Hi there, I came here to the BIFL Lemmy out of suspicion that the reddit posts are just unlabelled marketing, and I was wondering the possibility of sourcing goods that are more to a BIFL standard? In my area, second hand goods tend to be really quite poor in quality (reselling fast fashion) or otherwise not present, and I have not inherited anything that does last. So I would apprecite advice or reccomendations for finding goods at a BIFL standard. I was also wondering if maybe there would be anyone with good advice for finding sustainable, local textile production so that I may be able to tailor what I need without having to buy from the poor selection aforementioned, does anyone know of any of this?
TL:DR I am suspicious that a lot of what is claimed as ‘BIFL’ has been enshittified, and would like advice on being able to search for sustainable goods for a local area (not specified because I’m hoping for advice with searching, not exactly for specific reccs)
On the topic of knifes, my cheap store brand knife lasts for 5 years now without ever seeing a sharpening tool. I think knifes are just hard to fuck up.
Look into basic sharpening. A cheap sharpening stone can be found for about $1 and a basic diamond ones for about $20. once you learn the skill to sharpen on a stone all of your knives will be as sharp as the really expensive ones.
It depends on what you want from a knife.
I want a knife that will take and hold an edge, will resist chipping and setting into a bend, but is also fairly easy to re-sharpen. For what I want, san mai forging using plain carbon steels gives nearly the best results. If you want a knife that will be extremely tough and resistant to rusting or staining, plain carbon steels would be a very poor choice. My favorite vegetable knife needs to be cleaned immediately and oiled lightly after every use, and is absolutely not dishwasher safe. Most people would prefer a stainless steel construction over a knife like that.
I have a 12 euro kitchen knife from 2005 that I sharpened twice, and a 8 dollar kitchen knife from Ikea that I never sharpened that’s from 2012, and they both still work fine. I thought I would be sharpening every couple months, but these kitchen knives.
I’m not cutting paper or cans with them, but they cut though tomato so it’s not even that bad. I’m on your team, I think knives are done, we did it, the tech is fully matured
What I’m looking for in a knife is shaving cleanly and easily; a knife can be fairly dull and still cut a tomato.
One test I’ve seen is rolling up a single sheet of paper into a tube, standing it on it’s end, and then cutting diagonally slowly with your kitchen knife. You should be able to cut the tube of paper cleanly, without knocking it over. If not, your knife should be honed or stropped.