Over a year ago our friend Max from Secret Smokehouse came to us asking for the perfect knife to slice his delicious smoked salmon. We threw a selection of our favorite slicers and Yanagibas at it and quickly realized that none of them were quite perfect for this particular task. What followed was many prototypes, a lot of testing and many, many smoked fish sliced up for the purposes of our research.
To achieve the springy, flexible blade that we were after James has used a high layer count mix of two different carbon steels. After hammering the blades close to final dimensions he used a manual press to forge a series of grooves along the length of the knife.
During the grinding of these blades, the forged grooves become scalloped indents along the middle of the knife- similar to the indents (known as Grantons) that you see on old Sheffield carving knives. In the past, we have often regarded these scallops as a bit of a gimmick but the difference that they make for slicing this firm, slightly sticky smoked fish was a real eye opener.
These blades would also lend themselves well to slicing cured meat, charcuterie as well as other fish prep work.
Materials
*Blade – 15n20 and 1095 high carbon steel
*Handle – Rippled Oak
Dimensions
*Blade length – 355mm
*Overall length – 470mm
*Spine thickness at the handle – 5mm
*Spine thickness at tip – 1mm
*Blade Depth – 35mm
This year’s Western style Chef Knives are offered in two flavours; a limited number of Jon’s special W pattern Damascus steel, and our trusty stainless clad Blue Super steel.
Blenheim Forge’s most involved pattern welding project to date. Jon has been dreaming up this particular damascus pattern since last February. It is made by crushing a very large billet of steel to introduce a wobble running through the alternating layers of carbon steel. These layers are then stacked on themselves around a dozen times at different thicknesses at a 1:3 ratio. This creates an oscillating “W” shaped pattern. The block is then forged on its corners to skew the pattern and then sliced on a horizontal saw (like a loaf of bread). Each slice is then sandwiched between more steel and a thin layer of pure nickel to create the steel for a single blade.
These blades have a full face grind with a chunky spine going to lightsaber thin behind the edge. A pronounced distal taper from heel to tip and a more mellow taper on the tang brings the balance point right to the top of the handle.
The handle is made of highly figured oak burr with a black vulcanised fibre liner and stainless rivets. The Damascus Chef Knives come with a hand stitched Italian leather sheath by Harry Owen.
Dimensions
*Blade length – 205mm
*Overall length – 310mm
*Blade thickness at the handle – 3mm
*Blade Depth – 60mm
These knives are very similar to our stainless clad range Gyutos with the addition of a more user friendly belly in the profile and the ergonomic handle. The grind is stepped with a forged finish on the back and thinned to a micro bevel on the edge. This blade is designed for general purpose use with any style of cutting, with the ergonomic handle bringing the balance point to the neck of the knife for comfortable chopping all day long. A hand stitched leather sheath made by Harry Owen is available for this blades as an optional extra.
Dimensions
*Blade length – 205mm
*Overall length – 310mm
*Blade thickness at the handle – 3mm
*Blade Depth – 60mm
Arch 228-229, Blenheim Grove, London SE15 4QL
