First Chef Knife

L

Laredian

Joined
May 27, 2013
Messages
199
Hello,

I want to show you my first Chef Knife that I have completed. The blade is made from 100Cr6 and the handle is a beautiful piece of Amboina burl with black liners and bronze pins.

The knife is approximately 3,8mm thick at the spine and 29cm long overall. The flats were etched in ferric chloride and the blade has a 800 grit hand rubbed satin finish.

I learned quite a lot making this knife. One thing was that making good kitchen knives is not easy. Another thing was that this knife is probably too thick at the spine and that I could have ground it thinner at the edge (I was rather careful because I did not want to go too thin). Overall I am happy with it and I think it is a good starting point to improve.

Please tell me what you think, I am always grateful for critique and advice.

I also again came to the realisation that taking good pictures of knives is damn difficult...
Here are the pictures (as always...not so good quality)

FvmTqf.jpg


IziGwY.jpg


t0s9wW.jpg


gMnKKV.jpg


DgjMhz.jpg


Thanks for looking

Edit: typed the wrong overall length
 
Last edited:
nice work, handle looks a little short? what length is it?
3.8mm is thick to start with for a kitchen knife IMO
def a good start :thumbsup:
 
Thank you for the reply.

I think the handle length is ok, it is about 10,5cm long. I have medium hands but I think it would fit someone with larger hands too.
 
I think it looks very nice! The handle did look a bit small to me too but sounds like it is fine. The plunge and thin grind line are very pleasing to the eye
 
The plunge grinds look a bit different but could be the lighting. The "port" side looks to have a really nice smooth hump of a transition and the starboard side looks to have a more 90 degree plunge.

I dig the port side look for a nice grip on a chef if that is how the whole thing is.

Did you round the edges of the cutaway at the heel?

Jim
 
The blade finish looks great and I like the blade profile, well done!
The butt of the handle drops a little too much to my eye and the steel is too thick but overall a nice job
 
Spideyjg said:
The plunge grinds look a bit different but could be the lighting. The "port" side looks to have a really nice smooth hump of a transition and the starboard side looks to have a more 90 degree plunge.

I dig the port side look for a nice grip on a chef if that is how the whole thing is.

Did you round the edges of the cutaway at the heel?

Jim
Click to expand...

You are correct. The plunge cuts are not perfect. They are have the same radii (at least closely) but they do not perfectly start at the same place. The difference is about half a millimeter. Bothers me quite a lot actually.
 
Great first Chef's knife. Don't sweat the plunge issue, you will get that down with experience.

As stated by the others, the handle needs to be longer. Another 10-15mm would be good.
The steel is a bit thick, too. I use 2.5 to 3mm stock.
That dropped tail handle is fine for a camp knife, but on a chef's blade it can chafe the hand. It would be better to have the bottom round up to the top on the butt. Just a slight palm swell on the belly is fine.

One thing that can be a problem with a kitchen knife is the handle warping or even coming up off the tang. It gets washed and wet often. Burl wood can make this worse. Three rivets is the norm. I recommend using Corby bolts, as the scales can pull up on pins. The bolts will never move.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
Great first Chef's knife. Don't sweat the plunge issue, you will get that down with experience.

As stated by the others, the handle needs to be longer. Another 10-15mm would be good.
The steel is a bit thick, too. I use 2.5 to 3mm stock.
That dropped tail handle is fine for a camp knife, but on a chef's blade it can chafe the hand. It would be better to have the bottom round up to the top on the butt. Just a slight palm swell on the belly is fine.

One thing that can be a problem with a kitchen knife is the handle warping or even coming up off the tang. It gets washed and wet often. Burl wood can make this worse. Three rivets is the norm. I recommend using Corby bolts, as the scales can pull up on pins. The bolts will never move.
Click to expand...
 
That's a very nice looking knife.
Stacy, I am working on some chefs knives and your suggestions are very helpful. You refer to Burl wood posibly presenting a problem with warping from moisture. Is this comment referring to all wood on knives that get wet or is there something about Burl? I have some stabilized Cypress that I was planning on useing. Thanks
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
Great first Chef's knife. Don't sweat the plunge issue, you will get that down with experience.

As stated by the others, the handle needs to be longer. Another 10-15mm would be good.
The steel is a bit thick, too. I use 2.5 to 3mm stock.
That dropped tail handle is fine for a camp knife, but on a chef's blade it can chafe the hand. It would be better to have the bottom round up to the top on the butt. Just a slight palm swell on the belly is fine.

One thing that can be a problem with a kitchen knife is the handle warping or even coming up off the tang. It gets washed and wet often. Burl wood can make this worse. Three rivets is the norm. I recommend using Corby bolts, as the scales can pull up on pins. The bolts will never move.
Click to expand...

Thank you very much for the input, especially regarding the handle. I'll try to incorporate that in my next chef knife design.

Regarding the issue with burl wood: I did not provide the fully correct information in my initial post, since the the handle is in fact stabilized Amboina burl. That should make it more resistant to warping, right?

Also I need to ask something about my hand rubbed satin finish. I made the knife for my girlfriend and she has since used it to cut onions, other vegetables and some meat and the knife worked alright for that. She cared for the knife like any normal user would, she rinsed it off with water and wiped it clean. I just told her to never put it in the dishwasher and keep it dry as well as she can after use.
Now she has not used it for a long time since I finished it, but I noticed that there is already some form of patina forming on sections of the blade, that was my guess at least. It does not look like pitting, the affected parts on the blade have more of a "milky" washed out shape and are red-ish in color. (I can't show you pictures since I touched up the blade already when I noticed this, because I still want proper pictures taken of the knife)
My question now is if I made some mistake in my hand sanding. As I said it did my hand rubbed satin with 800grit, should I have gone higher? As far as I understand it, the more the finish resembles a mirror, the more resistant to rust it will be. Or is the forming of a patina something that will always happen over time with certain carbon steels, even if you care for it regularly?
 
You got the shape of the handle down. You can adjust the length depending on how big the blade is. Like others said, for chef knife #2, you might want to look into some 2.7 mm stock. If you are looking to do carbon steel chef knives and are in Europe, i would get in touch with Achim Wirz and buy some 2.7mm 115W8. I have used some and i call it Blue #1.5. I slots right between Hitachi Blue #1 and #2. For you next blade, I would suggest drawing the profile out with the point lower than on this knife. See what you think about it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top