This particular knife, 3-1/2" paring knife, has been through the ringer. Where I used to volunteer and cook, someone (we think a wayward employee) tried to use it to jimmy the locked small-change cashbox, the tip was bent over 90 degrees. Fortunately, though forged, cheap steel (China circa 2001) so not very hard, I went to the shop and hammered it back into straightness and then stoned it. It's my all-purpose. My 8" cooking knife is German and I use it only for cooking. But really, those bits of aluminum in the rubber pads are small and not deep, even the thinnest stamped knive blade would hold up.

Sure is weird how that aluminum embeds, never saw this on previous bikes, but all those I used back east in flatland so the hard anodizing on the rims never wore through. My 20" folder, I'm not sure if the rims were anodized at all, certainly not the dark gray hard anodizing which is a surface of aluminum oxide just like sharpening stones of the same, so are tough. So these rims I think the surface is softer. Once I used some pads that looked new but discovered were old and hard so in a couple downhill blocks, picked up a lot of aluminum there, suddenly galled with the most unpleasance grinding sound, I limped home and needed emory wrapped around a file to remove the galling from the rims, rough finish like bits of aluminum had welded to the surface.

And folks wonder why I want discs.