamboo chopping boards as it dulls the knife quickly.
• Never use glass, ceramic, marble, slate or stainless steel worktops as cutting surfaces.
• Store your knives in a way so that blades don’t knock into each other.
• It is best to use a knife sheath, saya or knife roll.
• Use a ceramic honing rod and or leather strop for edge maintenance.
• Honing your edge is essential to reach longer sharpening intervals.
• Do not use diamond or coarse steels.
• Only sharpen by hand and whetstones.
• Do not use belt sanders or hand held sharpening devices. They will do more bad than good. Proper knife sharpening is done on whetstones.
• You knife needs to be sharpened by a well trained person. have your knives sharpened when you feel they need to.
• Thinning is necessary when the cutting edge ends up in the thicker steel.

• Soak your sharpening stone 10 mins prior to using it.
• Once you finished sharpening take the stone out of the water and air dry out of direct sunlight.
• Once the sharpening stone gets dished, it would be good to flatten the stone with frame building timber (4×8 ) and coarse sandpaper or a proper truing tool.

It is standard for Artisan Knives to send via NZ Post Courier. The insurance cover is up to $2000NZD. Parcel delivery targets are 1-4 working days.

Maintenance with a ceramic rod and a strop is recommended

With good maintenance and care you can get the longest lasting sharpness. Every knife gets dull at some point and that is due to metal fatigue. Some knife steels have very good edge holding properties and this is usually so for hand forged Japanese knives.

As there are many variables in knives and frequency of use,  I say it is up to the user to decide when it is time to have their knife sharpened.

We have the Japanese Deba knife, which makes it easy to break down a whole fish.

We are happy to exchange products if unused and in original packing. We need to be able to resell the product, thus the packing cannot be damage and product needs to remain unused. Sorry we do not refund.

The item must be sent back within 10 workings days from date of receipt.

You do not need to have a stripe account to purchase. You can pay by debit or credit card through stripe who facilitate a safe buying environment for artisan knives.

Because we use stripel you get redirected to their secure environment to finalise the transaction. Artisan Knives does not receive or hold credit/debit card information.

This is short for Hardness Rockwell C Scale

The Rockwell C Scale is a hardness scale based on indention of a material.

The Rockwell test determines the hardness by measuring the penetration of an indenter under a large load compared to a penetration under a preload.The result is a dimensionless number noted as HRC. Where c is the scale.

What does it mean?

Hardness Rockwell scale C is a guide that tells us whether the steel is soft or hard.

This is an important quality in a knife, the harder or higher HRC means a longer lasting edge and sharper edge angles. This will contribute to cutting performance.

The downside of a harder blade is that is prone to chipping.

Any steel over 65 HRC gets hard to sharpen. In my opinion the best balance in hardness and ease of sharpening lies around the 62-63 HRC mark.

Yes you can, please contact us to arrange a suitable time.

You will need to send your knife to the below address.

Artisan Knives
33 Inglewood Street
Wai O Taiki Bay
1072
Auckland
New Zealand

If you have a trade me account you can easily organise a courier pick up. Pricing is better than parcel post at the post office and the parcel get picked up at your address. You don’t need to print a label just write your booking code and destination address and it is that easy.  Always make sure your knife is packaged safely. Knives are sharp objects, please send them in the their original box (or a substitute box) surrounded by packing material, and then place in a larger sturdy cardboard box.