Steel for Chinese vegetable cleaver

H

Hesparus

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

A friend of mine asked me to make him a Chinese vegetable cleaver. My first thought was to use CPMs35vn, since it is so highly regarded around here for kitchen knives. From my research, it looks like 2mm is a good thickness for one of these (and my friend said he wanted one on the lighter side). Aldo has CPMs35vn in 0.062/0.07" and 0.103/0.113" thick — the former is a little bit thin (1.5-1.7mm), and the latter is a little bit thick (2.5-2.8mm). 2.8mm is well within the range of these knives, but it wouldn't really be on the lighter side, as my friend wants.
The other issue is flexibility. He says that the knife should be a little bit flexible — never having used this steel before, I have no idea how flexible it would be at either of these thicknesses and at the target hardness (I was thinking RC61-63).
In summary, my two questions are: (1) would you recommend I go with the 0.062" steel, the 0.103" steel, or pay the premium to have Aldo surface grind it down to 0.09"? (2) How flexible is CPMs35vn at RC61-63 in these thicknesses?
Thanks,
Chris

ETA: The blade will be 8" long and 3" wide.

P.s. This isn't going to replace my usuba project that I mentioned the other day — I started on two of them last night.
 
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Flexibility is determined by thickness !! NOT HT or hardness ! For a 3x8" blade the .103" thickness should be fine especially if you'll thin it a bit when cleaning it up to remove decarb.
 
I think that sounds like a great choice.

1084 for a traditional one? just a guess there
W2 sounds awesome as well, that might be close to traditional (but even better)
 
I would ( and do) make blades like that in Aldo's .103.
I just picked up two good size sheets last night from him.
 
Stacy, what type of steel are you using? I'd like to make some of these but it seems like any of the good stainless steels would be about forty bucks for the blank.

I just made one of those- someone gave me a chunk of lumbermill bandsaw blade that was right around .100- I thought the best use for it would be to make some knives for our kitchen and play around with new patterns- made what I think is a Nakiri, and wow, is it nice to use! It's tapered from the spine to the edge, with some convexity near the edge- it's now the knife I grab for any kind of slicing or chopping- just not meat, it doesn't work too well on meat.
Here's a photo- I didn't get the corby bolts right "blush" but it's a screamin' good knife for daily use.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-...AFKk/S1Tyncgq1y0/s549/2012-09-04+11.38.51.jpg
Andy
 
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