First, I do not know what you are talking about - no photos, no descriptions.

I will assume you are referring to flatware table settings. For these, I have never found it necessary to sharpen table forks. These are not supposed to be sharp like a large serving fork. If the knives are part of place settings, these are not usually sharp.

If the knife is a large knife intended for slicing, it does need to be sharp. If it is of the 302 stainless variety, it will not take an edge and can not be made very sharp. The 400 series stainless is hardenable to a degree and can be sharpened, but it is not truly stainless. It will stain, but resists corrosion.

If you want sharp knives to slice things buy what are sold as steak knives. I would purchase the non-serrated ones. Although most people in the US stab their food with their forks they are not supposed to be used that way which is why they are not sharp. Think if you have any younger guests. Would you really want them stabbing themselves in the mouth?

I've never heard anyone wish that their table forks were sharper. Doesn't sound safe, lol.

Stainless quality varies. Put a magnet on it, if it doesn't stick, it's good SS.

Edited to add: I have a Revereware sink that's 18ga stainless and if I use an abrasive to clean it ...it rusts. So it depends on the quality of the stainless.

People could injure their mouths with sharp forks.

saw an infomercial just last night for a knife sharpened that could sharpen a credit card so it would slice tomatoes!

"edge of glory"??

If the tips of your forks are too rounded to grasp the food while it is being cut, perhaps you should replace the forks with another style.

chisue, I suspect the easiest and cheapest solution would be to buy a new set.

"Although most people in the US stab their food with their forks they are not supposed to be used that way"

Are you suggesting that in other countries, forks aren't used to stab food?

If forks aren't intended to be used that way, why don't we all eat with just spoons?

Stainless steel flatware is just plated with stainless steel? I’ve always been under the impression that stainless steel flatware is solid stainless steel all the way through. Silver, on the other hand...

I know I can buy new, but I like this pattern and 'heft'. The bamboo pattern is perfect for Maui.

The fork tines have dulled over 17 years so that they won't penetrate well enough to hold something on the plate while you cut it -- or *try* to cut it. The dessert/salad knives won't 'grab' lettuce. (Colleen's description is perfect; the tines are 'rounded'.)

The knives (serrated edges) won't even cut a piece of chicken. I have steak knives, but you shouldn't need a steak knife to cut chicken or fish!

Thanks, all. I evidently got my answer. These can't be rescued.

So...

...what becomes of discarded stainless flatware? Does it get shipped back to China to be recycled? Most of it seems to come from there.

Now I'm wondering what becomes of discarded silver flatware? Most of that is electroplated, not 'solid silver'.

Ack! The wandering mind!

Donate it to goodwill or similar. Otherwise it just occupies space in a landfill.

17 years of service in a rental unit is most impressive, they've earned a retirement. You've gotten your money's worth! I'm surprised there are still enough of them around after so many years of transient use to constitute a usable set.

Elmer you apparently have never known anyone from England if you think people always stab their food or the people you knew were not proper. A knife is used to push food onto the fork not stab it. One of the things major companies used to do was to invite prospective officer employees and spouses to dinner to see their manners. Not using knife and fork properly, no stabbing, meant no job or promotion.

The cutting edge is not stainless or coated with stainless. The cutting edge is hollow ground steel. Honing once a week and sharpening with a stone twice a year is all it takes.

Most knives do not come with a sharpening stone, just a honing rod. When using a sharpening stone, start with course and finish with fine.

Of course you'll want to start with a quality knife with a hollow ground edge.

I learned all that in Boy Scouts.

Raw stainless is a solid alloy of iron ore, chromium, silicon, nickel, carbon, nitrogen, and manganese. It is not a plating. It's considered a hard metal in the machine/metal working trades. The raw stock is shipped as coils,sheets, tubes, blocks etc. Flatware is made using a rolled/stamped/molded process. Yes the tines can be reground and buffed. You would have to find a small job shop that would be willing a small job like this. You would end up paying far more than several quality sets of new flatware for the cost of having someone grind, buff out and finish the forks for you insuring a consistent end result.

Maifleur, I lived in Europe for three years (not with the military or government). Even today I eat European style - fork in left hand, knife in right - because doing otherwise when there evokes stares and I learned it's much easier. Table techniques in the UK are not different from those in continental European countries.

Do I know people from England? How about our English friends at whose house in the countryside we stayed for one week of a 3 week UK visit just a few months ago, does that count? We were last with them 4 years ago for a similar visit but at their flat in London. We have other non-American friends we know and visit in other countries too.

We're going back to Europe in two months, for another 3 week visit, that will include a week in London and time in two other countries. We go to Europe at least once a year, on our own, for weeks at a time. Does that count?

Having established my creds, when eating Euro-style, pieces of food that will sustain a piercing are pierced - meat, salad, solid veggies, cheese, etc., etc. Just like here, you just don't switch implements continually from one hand to the other nor struggle. Pushing by the knife onto the fork (the only time it's okay to not point the tines down) is only for smaller items or mushy things.

When cutting meat, like chicken, after cutting, the fork remains in the meat (stabbed) and pivoted to the mouth. I've never seen anyone cut a piece of meat, push the meat off the fork, then scoop the meat with a fork and knife.

Yes brush, Euro style. American style, the meat is cut, the food stays on the fork, but the fork is usually switched from one hand to the other.

Switching isn't wrong, but awkward for me.

Sophisticated Dining for Dummies

I've never been out of the US that being said I'm the first generation of my maternal family to be born in the US....I don't stab my food with a fork because my mother did not allow that at her table...my brother always stabbed his food and always got talked to about it..bad manners ect ect. Dinner at grandparents always brought forth a lecture about table manners while on the drive to grandparents house...always..napkin on lap or bib style, never put your own knife in the butter dish, no elbows on table and no stabbing your food...Grandfather was very strict on table manners. ..he was from England. My kids and grands stab food because I've never told them not to.

My neighbors are Indian and they eat with their hands.

mamapinky my parents were not that concerned but had great aunts that were. By the time it was time for me to make my bow I had forgotten most of what I had been taught so declined the offer of sponsorship. Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if I had followed that path.

brushworks, eating "American style" in Europe is viewed not differently from eating with one's hands in public. They're familiar with seeing it but view it as somewhat uncouth all the same.

The above sidetrack concerns a very simple and straightforward matter, immediately observable in any public place. Funny how the "experts" who disagreed with me thought they knew better but don't have the experiences abroad that I have or maybe not any at all. That's fine, I've been fortunate in that regard, but I think it's better to limit what one speaks about definitively to things about which enough is known.

(edited to bold words that were missed by one subsequent commentor)

I eat 'left-handed'. That is I cut with the knife in my left hand, and eat with my right. I don't switch my fork from left to right hand. I believe it's because Mom was left-handed, and that's how she ate so she taught us that way.

FYI Many Americans eat European style with little European travel, due to the way they were taught as children. I have never thought of the American style as uncouth, if good manners are otherwise in place.

Eating American vs other parts of the world have nothing to do with stabbing your food. One is considered proper etiquette the other is not. When someone who will remain nameless goes to England later this year they should ask women who were born in England what was considered proper when they were younger. Then listen to how things have changed.

Edited to add that women were taught and were expected these things where men were told what they should do until the late 1950's.

Bed Bath & Beyond has a very nice set of flatware with bamboo design handles.

The 300 series of stainless steel is non-magnetic; The 400 series is slightly magnetic. The 300 series is too ductile to take a sharp edge; The 400 series can be sharpened.

There are dozens of alloys within these series. The 300 series can be work hardened after which, it will take an edge but is inferior to a heat treatable alloy.

Choose the 4116 stainless series and be done for life.

Thanks, ElizabethA. I'll look for that -- although there is no B, B & B on Maui.

Regardless of whether you eat "English" or "American", you need a fork capable of holding a piece of meat in place, tines down, while you cut it with the knife you are holding in your other hand.

I do the unthinkable in private. I mix styles! I eat meat "English" style, piece by piece, with a fork in my hand, tines down. I don't like mashed food, though, so I use the fork in my right hand, tines up, to eat food that doesn't require cutting ("American" style). In public, I eat everything using the fork in my right hand, tines up, "American" style.

Lately I see children old enough to know better who are wrapping a whole hand around the handle of a fork, piercing food and using a shoveling motion to the mouth. They hunch over a plate, often with a 'protective' arm on the table, guarding it. It looks like a new style: "Survival".

This is neither here nor there but I notice fancy restaurants seems to have better flatware with grabby tines. Cheap joints, which I also frequent, not so much. I end up grabbing food with my hands. I do appreciate pointy or sharp flatware, which isn’t as common as one would hope.

ElizabethA -- YES! That is the pattern! I'm so excited that you found it for me!

I poked around and found that Target also carries it. (Not on Maui, of course...drives me wild.) I've ordered two 20-piece sets to be mailed FREE, and I will keep my old stuff as 'spares'. Target also had the two bathroom rugs I bought last week 'on sale', so I'll return those and save $10.

Elmer -- Although these have lasted pretty well, I have only 8 place settings out of the 12 I started with in 2001. (And the forks are dull...haha.) This is not expensive stuff, but pretty in our condo, and...as you know, things here 'go missing'.