How To Do-it-all Cleaver

H

Harley Boatman

Joined
Jun 21, 2020
Messages
98
Hey everyone! Hope you've all had a nice long weekend!

My brother is getting married and requested a custom cleaver in place of the usual wedding/moving-out-on-his-own gift. He said he wants me to just do whatever I think would be best, with his only requests being that he'd like the scales to match his wedding ring, that it be "like a KNIFE" that's big and heavy, and have a satin finish.

I haven't yet made a cleaver, so I was hoping for some advice- especially on blade geometry and steel choice.

With it being a cleaver, it should be beefy enough BTE to stand up to chopping, but at the same time be delicate enough for general food prep. I don't really expect him to do much aggressive chopping with it, and knowing how he eats I'm sure it'll be used to dice meat and rarely -if ever- slice a vegetable.

I would normally try to go zero or near-zero edge before sharpening, and maybe with a steep bevel that would work, but I feel like if he were ever to bash it into some bones (with it being a cleaver and all), it shouldn't have a zero edge. With a steep bevel though, it would have to be fairly thin stock to slice well. As a kitchen knife it should be thin stock anyways.. What thickness should I get?

Also, I've had too many satin carbon steel blades get those tiny little corrosion marks that I just can't bring myself to use carbon steel. I was thinking a SS outer / CS inner san mai would be pretty cool, but I'm not sure where to get any san mai that's 3.5-4" x 11 or so. My next choice would be S30V. That's become my favorite steel in big brand name pocketknives, but I'm not sure how it does as a kitchen tool. Any thoughts / suggestions?

Lastly would be the sheath- I'd hate to make a kydex sheath for something I'm going to put so much effort into, but is leather a good option for a kitchen knife? I've seen guys do a saya scabbard for kitchen knives, but that's another thing I've not yet attempted and wouldn't want to give a sub-par gift due to lack of experience.

Thanks in advance for all your help!
 
A cleaver that is robust enough to hack through bones is going to make a terrible slicing and cutting tool/general kitchen knife. They are to thick to cut well, and far to heavy for every day use. Really a cleaver is a specialty tool (imo one that is better replace with a meat saw anyway) that really isn't very usefull in a standard kitchen.

The Chinese style cleavers that are used as general prep tools are made from thin stock and not at all designed or used for chopping.

Imo if you try and make a knife that does both, you will end up with a knife that does neither. Unless he is a butcher, make him a cutting and slicing tool that will get used daily and be good for the job, ie a knice thin Chinese or Eastern European style cleaver.

S30v Is a great steel for kitchen use
 
Okay, that confirms my suspicions. I figured it would be very difficult to make it do both. I double checked and he said he'll be using it for general food prep.

Going off what N Nick-D said I think a tall Nakiri would be best to fill all the requirements. It's been a while since I worked on a kitchen knife, what thickness is best for S30V in this application? I haven't worked with it yet so I’m not sure if it warps easy, therefore needing a bit thicker stock to begin with.

I also recall reading a thread a while back about getting artifacts in SS if using belts that have previously been used on CS, has anyone has any experience with this with S30V?

Any other suggestions for this?
 
Thin is good. I've made nakiri from 0.100 stock with distal and from 0.070 stock. I liked the thiner stock better, was a lot less grinding too.
 
In reality there is nit a lot of difference in height between a nakiri and a cleaver. The cleaver is about one inch higher ... so a "tall nakiri" IS a cleaver. There is a difference in "feel" though ... i have very much grown to like my nakiri.

Agreed on stock thickness. Start with something in the range of .07-.09 and you should produce a nice cutting and handling blade
 
I didn't respond earlier because my experience with cleavers has been through a custom order from a chef who wanted his mainly to break down turkeys. IIRC, his spine thickness ended up being around 5mm at the heel tapering to~ 3mm at the tip. Quite a bit thicker than a veggie nakiri. The feedback I got was that he liked the extra weight and thickness for his turkeys.
Here's the thread if you're interested: https://bladeforums.com/threads/butchers-knife-for-a-friend-wip.1701478/
 
I'm not surprised at that thickness William. there are quite a few chinese recipes for chicken and duck that call for chopping through the bones (on wings and legs, and ribs) rendering the entire thing into bite size pieces. When I have bought chinese roast duck (yum!) then prep it, as above, by just chopping away right through meat and bones to yield much smaller pieces. They used a *very* heavy knife, and the cutting block they used was so well used it literally had a depression cut into it.

I would not even *think* of doing that with the knives I have in my kitchen. Come to think of it, my wife once tried that with my (at that time) favorite chinese cleaver, and promptly left two chips in the edge. took me something like eight years to repair it (it had to wait until I started knifemaking and had a 2x72 grinder available......

definitely two different beasts - prep cleavers versus cleavers for chopping....
 
Maybe a strange idea but if you realy want one cleaver for cutting and chopping, make a double edged one with the handle in the middle. One thick and one thin edge.
I have no idea if it will be any good but it mY work.
 
I know you are joking, but they actually make such a beast. It looks like a standard light cleaver with a somewhat thicker spine. The spine has a bevel ground at something like 30DPS. The spine is used for breaking bones and such, while the fine edged blade is used for slicing and chopping.

Apologies to Paul Hogan - "You call that a cleaver??? No way mate - THIS is a cleaver!!!
Frederich Dick two-handed beef splitting cleaver. 16" blade 18" handle.
BeefSplitterBWThumb.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top