I chip the edges on my machetes all the time. No sweat. The Kalamazoo makes them easy to repair. Most steels will either chip or roll when they encounter very hard material. If anyone ever made a steel so tough and hard that neither could happen, we would never be able to sharpen it. Is chopping into the ground abuse? Hit one rock and you'll have some kind of defect in the edge. Usually with INFI, it can be steeled out. With other steels it may chip out a big chunk.