Our Process…
What makes a handcrafted blade?
Please understand below is just an overview of our process. The knife is a tool that has been around for at least 2.5 million years! We are taking what we are constantly learning from how this tool has been made over its 2.5 million year history & applying those lessons to the best of our abilities in our humble work shop.
Blade Steel Selection
Every knife begins with a high quality blade steel & a spray can of Dykem Steel Blue layout fluid. This fluid is basically a machinists pray paint. It dry’s quickly and holds up well during our processing steps that generate heat.
Once the fluid has dried we place our full size templates on the steel and trace out designs with a high quality scribe.
*What blade steel do we use & why?
A vast majority of the time we use AEB-L stainless steel. AEB-L was originally developed for razor blades. Thus is takes a keen edge & has the resilience we would expect from a stainless steel knife. We do use steels like S35VN , 52100 , & CPM Magnacut. For a cost to performance AEB-L is by far our go to choice!
Metal Cutting Bandsaw
Next we head over to our SWAG / Milwaukee bandsaw table. This Portaband table paired w/ some Qsaw blades makes cutting this steel so much easier than our original process of using cutoff wheels (aka; death wheels).
This bandsaw generates less heat, is reliable & with the right blades can cut our 1/4” full size meat cleaver steel.
*If your a maker or DIY’er here are some links to our setup. We are not sponsored or indorsed by any means, but would love to be ;) . We are sharing this pro-tip because of the years it took to find a solution that worked for us.
Grinding the Blade Blanks
With our blades all rough cut from the bandsaw we had over to the 2x72 belt grinder and proceed to refine the shapes as we close in on the scribed shapes.
During this process we use the grinder in vertical, horizontal, and few different attachments help us dial in the final shape of the blade.
Drilling Pin Holes
With the blanks all shaped out its time to drill holes that will be use for pins when we get to the handling process after heat treat.
Goliath - Makers Mark
Meet Goliath… This is our 20T press (weighing in around ~75lbs) designed to do two things. First is out last our founder & head maker Nate. Secondly brand each of our knives with our trademarked makers mark!
This press has been serving us for many years & will be getting some updates in 2022!
*note some steels have to be laser engraved due to their hardness even in an annealed state :(
Heat Treat
We leave all our heat treating to the professionals. This is for a number of reasons. Our shop is less than 120sq feet & we have all our blades not only heat treated but cryo treated as well.
This means we get the grain structure in your blade as tight as possible. What this all sums up to is heirloom quality cutlery this is on point.
Grind & Sharpen
We take our heat treated blades, then flat grind them with a series of abrasive belts. After flat grinding we machine brush the blades a belts very similar to scotch-brite pads.
The final step in this process is sharpening the blade before moving onto the handling process.
Handle Materials
This part of the process is fun & special. From custom orders to our own creations we get inspiration from the blade and things we observe in our lives. Follow us on Instagram for any duration of time & you’ll see Nate’s automotive passion / influence in many of our creations.
Glue It Up
Here we jump a little head to see the bolster area profiled, polished & the knife now in epoxy. Once the epoxy has cured we will rough shape the knife handle.
It’s Taking Shape!
We love hogging away material to revival each knives new look! Once we have the knife shaped its onto hand shaping with a file and sand paper (lots of sand paper). Once the handles are sanded we move onto a food safe oil or machine polish (like buffing paint on a car).
Finito!
Your handcrafted heirloom cutlery is cleaned one last time, photographed, packaged and shipped to loving kitchens around the world that love handcrafted cutlery & making memories around the table.