Perhaps it’s a “chef’s saber.”
Olaf S started texting me asking me to make him a knife (my usual answer to such a request is: “no”) but part of what he asked intrigued me enough to do a test. He wanted “a very long cooking knife” and I was interested in experimenting with temper-lines in W-2 steel. I’ve seen some very pretty temper-lines pulled out of that mono-steel, so I thought maybe it’d be interesting if I made something with a long edge and played around. So, this happened:
The total length of the blade is about 12″ (300mm) and the handle is another 6″ (150mm) it’s thin, strong, and it cuts quite well. The handle is maple burl and claro walnut. The shape of the bottom of the blade, with that big cut-out, just sort of happened – OK, let me tell the truth: I wanted to see how a die grinder cuts W-2. You can see the temper line clearly; my experiment worked well, there.
Here’s what happens when you start working on temper-lines: you can’t see them until the blade is nearly mirror polished. Since the blade is flat-ground and mirror polished, you’re looking at a tremendous amount of work. I used the whole piece as an experiment – I wanted to see if I could do a big flat surface that didn’t have pockets and ridges when I tried to mirror-finish it. It came out pretty well, so that was satisfactory. Then, I experimented using polycrystalline synthetic diamond as a polish. I made a little polypropylene carrier for a piece of oak-tanned leather which I soaked in WD40 and sprinkled a bit of the synthetic diamond on. Then, I worked it thoroughly work a while, listening to some nice music. The results were spectacular – polycrystalline diamond is particularly useful as a polishing medium because it fractures under pressure, producing finer polish as you polish more and more. And, diamond is hard enough that it chews up even tempered high carbon steel. I estimate that the polish started out as 3000 grit (where my sandpaper leaves off) and ended up around 12,000 grit. I probably won’t use polycrystalline diamond often because it’s fairly expensive – $30 for a few grams – though this took about as much powder as fit on the tip of a knife. A little goes a long way. I hope it’s not toxic or carcinogenic; that’s why I made sure that there was WD-40 all over the leather: keep it stuck down so it doesn’t float into the air.
This knife did not go to Olaf. I had another test-piece that I finished up and sent to him – something a bit more conventional:
That’s another blade of W-2, another hamon, more mirror polish. I am now tired of mirror polishing things for a while. It looks sharp, doesn’t it? It sure is!
The cook’s saber is pretty extreme. I intend to experiment with making some kind of a sword-stand for it, and then I will try to find a home for it. It needs to go to someone who cooks really big chunks of meat, or ginormous cabbages or something. Or perhaps it belongs on a mantle-piece. Should I auction it for FTB?
Notes on product photography: The second knife gave me a choice of either emphasizing the temper-line, or the wood of the handle, but not both. A professional would have taken two photos, slightly offset, and copy/pasted/brushed the detail from the blown out area on the handle into the image where the temper-line in the blade came out right. Or, an old-school pro would have spent time positioning a “gobo” between the light and the hot-spot on the handle. A “gobo” stands for “go between object” – it’s a thing, usually black-painted, that is positioned so as to block or diffuse light on a specific spot. When you’re looking at really good product photography, it used to be that you’d be seeing tons of gobos, but now it’s photoshop adjustment levels.
Olaf sent me a picture of the kind of knife he wanted: it looked like a big Henckels’ chef’s knife. So, he wanted a fancy damascus knife that would probably not be as good as the German mono-steel machine-perfect CNC-made blade? Basically, hours of my life producing something that is already good. So, I replied: “You want something like that, only not ugly?” I got a lot of sputtering in reply. But, seriously, if you like a Henckel’s why would you ask someone to make you another one? So I thought I’d play around with a larger more extreme version of my chef’s pwning knife designs.
That is a rather nice-looking knife. From cook’s point of view it looks to have one problem. Most cooks that I know will have the thumb and index finger on the blade of the knife. See the ‘blade grip’ here https://www.seriouseats.com/2010/05/knife-skills-how-to-hold-a-knife.html. I am just not sure if one can use that grip.
I have no problem with a 12-inch knife; in fact I prefer a knife of that size. A 10 inch blade always feels a bit small and I’m not a very big person nor do I have big hands. I just like a larger blade.
It is aye naif. It is too naifs.
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Depending on blade thickness and flexibility I would possibly use these for filleting fish or perhaps slicing hanged ham off a bone.
I like the second one a lot. I thought about why that might be and I took the picture to photoshop to measure its proportions. And I found out that both the blade-lenght to handle-length ratio and the blade-base-width to handle-base-width ratio are approximately 1,6 – the golden ratio! Whether intentional or not, to me it shows that there is something to this whole golden ratio being very appealing. Anyway, I really like that knife.
Diamond dust is, to the best of my knowledge, not extremely dangerous (not more than silica or carborundum that is), but it definitively should not be inhaled. Any kind of dust inhaled is bad news, even if the chemical is not poisonous or carcinogenic per se. But I would not use WD40 for this. It has a low viscosity and contains a lot of chemicals that evaporate quickly, leaving only a thin film behind. I tried it with jeweler’s rouge when making the rondel dagger and I was unimpressed. It worked, but not very well. Next time I will be using either vegetable oil or cutting oil or perhaps dubbin.
But I love that second knife!
Pumpkin! Today, I happened to cook some pumpkin soup, accompagnied with “Schmalzbrot” (larded bread), at my working place.
A bunch of old ladies liked that.
The knives in the kitchen there were sorry affairs – I used my Opinel folding knife, which is not intended for heavy kitchen duty.
I forgot to bring the cilantro :(
The cut-out is actually to serve as a sort of finger-rest. It seems pretty comfy to me.
wereatheist@#3:
The knives in the kitchen there were sorry affairs – I used my Opinel folding knife, which is not intended for heavy kitchen duty.
Those are great knives. I grew up carrying one, and that was what I learned to sharpen on. I got my first one in 1974 and graduated to a Laguiole a year or two later, when I found one someone had dropped in the market in Rodez.
I forgot to bring the cilantro :(
Yum! I try not to put cilantro in food for others unless I know that everyone who’s nearby lacks the genetic defect that makes cilantro smell like cat puke to them…
Charly@#2:
I like the second one a lot. I thought about why that might be and I took the picture to photoshop to measure its proportions. And I found out that both the blade-lenght to handle-length ratio and the blade-base-width to handle-base-width ratio are approximately 1,6 – the golden ratio! Whether intentional or not, to me it shows that there is something to this whole golden ratio being very appealing. Anyway, I really like that knife.
I did not do it intentionally, though when I create a knife, I usually pay attention to its shape and balance, with an eye to some kind of symmetry. I have no plan or strategy, it’s instinctive.
The handle shape is another “coffin shape” profile. I’m really coming to like that one; it fits great in my hand.
Thank you for your kind words.
Marcus@#5
I love cilantro! I am one of those people who can detect notes of soap in cilantro, but I love it anyway and try not to think of that when I eat it.
Olaf’s knife is beautiful.
The first knife is wicked beautiful. It looks like something an assassin would carry.
It reminds me of one i made, a similar idea of a long thin kitchen knife (https://imgur.com/gallery/MVkHVMB). I guess they are somewhere between a chef’s knife and a carving knife?
Yours looks like it would be a fearsome slicer, perfect for murdering cabbages :P
@Voyager it will be too thin, look up a Fairbairn–Sykes fighting knife, that’s an assassination knife. they’re really creepy.
For cabbages and kings.
And pumpkins, too, if you like that sort of thing.
Lovely work!
Voyager@#8:
The first knife is wicked beautiful. It looks like something an assassin would carry.
An assassin who specializes in cabbage. He goes through at midnight and all your lettuce is beheaded…
dangerousbeans@#9:
It reminds me of one i made, a similar idea of a long thin kitchen knife (https://imgur.com/gallery/MVkHVMB). I guess they are somewhere between a chef’s knife and a carving knife?
That’s pretty! The thin blade should cut like crazy (it’s always a surprise how strong steel is…)
I made a fairbairn, once. Tricky grind. Hard to handle if you make them razor sharp…