I'm a materials junkie. My wine glasses are made of ZrO2 stabilized by Y2O3. My daily work is to convert carbon-bearing gases into diamond through plasma chemistry. I've long considered making diamond knife blades, although recent literature searches have put me off a bit, given their demonstration that brittle ceramic blades like Zirconium oxide shed sharp microparticles that I doubt are good for the ingester.
Nevertheless, I have made several small solid diamond blades (~15 cm long) that I've used to cut filet mignon. With load cells attached, the draw force to cut with a diamond blade is <20% of the draw force needed for an equivalent steel blade coated with titanium nitride and overcoated with a thin Teflon layer, about 5% of the draw force required by a custom Japanese knife. I have one diamond blade in my kitchen that I use as a paring knife. It's the very best tool I own.
I'm gratified that our ancestors figured out how to make superlatively sharp blades knowing essentially nothing of the science underlying their work. They were very smart and attuned to the aesthetics of their work.
Thanks again for the post. Materials are endlessly fascinating.
You can’t just casually mention making your own 15cm solid diamond knife blades, and then not link a picture! Have you checked the edge on your kitchen knife to see if anything’s flakes off it?
15cm is not a small knife. Infact a 15mm diamond knife is pretty massive. The longest diamond knife I'm finding with some lazy searching is about 4mm, and it's 2200$.
This sounds amazing. But first you say you have been wanting to make diamond blades only to be put off from it by the concern about flaking very sharp micro particles and then proceed that you have made one and cook with it. Aren’t you concerned about the flakes?
Having made diamond cutting tools, Diamond is brittle. It will definitely flake and fracture. It sounds cooler than using cbn though I guess.
In the end if you want something usable you have to match application to material. There is nothing that is good for everything. I would not use diamond for knives except for fun.
> recent literature searches have put me off a bit, given that brittle ceramic blades like Zirconium oxide shed sharp microparticles that I doubt are good for the ingester
so you fear harmful microparticles, so instead you suggest something normal, like
> steel blade overcoated with a thin Teflon layer
eh?? isn't teflon that scary(tm) substance you must never scratch off your pan or you'll poison yourself?
Great article! I'm a dev turned blacksmith, currently getting back into bladesmithing. Working on my perfect kitchen knife. Here's my first attempt (San mai, mild steel with recycled spring steel edge) : https://www.reddit.com/r/ukblade_blacksmiths/comments/1g5v6s...
Same! (but more side gig for me) It was pandemic hobby. Started out just making a chefy with a custom handle for my wife from a premade blank. Did the next one by hand with a file and a little home made forge, then went all in on a belt grinder, evenheat kiln etc.
The material science side of the blade is a blast - but one of my favorite bits is actually all the variety in handle materials. https://gcarta.bigcartel.com/products has some amazing patterns.
Awesome! It's much easier to get into than people think. It's well worth learning how to make decent tongs, it's one of my favourite things to make, especially if you learn to punch the holes and rivet by hand.
I'm learning how to use a power hammer in work. It can save a lot of time but I love hand forging.
I haven't done much experimentation with handles. I've been rescuing bits from my firewood for handles so far :-) I also like curving the tang round to make a handle, which people call a "blacksmith knife".
I tried being self employed for 3 years but didn't make enough money to live on. Now I'm full time employed. I don't forge that much, lots more time doing cutting, welding, grinding. I love it.
Sorry, I've got a long way to go before they're sellable! I'm just setting up a forge at a friend's farm to do more forging at weekends. There are a few people who want to learn and I've got a list of techniques from Forged In Fire that I want to try out.
What a beautiful article; the author weaves together the blacksmith's story with the science of the forge and red-hot metal inside in a way that put me there, as if I was watching Sam turn a deck of metal cards into a knife. The photos that accompany the text are stunning in their own right.
Author Laurence Gonzales writes, "In a sense, the knife marked the birth of civilization", which reminds me of the first knives that the survivors of Verne's "The Mysterious Island" make in their desperation and ingenuity:
“Ah, if we only had a knife!” cried the sailor.
“Well?” asked Cyrus Harding.
“Well! I would soon make a bow and arrows, and then there could be plenty of game in the larder!”
“Yes, a knife, a sharp blade.” said the engineer, as if he was speaking to himself.
At this moment his eyes fell upon Top, who was running about on the shore. Suddenly Harding’s face became animated.
“Top, here,” said he.
The dog came at his master’s call. The latter took Top’s head between his hands, and unfastening the collar which the animal wore round his neck, he broke it in two, saying,—
“There are two knives, Pencroft!”
Two hurrahs from the sailor was the reply. Top’s collar was made of a thin piece of tempered steel. They had only to sharpen it on a piece of sandstone, then to raise the edge on a finer stone. Now sandstone was abundant on the beach, and two hours after the stock of tools in the colony consisted of two sharp blades, which were easily fixed in solid handles.
The production of these their first tools was hailed as a triumph. It was indeed a valuable result of their labor, and a very opportune one. They set out.
Nakiri profile is such a waste of good steel. It has no point (literally) and it's only going to cut vegetables so it can be almost any steel and serve its purpose. Spending this much effort on a kitchen knife is insane. It's just a utilitarian tool, like a mop.
Just get a boring stamped carbon steel knife and learn how to hone and sharpen (or just pay someone to sharpen it!), and don't leave it sitting in water. I haven't sharpened my knives in 2 years, they are all <$80 and sharper than most people's. Life doesn't have to be complicated.
My kitchen knife layout (on a magnet bar on the fridge):
3x 3.75" stainless paring knife (precision by goodcook)
1x 5.25" stainless paring knife (precision by goodcook)
1x 6" victorinox
1x 7" random japanese high carbon knife
1x 8" zwilling chefs knife
These were bought at grocery or department stores. They're still sharp [enough]. I use the big chef's knife mostly to cut pizza, cake, bread. The midsize I use to carve meat and veggies. The paring I use for everything from cheese and fruit to spreading peanut butter and opening packages. I always have a knife handy, they handle well, they aren't expensive, and they perform great.
Using a very sharp nakiri made of a very hard steel is incomparably more enjoyable than using one made of ordinary steel, due to the reduced force required for slicing, and it avoids the need for frequent sharpening.
As long as it is used for its only intended function, i.e. cutting/slicing/chopping vegetables, nakiri has the optimum shape, at least for people like myself, who do not like the rocking motion required with French-style chef knives, but who prefer to slice or chop with precise rectilinear motions.
For some things that might require the use of the point with European knives, like removing some defect in a vegetable, the heel of a nakiri blade is actually more convenient.
Of course the nakiri shape is not versatile. If you want a multi-purpose blade, I prefer the kiritsuke shape (i.e. a trapezoidal blade, not much different from a box cutter with a longer point), because that kind of point allows a maximum precision in cuts.
Using a Japanese peeling/paring knife with very thin, sharp and hard blade is much more enjoyable than using an ordinary paring knife made of stainless steel, due to much less effort for using it and more precise results (i.e. lower vegetable waste).
A long time ago, I had been using knives like those described by you, but replacing them with up to 3 better knives (paring/peeling, cutting/slicing/chopping and boning) has completely changed cooking from something that was more of a chore to an enjoyable activity.
That's one viewpoint, the utilitarian one. But a lot of people simply like to use things that are beautiful - take, for example, new cars (over old beaters) or gentleman's watches (over your phone's clock). And something that is hand-crafted might give somebody enjoyment just for this very fact, not because the end product is necessarily superior to a factory-made alternative.
I read this with an echo of the Douglas Adams passage about the Sandwich Maker in Mostly Harmless.
> many was the evening when the Sandwich Maker and the Tool Maker could be seen silhouetted against the light of the setting sun and the Tool Maker's forge making slow sweeping movements through the air, trying one knife after another, comparing the weight of this one with the balance of another, the suppleness of a third and the handle binding of a fourth
It's a bit of a nitpick, but I hate the term "Damascus steel" used in this context. This is pattern-welded steel, which was first called Damascus by Bill Moran in 1973. It offers few (if any) benefits that a solid billet of a single high-quality steel wouldn't, and it offers none that the original Damascus was said to have.
Damascus steel was originally a crucible wootz steel that came from India or Iran and was sold to Europe through Damascus. The alternating colors came from the grain structure of the steel, not from different steel types layered together. As far as I am aware, we still do not know the exact process used to create it, although we have come close, and it's likely that modern CPM (Crucible Particulate Metallurgy) steels surpass it due to more consistent measurements for the components of the alloy.
I am only an amateur blacksmith, but I have spent the last 15 years dreaming and researching to prepare myself. Given that I live in an apartment, I am limited to a small mobile forge that I can wheel out to the complex's grill area where I am actually allowed to have a fire, which limits the projects I can do due to the forge size and temperature. Crucible steel is a dream one day, but for now I just nitpick and try to tell people about the original Damascus, which is (in my opinion) much more fascinating than what gets the label today.
One of my own pet peeves in Forged In Fire was that every contestant would submit Damascus (-style) blades for their final showdowns. It just wasn’t necessary and often just looked trashy.
As a secondary nitpick, the term is perfectly acceptable for the process commonly used today. As you’ve already mentioned - the original process has been lost to time, so no one actually makes it.
> One of my own pet peeves in Forged In Fire was that every contestant would submit Damascus (-style) blades for their final showdowns. It just wasn’t necessary and often just looked trashy.
Agreed. There was a much smaller emphasis on Damascus steel in early seasons. If you go back and rewatch you can see the frequency pick up as they praised and required Damascus more and more.
I took a class hosted by a group affiliated with my local renfest, which kind of kickstarted me to actually follow up on all the research I did. Having experienced instructors helped with the beginning learning curve, plus they pointed out early pitfalls to avoid (like gripping the hammer too tight). While useful, you definitely don't need to take a class to get started. There's dozens of tutorials on making a basic forge on Youtube - either coal-burning or propane - and you can get started with something as basic as a sledgehammer head for your anvil. Even a Harbor Freight cast iron anvil is enough for a beginner, although they're more likely to crack.
My starting costs were reduced by gifts, and my dad giving me an anvil he made with a piece of railroad several years ago. A basic gas forge from Vevor is around $75, but you can make your own small one from a coffee can, some refractory wool, and a handheld propane torch.
Right now, I just make tools and trinkets for myself. I'm _very_ amateur at the moment, I have more theoretical knowledge than practical experience. Once I get comfortable, I'll make more trinkets and tools for friends and family, then maybe one day make things to sell.
You’ll probably find that there is a forge near where you live that does one- or two-day courses on blade smithing. It’s a pretty good birthday gift.
Watch any episode of Forged In Fire to get a feel for what’s involved from a hobbyists perspective. The second half of each episode follows the finalists’ progress on the challenge in their own workshops - some have full-blown black smithing businesses, but others are (literally) backyard operations.
I get the nostalgia, but it’s worth noting that modern metallurgy has far surpassed classic knife-making techniques. Industrially-made knives are stronger and hold an edge much better.
Indeed! I recently discovered how sharp and good Victorinox blades are. Even their cheap 10 euros blades are unbelievably sharp. To the point where you have to handle them with additional care compared to other knives. The nonchalant way I was handling the Ikea-type cooking knives got me a few deep cuts.
The issue with cheap knives isn't how sharp you can get them — you can _anything_ razor sharp relatively easily.
Making a knife that _keeps_ sharp; and that will not chip/shatter/handle won't disintegrate is the difficult part.
(You can also argue about blade geometries, how thin the blade is etc for hours; but "can this be made sharp" is not a problem with cheap/bad knives, generally.)
---
My (very limited!) understanding of knife steels is that "powdered steels" are not what you'll find in a random big box store; but rather more expensive, "fancy" lines.
You don't have to spend $450 on hand-forged, artisanal blade from Japan, but a $50 buck no-name is not going to be Buy-It-For-Life powdered steel knife either.
It really depends. A cheap knife from ikea will not. But a powdered steel knife which is itself a luxury will definitely hold its edge better than carbon steel.
There is also a tradeoff between ductility and hardness where going too far in the hardness direction results in a knife that chips easily and is really hard to sharpen. Softer German style steels are in a sweet spot for me in that regard, even though they require more frequent sharpening.
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I'm a materials junkie. My wine glasses are made of ZrO2 stabilized by Y2O3. My daily work is to convert carbon-bearing gases into diamond through plasma chemistry. I've long considered making diamond knife blades, although recent literature searches have put me off a bit, given their demonstration that brittle ceramic blades like Zirconium oxide shed sharp microparticles that I doubt are good for the ingester.
Nevertheless, I have made several small solid diamond blades (~15 cm long) that I've used to cut filet mignon. With load cells attached, the draw force to cut with a diamond blade is <20% of the draw force needed for an equivalent steel blade coated with titanium nitride and overcoated with a thin Teflon layer, about 5% of the draw force required by a custom Japanese knife. I have one diamond blade in my kitchen that I use as a paring knife. It's the very best tool I own.
I'm gratified that our ancestors figured out how to make superlatively sharp blades knowing essentially nothing of the science underlying their work. They were very smart and attuned to the aesthetics of their work.
Thanks again for the post. Materials are endlessly fascinating.
15cm is not a small knife. Infact a 15mm diamond knife is pretty massive. The longest diamond knife I'm finding with some lazy searching is about 4mm, and it's 2200$.
In the end if you want something usable you have to match application to material. There is nothing that is good for everything. I would not use diamond for knives except for fun.
To a layman, or expert pro chef layman, good steel is enough, durable, worry free, cheap.
so you fear harmful microparticles, so instead you suggest something normal, like
> steel blade overcoated with a thin Teflon layer
eh?? isn't teflon that scary(tm) substance you must never scratch off your pan or you'll poison yourself?
how's that any better than zirconium?
Deleted Comment
The material science side of the blade is a blast - but one of my favorite bits is actually all the variety in handle materials. https://gcarta.bigcartel.com/products has some amazing patterns.
I'm learning how to use a power hammer in work. It can save a lot of time but I love hand forging.
I haven't done much experimentation with handles. I've been rescuing bits from my firewood for handles so far :-) I also like curving the tang round to make a handle, which people call a "blacksmith knife".
(Of course I'll pay for it.)
Author Laurence Gonzales writes, "In a sense, the knife marked the birth of civilization", which reminds me of the first knives that the survivors of Verne's "The Mysterious Island" make in their desperation and ingenuity:
It might as well have been, but I think you meant to say "Family" :-)
"Contains: Iron TriChloride (FeCh), Iron DiChloride (FeCh), Hydrochloric Acid"
Plus a long list of warnings. Apparently it's for etching damascus steel.
Deleted Comment
Just get a boring stamped carbon steel knife and learn how to hone and sharpen (or just pay someone to sharpen it!), and don't leave it sitting in water. I haven't sharpened my knives in 2 years, they are all <$80 and sharper than most people's. Life doesn't have to be complicated.
My kitchen knife layout (on a magnet bar on the fridge):
These were bought at grocery or department stores. They're still sharp [enough]. I use the big chef's knife mostly to cut pizza, cake, bread. The midsize I use to carve meat and veggies. The paring I use for everything from cheese and fruit to spreading peanut butter and opening packages. I always have a knife handy, they handle well, they aren't expensive, and they perform great.Using a very sharp nakiri made of a very hard steel is incomparably more enjoyable than using one made of ordinary steel, due to the reduced force required for slicing, and it avoids the need for frequent sharpening.
As long as it is used for its only intended function, i.e. cutting/slicing/chopping vegetables, nakiri has the optimum shape, at least for people like myself, who do not like the rocking motion required with French-style chef knives, but who prefer to slice or chop with precise rectilinear motions.
For some things that might require the use of the point with European knives, like removing some defect in a vegetable, the heel of a nakiri blade is actually more convenient.
Of course the nakiri shape is not versatile. If you want a multi-purpose blade, I prefer the kiritsuke shape (i.e. a trapezoidal blade, not much different from a box cutter with a longer point), because that kind of point allows a maximum precision in cuts.
Using a Japanese peeling/paring knife with very thin, sharp and hard blade is much more enjoyable than using an ordinary paring knife made of stainless steel, due to much less effort for using it and more precise results (i.e. lower vegetable waste).
A long time ago, I had been using knives like those described by you, but replacing them with up to 3 better knives (paring/peeling, cutting/slicing/chopping and boning) has completely changed cooking from something that was more of a chore to an enjoyable activity.
> many was the evening when the Sandwich Maker and the Tool Maker could be seen silhouetted against the light of the setting sun and the Tool Maker's forge making slow sweeping movements through the air, trying one knife after another, comparing the weight of this one with the balance of another, the suppleness of a third and the handle binding of a fourth
Damascus steel was originally a crucible wootz steel that came from India or Iran and was sold to Europe through Damascus. The alternating colors came from the grain structure of the steel, not from different steel types layered together. As far as I am aware, we still do not know the exact process used to create it, although we have come close, and it's likely that modern CPM (Crucible Particulate Metallurgy) steels surpass it due to more consistent measurements for the components of the alloy.
I am only an amateur blacksmith, but I have spent the last 15 years dreaming and researching to prepare myself. Given that I live in an apartment, I am limited to a small mobile forge that I can wheel out to the complex's grill area where I am actually allowed to have a fire, which limits the projects I can do due to the forge size and temperature. Crucible steel is a dream one day, but for now I just nitpick and try to tell people about the original Damascus, which is (in my opinion) much more fascinating than what gets the label today.
As a secondary nitpick, the term is perfectly acceptable for the process commonly used today. As you’ve already mentioned - the original process has been lost to time, so no one actually makes it.
Agreed. There was a much smaller emphasis on Damascus steel in early seasons. If you go back and rewatch you can see the frequency pick up as they praised and required Damascus more and more.
Pardon all the questions but it’s a topic I’ve been curious about.
My starting costs were reduced by gifts, and my dad giving me an anvil he made with a piece of railroad several years ago. A basic gas forge from Vevor is around $75, but you can make your own small one from a coffee can, some refractory wool, and a handheld propane torch.
Right now, I just make tools and trinkets for myself. I'm _very_ amateur at the moment, I have more theoretical knowledge than practical experience. Once I get comfortable, I'll make more trinkets and tools for friends and family, then maybe one day make things to sell.
Watch any episode of Forged In Fire to get a feel for what’s involved from a hobbyists perspective. The second half of each episode follows the finalists’ progress on the challenge in their own workshops - some have full-blown black smithing businesses, but others are (literally) backyard operations.
Making a knife that _keeps_ sharp; and that will not chip/shatter/handle won't disintegrate is the difficult part.
(You can also argue about blade geometries, how thin the blade is etc for hours; but "can this be made sharp" is not a problem with cheap/bad knives, generally.)
---
My (very limited!) understanding of knife steels is that "powdered steels" are not what you'll find in a random big box store; but rather more expensive, "fancy" lines.
You don't have to spend $450 on hand-forged, artisanal blade from Japan, but a $50 buck no-name is not going to be Buy-It-For-Life powdered steel knife either.
Deleted Comment
IKEA BRILJERA knives are the mid-range not cheapest ones. But they are not expensive.
But they are made from (The Chinese version of) VG10 steel, which will hold an edge very well, and is still stainless.