Rich has taken the lead on this year’s BBQ set and brought a fresh perspective to the design. Departing from our usual full-tang construction, he’s designed an unusual wrought iron bolster and dreamt up a new combination of steels to make this set really stand out.

The kit includes three tools: a slicer, a fine-tipped utility knife, and a long-handled fork—everything you need for serious fireside cooking.

Both blades are forged from a laminate of Blenheim Black, clad in low-carbon steel and interlaced with thin layers of springy high-carbon steel. Rich used custom-made press tools to forge grooves into the steel halfway through the process. After grinding these flat, the distorted layers are exposed, revealing a rippled “ladder pattern” on both the upper faces and bevels of the knives.

For the profiles, he’s chosen a long, thick-spined slicer, and alongside it, a slim, fine-tipped knife that lands somewhere between a filleting knife and a utility knife.

The handles for both blades are made from 5,000-year-old Bog Oak, sourced from the Cambridgeshire Fens, and are capped with wrought iron ferrules. Wrought iron is a historic form of steel that was used in structural applications for over 2,000 years before it was superseded by mild steel. It has a distinctive, wood-like grain that results from the way it is made—layers of low-carbon steel and glass-like slag are folded together. After careful shaping, the ferrule is etched in acid to bring out this grain.

The fork, forged from incredibly tough spring steel, is long enough to reach deep into the grill and sharp enough to pierce even the most defiant sausages. Balanced and lightweight, it’s just as useful for repositioning coals as it is for plating up.

As usual, Deptford-based leatherworker Harry Owen has come up with a great storage solution for the set. Each one comes with a heavy-duty canvas roll, individual leather sheaths for the knives, and one of Harry’s trademark fork hats to cover the pointy tines.