My Last Knife for 2017

[Cazador]

This chef's knife is on its was to its home tomorrow. This build was of course a production for me. I initially planned to use Nitro-V for the steel as I had in the past for these knives. However, I had problems with the blade warping badly, not once, but twice. Hence, this knife is made from AEB-L steel with black G-10 handles and red, white, and blue liners. It also has mosaic pins. The knife has an OAL of about 14 1/2" with a 9 1/2" cutting edge.

 

[Kevin Zito]

Super thin! I like it!

 

[Kevin Zito]

On a kitchen knife, how thin do you grind the spine? Say, right above the plunge line.

 

[John Wilson]

On a kitchen knife, how thin do you grind the spine? Say, right above the plunge line.

I can't speak for Cazador, but in general it depends on how you want the knife to feel. A knife with a Japanese profile will be thin and slice like a laser. This is what I make. A more European design will be 50% thicker and much more durable, but lesser cutting performance and increased weight is the tradeoff to get that durability.

Generally speaking, on a knife with a full distal taper the spine thickness over the heel is going to be about 80% (round numbers) of whatever your original stock thickness is. Again, just using my own numbers: A 6 or 8 inch chef begins with .110 stock, so call it something in the neighborhood of .090 or so. Pretty much, I want it about 2mm at the spine where it meets the handle. I use words like "pretty much, about, somewhere around..." because I personally don't break out a micrometer when I'm making knives. I know what thickness stock I want to begin with and how I'm going to taper it. No two are going to be perfectly the same but they aren't going to be all that far apart, either. The point being, my method is to the choose the stock based on the knife I intend to make.

For example, a petty/utility with a blade up to 4 inches will begin with .070 stock and the blade will be fairly stiff with a tiny bit of flex. The same stock on a fillet knife with a 6 or 8 inch blade will flex nearly 90 degrees and spring back, which is exactly what I want on a fillet knife. If I want it stiffer, I won't bring the grind all the way to the spine until halfway down the blade.

 

[Cazador]

On a kitchen knife, how thin do you grind the spine? Say, right above the plunge line.

I think it is pretty much what John said. I really haven't measured. The chefs knives that I've made are thin, wicked slicers. I start with .100 to .110 bar stock depending on sourcing of the steel. I've used the grinding technique that Mike Stewart (Ekim Knives) demonstrated on one of his YouTube videos, so I may be just a little closer to the original stock size at the plunge.