Knife Sharpening Truck archived

Not a truck but KALM does have the awesome down pat!

I have read that good knives should be sharpened after each use, just a quick few swipes on the sharpening thingie. If they're not, at a certain point the knives are too far gone and even a professional sharpening won't help. I'm wondering if this is true? Perhaps Somethingz Fishy can weigh in?

Visitor deCarlo 973-567-8403

Just had all my knives sharpened to perfection by Ben and the turnaround time was amazingly swift. Give him a call.

Kitchen Ala mode
Address: 19 S Orange Ave, South Orange, NJ 07079
Phone973) 821-5145

Two for Ben

Another spot where they sharpen is Buncher's Hardware in downtown Millburn. They do a great job on scissors, too, even pinking shears. And the knife sharpener guy is often at the Chatham Farm Market on Saturdays, and does them while you do your shopping.

I had a bad experience with De Carlo and feel like my best knife is no longer my favorite. I should take it to KALM, I guess. If something goes wrong with an itinerant business it is really hard to correct the problem. While I like the idea of the truck, the reality was not so great for me.

author said:

Two for Ben

that would be three for Ben @author as KALM (above) is where he works .

Let's make that four for Ben. Knives come back from KALM like new.

Jeff Lounsbury (of Jeff's Handyworks) sharpened four of our knives recently. I hadn't been happy with my own sharpening of them.

Mee toooo. Ben at KALM

I had an old carving knife and a hand axe sharpened recently by the truck guy. HUGE improvement in both pieces, at a VERY reasonable price. I was ready replace the axe, but now it chops as good as new.

Would I give him a high-end German kitchen knife to sharpen? Probably not. But for the price and convenience, you can't beat the truck for every-day needs, IMO.

When my wife went to KALM (at my suggestion) she was told the sharpening machine is broken. She was then referred to check out the MOL thread on the subject.

Which I am doing.

And everyone is recommending KALM.

I'm in a causality loop.

I'm not sure what KALM is - have you tried Kitchen a la Mode in South Orange?

Wow, check again. I just walked over to KALM and had my 6" pocket knife that I cut cardboard with all day honed. The unit is working just fine.

The only knife they can not do is a Cermic knife and some very odd hunting knives. The sizzor unit currently has a problem, but knives have not been cut out of the business.

Check again. Perhaps a mis understanding.

Later,
Da George

RobB said:

I'm not sure what KALM is - have you tried Kitchen a la Mode in South Orange?

I'm trying to figure out if you forgot a smiley or ????

I don't do smileys. Not dry enough.

jgberkeley said:

Wow, check again. I just walked over to KALM and had my 6" pocket knife that I cut cardboard with all day honed. The unit is working just fine.

The only knife they can not do is a Cermic knife and some very odd hunting knives. The sizzor unit currently has a problem, but knives have not been cut out of the business.

Check again. Perhaps a mis understanding.

Later,
Da George

actually, it was a pair of scissors she was trying to get sharpened.

mrincredible said:

When my wife went to KALM (at my suggestion) she was told the sharpening machine is broken. She was then referred to check out the MOL thread on the subject.

Which I am doing.

And everyone is recommending KALM.

I'm in a causality loop.

Hm... It's been at least a year since I've had a problem with my machine. And I don't think my staff even knows about this thread. And if there was a problem, we'd call people when there was a resolution instead of putting the responsibility on them.

I'm quite perplexed over this and can't for the life of me figure out what happened here. I'm really sorry for the inconvenience.

But yes, Kitchen a la Mode is currently sharpening knives and typically does them overnight (the only exception is for knives that come in on a Saturday; they'll be done on Monday). That said, I am no longer sharpening scissors as I had a problem with that machine and have not found a suitable replacement within my budget... So I'm focusing on knives which is the vast majority of my sharpening business, anyway.

Again, I'm really sorry, mrincredible. I'm going to sit down with my team tomorrow and try to get down to the bottom of this.

Oh, we cross posted! That makes much more sense. Sorry about the inconvenience.

Ben is better than the guy in the truck. Ben is the man.

Somethingz_Fishy said:

Oh, we cross posted! That makes much more sense. Sorry about the inconvenience.

Okay good ... I am sorry for the initial confusion. I didn't mean to imply bad service.

Now that I know knife sharpening is still on the menu I will probably drop by with a couple of my favorite knives to sharpen them up!

Yes, I remember the knife sharping truck that came in all the neighborhoods. They also sharped scissors. I wish we still had people that came into our neighborhoods like the knife sharping truck, the produce man, ECT.

What does knife sharpening tend to cost? I need to decide whether to sharpen cheap knives, or put the money toward new ones...

Ben is not the man. He pretty much ruined some knives we took in but were ultimately repaired and properly sharpened by Henry Westphal in New York. I like KALM as a store. But not as a knife sharpener.

Now that I'm a paid advertiser here on MOL I figure that I can post the link to my knife sharpening prices.

http://jeffshandyworks.com/Knife_Sharpening.html

susan1014 said:

What does knife sharpening tend to cost? I need to decide whether to sharpen cheap knives, or put the money toward new ones...

Knives are $4.50 to $7.50 to sharpen at Kitchen a la mode, depending on size. A 3" or less blade is $4.50, a 4 to 6" blade is $5.50, a 6 to 8" blade is $6.50 and a 10 to 12" blade is $7.50.

We can typically help you take a look at the knives and determine whether they're worth sharpening or not. I tend to believe it's more cost effective to try to see how the sharpening works rather than replace the knives, but there are always exceptions to the rule.

Texas said:

Ben is not the man. He pretty much ruined some knives we took in but were ultimately repaired and properly sharpened by Henry Westphal in New York. I like KALM as a store. But not as a knife sharpener.

Texas, I'm very sorry you didn't have a positive experience. I'd love to address the issue with you; please send me an email at brcsalmon [at] gmail [dot] com so that I can.

I sharpen every single knife myself and have sharpened thousands of knives over more than five years, with extremely high quality machinery that is manufactured just for the sharpening of kitchen knives. I take pride in my work and am proud of the high volume of positive feedback I have received from my knife sharpening customers (particularly from people who have been upset by less-than-positive knife sharpening experiences from other places in the past).

Ben is the man. If Texas gives Ben a chance to make that transaction whole, he will.