A 9″ Gyuto style Chef Knife made by Restauranteur and Chef Tom Foster from my Ni Mai clad steel
As standard, I only make a small range of Chef and Kitchen knives. A 4″ Petty/Paring knife, a 6″ Santoku general purpose knife and an 8″ Gyuto Chef knife. The Petty/Paring and Chef knives are available with Japanese or Western style handles.
However, most of the knives I make are “on commission” to my clients specific requirements.
However, most of my knives are unique in that I use San Mai style construction. San Mai means “three layer” and stems from acient times when good quality high carbon steel (the one that can be hardened to create an edge) was rare and expensive. Japanese bladesmiths forge welded wrought iron to each side of the high carbon steel to make it go further. This also had the effect of supporting a very brittle, very hard blade with soft and ductile wrought iron so breakages were dramatically reduced.
8″ Herringbone pattern Gyuto Chef Knife
with Western style Zebrano wood handle
9″ Ferrus pattern Gyuto with Indian Rosewood handle
Today we are blessed with steels that are so good that brittleness is no longer a problem. We also know how to forge weld different steels and alloys together so that, when acid etched, reveal stunning patterns. Correctly called Pattern Welded Steel, but universally refered to as Damascus steel, beautifully patterened knives with very high performing cutting edges are a reality.
I make all my own Damascus and forge it into knife blanks. If you don’t see the combination you’d like just ask and I can probably make it.
A 9″ Bunka style Chef knife in my Ladder pattern Stainless Steel Damascus by Knife-Maker Jamie Nerkowski