When it comes to chopping up fish James usually reaches for a Japanese style Deba (one of his favourite knives to both forge and to use) but this month he’s decided its time to branch out and try something new – a western style filleting knife. These super-thin, flexible blades lend themselves perfectly to filleting and removing the skin from raw fish. They are also great for light, fiddly, butchery tasks such as deboning and trimming joints or even carving a small roast bird.
Damascus steel is made by repeatedly folding together two different grades of high carbon steel, which is an ideal material choice for this style of blade. This fine grained steel is hard enough to take a razor edge but it has also been carefully tempered to give the blades enough spring and flexibility to bend around even the smallest of mackerel fillets. For these blades James has applied a deep etch to really bring out the contrast between the alternating layers of steel. The handles are made from Curly Maple, which has been stabilised to make it water resistant and exceptionally hard wearing .
Dimensions
*Blade length – 200mm
*Overall length – 300mm
*Blade thickness at the handle – 5mm
*Blade Depth – 33mm
Materials
*Handle – Curly Maple
*Blade – 1095 and 15n20
The Santoku from our classic range is a team favourite and has always been our most popular knife. Over the years we have forged thousands of these super versatile blades and Rich has decided it’s time to make a few extra special ones.
For the cladding of this limited run, Rich has chosen to use a material known in the Bladesmithing world as Scrapmascus. Scrapmascus is made by filling a steel box with offcuts of steel and nickel before filling the gaps with powdered steel. The container is then sealed and the canister of scrap steel is heated to 1200 degrees and carefully massaged together using the 300cwt Aldays and Onions power hammer. Once the steel has all fused together its then rolled out and laminated with our specially made, super pure, tungsten steel Blenheim Black. The steel is then divided up into small billets and individually forged in to our classic Santoku shape.
The result is a unique material with an intricate pattern of steel and nickel running though it. Not only is it tough and flexible enough to provide great support for the ultra hard core steel it is also a great way for to use up all the tiny offcuts of our precious Japanese Steel that we can’t bring ourselves to hand over to the scrap man.
Whilst the profile and handle remain true to our original design, Rich has made a few tweaks to other elements of the blade. They are forged a little thicker to give a little extra weight and he has fully ground the faces of the blade adding a little convexity before carefully thinning the edge for extra cutting power. It is a type of all-purpose knife that is well suited for a wide range of tasks – a real go to design that you will find yourself using for everything.
Dimensions
*Blade length – 180mm
*Overall length – 325mm
*Blade thickness at the handle – 4mm
*Blade Depth – 55mm
Materials
*Handle – English Walnut, copper
*Blade – Blenheim Black core, combination of nickel, carbon and mild steel cladding
Arch 228-229, Blenheim Grove, London SE15 4QL
