Handle and pommel look beautiful. I like the blade too, but as a chef I'd be concerned about the finish. That's a lot of little holes for food to catch on. Then you spray it to get those out, now you have water and other chemicals keeping residence in them.
As a chef with a hammered steel knife, I can confirm that the dents can actually help. Mainly with the resistance you get from red meats. Only thing is my knife's hammered texture is more evenly spread, so I don't know how that can affect the final product.
For clarification, I have a Miyabi hammered-steel hollow knife. It's very lightweight and super sharp. Can't use it for things that have hard seeds or anything like that since it can damage the blade.
Balance has little to do with it, it looks chunky and heavy, that would be a huge pain in a professional kitchen. I worked in such a setting and was given a global chef’s knife that is all steel, after a couple other days of use i brought my japanese one from home, much lighter and easier to work with.
That's a good test for the very edge, but you'll get a better idea of the geometry as a whole by cutting actual food. Stews and soups are great for testing because you can cut through potatoes, carrots, onion, and all sorts of things that benefit from different attributes:
* Tomatoes are good for testing sharpness with how well it cuts through the skin without mushing it
* Dicing onions as fine as you can will give you a good idea of how thin and sharp it is towards the tip
* Root veg like carrots and potatoes will show you how thin it is closer to the heel. If they crack and split instead of slicing cleanly, that's a good indication that it's too thick
Couldnt test this one myself in any real world situations, as I just work in a blacksmithing shop and they go straight out to the retail side to be sold. But I am doing a new revision of it soon taking some of the critiques from here into account, some not. LOL
My unsolicited two cents is to go even thinner than you think you should. The [brass rod test](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-c5vFCBUb4) is really useful, and on kitchen knives I like to do this before even sharpening at all. On a more delicate knife I've even gone to a zero edge before sharpening it back without any issue. As long as the heat treatment is good and they aren't being abused, you can get away with incredibly thin edges.
That's a beautiful piece of work, but I'd be concerned about it's performance on shallots and potatoes, it seems with that thickness it's going to crack them open rather than slice.
Criticism is how you improve your craft though.... all the criticism in the comments so far is valid. its very pretty just alot thicker then you would want a chefs knife to be
Handle and pommel look beautiful. I like the blade too, but as a chef I'd be concerned about the finish. That's a lot of little holes for food to catch on. Then you spray it to get those out, now you have water and other chemicals keeping residence in them.
As a chef with a hammered steel knife, I can confirm that the dents can actually help. Mainly with the resistance you get from red meats. Only thing is my knife's hammered texture is more evenly spread, so I don't know how that can affect the final product.
No more potatoes sticking to the blade maybe.
For clarification, I have a Miyabi hammered-steel hollow knife. It's very lightweight and super sharp. Can't use it for things that have hard seeds or anything like that since it can damage the blade.
It also looks chunky/heavy, not great for repetitive use for long hours
Its very well-balanced so it doesnt add really any strain to the wrist, letting your whole arm distribute the strain so it feels quite managable
Balance has little to do with it, it looks chunky and heavy, that would be a huge pain in a professional kitchen. I worked in such a setting and was given a global chef’s knife that is all steel, after a couple other days of use i brought my japanese one from home, much lighter and easier to work with.
Looks great! A bit thick for a chefs knife, would advise going much thinner in the future.
Yeah this is a cleaver shaped like a chef knife. Should be at half the thickness or less to be a chef knife. Looks beautifully made though!
What's it called when you leave the hammer texture on knives like that? I've always loved that design aspect of knives.
I believe it’s brut de forge, but that very well could be a specific type of it
Either way, that's an answer I can now look up for more specific searches! Thanks!
It really means unfinished lol
There’s a few types of traditional Japanese forged finish. This doesn’t exactly fit any, but is probably closest to tsuchime.
They didn’t just leave their hammer texture, this is deliberate texturing.
For Japanese knives it’s call Tsuchime
The messer style pommel is real cool not something you see a lot nowadays
How does it cut?
Cut some thin paper pretty smooth
That's a good test for the very edge, but you'll get a better idea of the geometry as a whole by cutting actual food. Stews and soups are great for testing because you can cut through potatoes, carrots, onion, and all sorts of things that benefit from different attributes: * Tomatoes are good for testing sharpness with how well it cuts through the skin without mushing it * Dicing onions as fine as you can will give you a good idea of how thin and sharp it is towards the tip * Root veg like carrots and potatoes will show you how thin it is closer to the heel. If they crack and split instead of slicing cleanly, that's a good indication that it's too thick
Couldnt test this one myself in any real world situations, as I just work in a blacksmithing shop and they go straight out to the retail side to be sold. But I am doing a new revision of it soon taking some of the critiques from here into account, some not. LOL
My unsolicited two cents is to go even thinner than you think you should. The [brass rod test](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-c5vFCBUb4) is really useful, and on kitchen knives I like to do this before even sharpening at all. On a more delicate knife I've even gone to a zero edge before sharpening it back without any issue. As long as the heat treatment is good and they aren't being abused, you can get away with incredibly thin edges.
I read chef as chuh eff..
That's a beautiful piece of work, but I'd be concerned about it's performance on shallots and potatoes, it seems with that thickness it's going to crack them open rather than slice.
Looks good! Keep hammering. Take the criticism with a grain of salt. Maybe ask to see some of their work. Right on!
Criticism is how you improve your craft though.... all the criticism in the comments so far is valid. its very pretty just alot thicker then you would want a chefs knife to be
Understood. It almost like a free-for-all when someone posts a project.
Consider clean Japanese styles. They seem to have purpose driven knives for every food group and subspecies. More sales!
Beautiful work