Questions about French chef's knives

H

Hesparus

Joined
Oct 31, 2004
Messages
1,442
Hi Everyone,

I've been really into Japanese kitchen knives lately, but I'd like to get back to my roots with my next batch and make a French style chef's knife. I own a Heckels Zwillinge 8" chef's knife, but that's all that I have to go on for design features. I'm thinking of doing an 8" and a 10" and I have a couple of questions:

1) I know that the Sabatier knives are pretty highly regarded as far as European knives go, but I can't find any information about their geometry. What's the thickness at the spine? Thickness behind the edge? Balance point? Anything else I should know? I may or may not go with a Sabatier-influenced design, but I want to have a starting point, design-wise, that exemplifies the positive qualities of European cutlery.

2) For those of you who like to use French style knives, what design features do you like in terms of thickness, geometry, hardness, length, handle shape, whatever?

I'll be using 52100 steel.

Thanks,
Chris
 
Compared to a German (Wusthof Classic, Henkle Pro-S), a French ( Sabatier, Mac, pre WW2 German knives) profile chef's knife has a narrower, more triangular shaped blade w/ a spear point tip.

I sharpened a vintage Sab "Chef au Ritz" not too long ago. The edge curvature from the heel forward (~65% of the blade length) was mostly flat, then curved up to the tip. The distal taper starts out at ~ 4-5mm at the heel and slowly taper towards the tip, then quickly tapers at the last 1.5 inches. The tip is wafer thin. Full flat grind, balance point is slight forward of the bolster.

IMO, the Sabs' main downside is the ~55 HRC carbon steel blade is too soft and doesn't hold an edge very long. Cloning a Sab with better blade steel, harder HRC would make a big improvement. You could also lower tip to make it more like a japanese gyuto.
 
Thanks, looker, that's exactly the sort of information I was hoping for! I will definitely be giving this a higher hardness than is traditional, although I haven't decided how much harder. I have my japanese blades taken to RC62. The other big thing that I do plan on changing is the bolster that goes all the way to the edge. These make for a comfortable grip, but make the heel a pain to sharpen properly. I probably won't take too many liberties with the profile, though, —*I already make gyutos and I don't want this to end up as just another one of those. To this end, I also haven't decided how thin to take this behind the edge. My Henckels is 0.01" whereas I take my gyutos to half that or less. I don't know if it would be inappropriate to go that thin on this one.

- Chris
 
I have a 4 Elephants 8 1/4" carbon Sabatier. Actually, edge holding isn't that bad, and much better than, say, a Victorinox. In use, the 6" version did about as well as an old Gerber 4" parer in 440C. I know the 440c should have been better, but the Sabatier carbon was fine. I can't say that about the stainless Sabatier. That stud dis very soft.
My knife is 37 mm high at the heel and the blade edge is relatively straight. It is almost 3.5 mm thick at the bolster, 2.4 mm thick about half way down the top of the blade, and tapers to 1.6 mm thick at an inch from the point. The knife weighs 5 3/8 oz.
My Sabatiers go back to the late 1960s, so I would guess that they are about 45 yrs old. The 8in model has never had much use, and the 6" was used pretty frequently until about 3 years ago, when I started using Japanese knives. They work well, but would be even better if harder. I would think that rc 60 would be good, but I am no expert here.
 
I definitely agree with you on the bolster. Those things are the worst! For a French style knife I wouldn't take it to less than .01" behind the edge. Somewhere between .01 -.02 will be fine for a western style chef's knife and gives it the necessary robustness for this style. I agree with Looker, the standard ~55rc kitchen knives coming out of europe leave a lot to be desired in the hardness department. I think something in the 58-60 RC range would be ideal for this style of knife

-mike

Hesparus said:
The other big thing that I do plan on changing is the bolster that goes all the way to the edge. These make for a comfortable grip, but make the heel a pain to sharpen properly. My Henckels is 0.01" whereas I take my gyutos to half that or less. I don't know if it would be inappropriate to go that thin on this one.

- Chris
Click to expand...
 
Glad to help. Just some random thoughts...
A) Skip the finger guard; it adds nothing and just makes sharpening the heel a pita.
B) I prefer the looks of a wa-handle, but slabs would be more true to a French blade.
C) I think the optimal HRC range for 52100 steel is ~60, but go with whatever is hard enough to take & hold an edge, yet pliable enough to not be chippy.
D) I would start the behind the edge thickness a bit thick, and thin the bottom 1/4" a little bit at a time until you find what works best you.
 
The only thing I'll say is that if you'll be using 52100 and leaving the edge .010" or thicker I suggest you bump the hardness to 62-63 HRC. When H/T'd properly, 52100 is a lot tougher than people realize. Leave it that hard, wrap the handle with a rag and some tape, & test it. If you don't like the performance you can always re-temper it and draw it back a little more.
 
Thanks everyone for the input! So here's my plan: The blade will be more or less a copy of a 10" sabatier. 5/32" thick (4mm) and 0.01" behind the edge (I can't bring myself to go any thicker for a general purpose kitchen knife). 52100 steel @RC62. I haven't fully decided on the handle yet, but I will probably keep it narrow like the sabatier. I also want to do an 8" knife more in the German style, but that one will be lower priority.

- Chris
 
I just took an order this morning for a 9" knife and the customer wants 1/8" stock. I really prefer 3/32" stock personally but I can see where a knife with a little more weight in the blade would be nice for some jobs. I do agree that anything thicker than 5/32" would be a bit too thick.
I'm very interested in what you come up with so keep us posted if you have the time.
 
I've made gyutos out of both 1/8" and 3/32" stock. They behave very differently but I like them both. The extra weight of the 1/8" stock gives authority to the cuts that I sometimes like. 5/32" is thicker than I would normally go for a kitchen knife (unless it was a western deba or something) but this thickness and weight is something that I feel is an important characteristic of the European chef's knife. I really want to make a knife that retains the essence of this style, while improving on the bad qualities. If I mess with it too much — thin steel, thin behind the edge, wa handle, high hardness — I will just end up with a gyuto with a slightly unusual profile. (That actually sounds like a fun project for a later date.) And if I do it right, it shouldn't be 5/32" thick for very long. Part of the reason I'm interested in doing this project is because this is out of the ordinary for me. I want to touch all of the edges of kitchen knife space if only so I can put whatever I make and use into context. I also have plans to make a chukabocho to touch on the Chinese edge of knife space. I really like Japanese blades, but how can I be sure that they're right for me until I try everything?
The other reason I want to make this is because I learned to cook using a German chef's knife. As much as I like the Japanese knives now, I still have some nostalgia about the European patterns. A lot of people are dismissive of them, and I think that is at least partly unfair. I want to see if I can preserve as many qualities of this style of knife as I can while making it a knife that aficionados would approve of.
I will definitely share the knife here when it's finished (and maybe before then). It might be a little while, though. I just moved most of the way across the country and I don't have my shop set up yet.

- Chris
 
Here are a few thoughts on thickness in general.
If you want to make continental foods like chicken, potatoes, Carrots & peas, the 1/8' thick chef knives do this very well since these dishes are cut in larger pieces. Potatoes quarter, 1" carrot slices etc..

If you want to make vegetable & meat dishes with lots of thin cuts, the 3/32" works better.

I have customers ask me, Which is better? Japanese or euro/german style knives? I reply that its six of one and half a dozen of the other, all depends on what you are cooking?
 
The main difference is, apart from the harder steel, the distal taper that's mostly neglected by Japanese makers as their blades are thin over the whole length, while the French are overly thick at the heel and have a very nimble tip. For push-cutting the Japanese are evidently superior, the French are more suited for forward slicing -- guillotine and glide as someone's called it.
 

With brand new French knives, you see a large deadly flat section, starting at the heel, to about the middle of the length, that often gets lost by steeling and sharpening. It's used for a special kind of push-cutting, using both hands, one on the handle, the other one somewhere on the spine. Some people love it, rock-choppers hate it because of the sudden change in profile.
 
I'm not familiar with the technique you describe. My ruler says those spots aren't perfectly flat. Gyutos have the same thing. I plan to do the profile of the blade as true to a sabatier as I can.

- Chris
 
I never noticed flats on my old 4 Elephants Sabatiers, just a continual taper.
 
Hesparus said:
I'm not familiar with the technique you describe. My ruler says those spots aren't perfectly flat. Gyutos have the same thing. I plan to do the profile of the blade as true to a sabatier as I can.

- Chris
Click to expand...
What kind of Sabatier do you use as a model?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top