The MATERIALS
“There was never a good knife made of bad steel.”
-Benjamin Franklin
Great materials at every step
Every step in the process— from forging and grinding to heat treating and handle making— is done by me in my small, one-man workshop.
My primary focus is on kitchen knives because they're the tools we all use daily (that, and I love to cook). I take inspiration from both Japanese and European cutlery traditions, but hope to make something unique that will last you a lifetime.
There are a few choices that go into making a unique piece: the type of steel, the handle materials, and the profile of the knife.
Let’s start with steel.
Steel
There are three main categories of steel I use in my knives: high carbon steel, stainless steel, and patterned or laminated steel.
Patterned (aka damascus) and laminated (san mai) steels are more of a construction technique than a single steel, but I'll get into that later.
Here’s the quick rundown:
High carbon steel:
Pros - Easier to sharpen, will hold a sharper edge longer.
Cons - Prone to corrosion, requires a bit of maintenance.
Stainless steel:
Pros - Low maintenance.
Cons - Harder to sharpen.
Patterned and laminated steels:
Pros - can offer the best of both in certain constructions or can just be a cool aesthetic choice.
Cons - harder to make, so more expensive
Now the not so quick rundown...
The most important thing to note up front about high carbon steel is that it requires a little bit more maintenance than stainless steel.
Here’s the trade-off:
It’s easier to sharpen and will hold a sharp edge longer than stainless steel. But, it’s prone to corrosion and can patina (not a bad thing) and rust (a bad thing) if you don’t keep it dry.
If you’re unsure about carbon steel or buying a knife as a gift, I’d recommend one of our stainless options. But, if you can be diligent about washing and drying your knives (by hand!) right away, then I’d say give high carbon steel knives a shot.
You can read more about carbon knife maintenance in our Knife Care guide.
High Carbon Steel
When looking around you might see steel types listed as 1084, 1095, 52100, etc. Those are all just different metallurgic “recipes” of high carbon steel with varying percentages of their base elements.
For example: 1084 has a little bit more manganese content than 1095, but 1095 has a bit more carbon. That makes 1084 a little tougher, but 1095 can get slightly better edge.
I wouldn’t get hung up on those numbers though, as most folk won’t ever be able to tell the difference in performance. When making knives, I choose the appropriate steel based on the type of knife being made and you can rest easy knowing that it’ll work great.
Just a little bit more about high carbon steel
Stainless steel kitchen knives are what most people are familiar using. It’s a high carbon steel with chromium added to it which is what makes it resistant to corrosion like rust or patina.
If you’re worried about the maintenance of high carbon steel knives, then stainless is what you want. You should still try and keep it dry though. It’s stain-less, not stain-never. And definitely keep it out of the dishwasher.
Just like the high carbon steels above, there are a bunch of different types of stainless steel. The alloy I use in my stainless steel knives is AEB-L.
There was a time when all stainless steel blades were considered inferior to carbon blades, but certain modern stainless alloys have closed the gap— AEB-L being one of them. It has high wear resistance, holds a great edge, and is easier to sharpen than other stainless steels.
Stainless Steel
Laminated steel (san mai, go mai, etc) isn’t a steel in itself. It's actually a construction of at least three pieces of steel forged together. San mai is roughly translated from Japanese as “three parts”.
The typical san mai construction consists of a piece of high carbon steel sandwiched between mild, stainless steel, carbon, or even decorative metals like nickel or copper.
Traditionally, mild steel is used as the outside layers of swords and certain tools. The softer steel adds durability by being flexible, rather than shattering under stress. But in modern chef knives, it’s typically an aesthetic choice than one of performance.
By layering different steels over a high carbon core, you can get some beautiful effects.
For example: You can use a steel with a high nickel content as the outer layers to achieve a cladding that appears wavy and shiny over a dark core. Or you can stack alternating steels to get many layers of laminated waves running down the length of your knife.
Patterned steel, colloquially known as damascus steel, is similar in that it’s typically made out at least two different types of steel forged together. Unlike laminated steel which is left in horizontal layers, patterned steel is usually manipulated by twisting, drilling, cutting, grooving, etc… to make the patterns you’ve seen in modern damascus knives.
All my damascus knives are made of a high carbon steel like 1084 and another carbon steel with a little bit of nickel in it- 15N20. The magic of mixing these two steels is that when they’re etched the 1084 turns black, while the 15N20 stays a white/silver color.
Laminated & Patterned Steel
Handle Material
“A falling knife has no handle.”
-Knife Safety 101
There are a few types of materials I use to make handles: wood, metal, and synthetics. Most of my handles are a combination of at least two of those, and some use all three.
A typical handle might be made of a walnut body with a brass ferrule and brass pins, for example. Or it can be a piece of interesting piece of dyed burl wood cast in resin.
There are countless variations of handle shape, style, color, and materials.
What I love about wood is that you can guarantee that no two pieces will be the same. I can use the same blade profile, the same metal accents, and the same species of wood, but the end result will still be a unique handle.
When it comes to wood, I pretty much only use stabilized hardwoods. Stabilizing is the process of placing wood blanks under vacuum, sucking out all the air, and replacing it with a heat-curable resin.
Stabilizing makes the wood more durable and less prone to warping or cracking. This is especially important in very porous woods like buckeye burl, where if left untreated would shrink, expand, crack, etc.
Not all woods need stabilization. Some woods (like ironwood and cocobolo) are too oily to take resin and are already very stable.
Wood
Metal has two purposes on knife handles. One is aesthetic and the other is structural.
I like to use metal as accents on my handles. I think a brass ferrule or spacer can add the extra pop a wood handle might need to make it really stand out. The three types I use most often are brass, copper, and nickel silver.
Some metal serves both purposes. Pins serve to secure handles to the knife style, but also add a decorative element.
Sometimes you can’t see the metal at all, but it provides strength and structure to the handle itself. For example, when attaching a copper ferrule to a wooden handle, I use tiny hidden pins as extra support when epoxying the two materials together.
Metal
G10, micarta, and resin. These are the synthetic materials that most often get used in my knife handles.
These synthetic materials offer vibrant colors, properties, or specific looks that you can’t get with wood or other natural materials.
For instance, G10 is available in all sorts of cool colors and is impervious to moisture. Micarta and other laminate materials can offer specific looks that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to achieve with natural materials.
Lastly, there is the combination of unique pieces of wood back-filled with resin to make stunning, unique handles.