So, this happened....

PBS chef Vivian Howard now has one of my hand-crafted kitchen knives! A 210mm gyuto with curly maple handle. Her initial comments on receiving the knife:
“It’s beautiful. I love the weight of it & the thin nature of the blade. Thank you. Can’t wait to use it!!!”

Vivian Howard’s new Provision knife

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Nice! Put one in MY hands! Can’t wait to use it! I’m always making her tomato pie.

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Lol, I do have a 170mm demo santoku I lend out to people if you’re ever interested. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Great knife, great progress, Eiron,

I’ve recently gotten interested in Chinese cleavers: a Shibazi F208—ever tried making a cleaver for vegetables?

Ray

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Thank you! This thread inspired me to sharpen my knives.

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Thanks @drrayeye! :slightly_smiling_face:

No, I haven’t done any veg cleavers yet. The steel I’m using (D2) is great for the super-thin kitchen knives I’m making right now, but it’s way overkill for a cleaver. I’ve been toying with the idea of using a less tough/hard steel as a less expensive option for the knives, so if I go that way a veg cleaver would be a possibility at that point.

The thinner Chinese cleavers are almost like a Chef’s knife. Shun has a great Classic vegetable Cleaver that is damascus and VG-10. The more expensive virgin carbon #6 Sugimoto Cleaver is a Rockwell 63 much like your D2. Even though I have quite a few knives that are Rockwell 63, I’m finding less advantage for my home cooking tasks than I expected, so I agree that such steel may be overkill. My current Shibazi F208 Cleaver (Rockwell 58), an old Kai-Shun Seki Magoroko Nakiri (Rockwell 58-60), and my Wusthof Classic Ikon Chef’s knife (Rockwell 58) all perform just as well for my purposes–and I like them all a great deal.

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Do you sell these beautiful knives @Eiron? Website?

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@Lambchop, I absolutely sell them! I make ‘standard’ sizes from a 4" paring knife to a 240mm gyuto, but they’re all custom so I can make any size that’s right for each customer. No website at the moment, but I have a Provision Knives facebook page that shows a bit of what I’m doing. You can PM here on HO or via fb.

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Ok - great! I’ve got small hands, but love big knives; they need to be balanced right of course. I’ve got a 7” Shun I love that’s Santouko style, but the blade isn’t quite big enough to handle onions, and some other larger type vegetables I use it for. Have lots of pretty good knives, but have a strong preference for Japanese, and only have the one. I’ll be in touch, and thanks @Eiron!

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@drrayeye, I agree, hardness can be a detriment in some applications! For me, it’s not so much the design of the cleaver or the steel’s final hardness as it is my choice of alloy. I use D2 because it’s a stainless tool steel, which allows it to get extremely hard but not become brittle, and provides easy care for the user. Unfortunately for me, D2’s wear-resistance and abrasion-resistance characteristics that make it so wonderful for edge retention also makes it very difficult to work with when fabricating knives. Even unhardened the D2 is extremely resistant to shaping and grinding. My sheet steel starts out around 0.12" and I thin it out to about 0.08". A veg cleaver’s much taller profile would be very difficult to work by hand in D2. By comparison, the steels used by commercial knife makers can be punched out in huge presses the size of a two-story building!

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Maybe you could do something between a nakiri and a cleaver–like the Shun kanso?::

Ray

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Yes, that’s very close in blade height to the santokus I make (~2" to 2-1/4" tall?). :slight_smile:

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Hmmm - the above design looks good; did you happen to get my PM @Eiron?

Lol, just replied! :slight_smile:

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Glad to hear all the new development. Gyuto/Chef knife and Santoku are the way to go. You are doing paring knife/petty knife too. Those are best for your custom knives and price range.

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Yes, I recently added the 4" paring knife after multiple requests. And I’ve been thinking I should add a kiritsuke profile since it’s becoming more popular now. The kiritsuke is basically the same as the santoku, but with an angled nose that provides a slightly more pointy tip rather than the gentle sweep-&-drop of the santoku’s nose.

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I was actually going to say Sujihikis – a longer and narrower version of gyuto. However, Kirituske is nice.

The other possibility is for you to continue the same gyuto and santoku profiles, but offer the regular version and the thinner blade version. Many people perform that thinner profile too. I think gyuto, santoku and paring knife will capture 95% of your potential customers.

Are you also selling sharpening stones to your customers too? That can be an ok side business too. You as the knife maker offer a line of sharpening stones/device.

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Well, I’m not really promoting single-bevel (or ‘handed’) knives, so I think the kiritsuke is a more approachable knife for most people.

My blades are already pretty thin – thinner than the early santoku you tried out 7 or 8 yrs ago.

I’ve thought of making leather-faced stropping boards for sale, but not sourcing and reselling sharpening stones at this stage. We’ll see? :slight_smile:

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Sujihiki is double bevel. Kiritsuke is definitely a good choice. How about selling cutting boards? Like glass cutting boards?