Catcheside - Mono steels.

I have been very focused on my Damascus and san mai work for sometime and regularly get inquires about mono steel knives. So with a considered approach I mean to make a few every now and then which will be for direct sale as and when they are produced via my mailing list and website.
In a current mono steel I want to offer a similar grind weight and geometry that I have come to offer in my custom damascus work so will be making some from thicker 4mm stock as well as some lighter in 3mm as the original Utility line were.
The 4mm will be pitched as a higher grade product, giving you the benefit of my current geometry, heavier knife, thin geometry, the same finish and attention to detail will be given to the 3mm knives, you will just have a lighter knife, well mid weight, I would say close to 4mm is mid as well, anything over that being heavy. Handles will be made from what I have and can attain at a mid/reasonable price and from bits and pieces I have. So rarely two will be the same handle mixture, will only be using stabilised or very stable natural stock. I stress that these will all be completely hand made in shop and in no way mid-tech.
I will post pictures here as they get finished and detail geometry shots so you can see what Im talking about.

Here is the first in 4mm carbon 01. Will be about 3.8mm at the heel, very pleased the way it feels, and cuts like a custom.
It is a 230mm Gyuto, 52mm Height.

Lets get straight to the geometry, excuse the fluff on the blade, Macro lens is very unforgiving



















I have price points in mind for both the 3mm and 4mm offerings and will publish a couple for sale soon via my mailing then place them for sale on my website.

Would love to know what you think of this,

Cheers
Will

Sounds and looks amazing!

Yes please


Sent from my iPhone using Kitchen Knife Forum

Looks pretty awesome to me! I bet there'll be a big demand for those. I'd get one myself if I could afford one.
:2thumbsup:

I think I'm out of the market for these kinds of knives at the moment but the one posted looks pretty awesome.

Good call Will. I think this series will be very successful.

Thanks Guys, for your information, rough price point at this time will be £290 for 3mm 240mm knives and £60 more for the 4mm version, plus shipping but I may do a deal and split the postage on the first pair.
Just finished a 3mm version. (Thats in pounds sterling).

Will do some choil shot comparisons tomorrow side by side.

Look great Will,I prefer a heavier knife in a Gyuto the 4mm is very appealing.Do you plan to use different steels or just the 01?

These look amazing, Will! Definitely interested.

If I were to buy one more knife this would definitely be it. Looks great Will! Hope I have some funds when one appears.

Thanks Guys very much, thats encouraging. I am enthusiastic about these.

As for steel, I feel the carbon offering is superb for an everyday use knife. Incidentally the steel is not exactly 01 it is
DIN Grade..1.2510 (100MnCrW1) Nearest AISI Standard ............01 Hardness .......................230 HB
Chemical Composition
C Carbon ............. 0.90 - 1.05% Si Silicon .............. 0.15 - 0.35% Mn Manganese ...... 1.00 - 1.20% Cr Chromium ........ 0.50 - 0.70%
V Vanadium ......... 0.05 - 0.15%
W Tungsten .......... 0.50 - 0.70%
P Phosphorous ... max. 0.035% S Sulphur ............ max. 0.035%

A close relative with less silicon on paper. Grain break was impressive, very fine. The only finest I have seen is stainless 14c28n, but on a very very thin edge even at full 62/63 h&c hardness you have to be a little careful with it, it would fold on bone it is so fine grained, yet if you really pushed it to destruction would chip across a thicker section, it has impressive characteristics though yet can be a real pain to keep straight during HT/temper/cryo procedures.
01 is still the perfect balance for me so robust to folding or chipping and among the finest carbide, with correct Ht of course at the cost of being a carbon steel.
But 14c28n stainless could work superbly in 4mm. But this year and into next I have too many commitments to get through, so will keep these simple, not make any promises on them and just keep them as and when, trying to have a flow of blanks HT'd ready made to finish one or two when I can of an evening or whenever, Something to develop with time.

Got a 270mm gyuto (utility line?) knife for my brother a while ago....would love to get him a smaller size from you as it is probably a bit long for most to get used to

Oh man, this is exactly the type of thing im in the market for

Thanks Guys here is some more with geometry comparisons between the two thicknesses.

















These two will be up for sale later. I think I will add a form to the shop page to get a gauge on how many may want one in the next few months or so and in what thickness so I can buy the right amount of stock. There won't be custom options on these, it will just be a form to gauge interest, maybe I can try and produce 4 -6 per month as I can fit the work in and in a few evenings. I have shot a video of both cutting which I hope will show the subtle difference. As I thought they both cut well, but the difference in weight gives a different feel with less force needed in most cases wit the heavier knife, really comes down to personal preference and or budget.

Got the email... Trying hard to restrain myself

Von blewitt said:

Got the email... Trying hard to restrain myself

Click to expand...

Me too!

+ 1 !!

They sold rapidly, thanks Guys!

Yep... I woke up, saw the email, decided to peek in case I was going to make an irrational decision...and they were gone.

Signing up for the newsletter. Don't know why I hadn't before

What the? I'm not on the newsletter? Crappola!

These were from last week, as always notification of new stock goes out to my mailing list. Should have two more 4mm version carbon Gyutos done this weeks and some san mai stuff coming out over the holidays.
Really enjoying seeking out every bit of performance I can from the material thickness on these. They are ground to 0.1mm on the edge and thinned on the stones from there, tested in the kitchen before final finish work. So yep the are thin, yet retain that magic geometry.

I see a lot of heel shots of thin knives that have been sharpened at quite an acute angle, after a few sharpenings it ruins the geometry with a nasty hesitation on cutting. Heavier knives especially have to be kept thin, so I establish a very low sharpening angle on these, knife only just held off the stone for the user to follow. A barely visible microbevel is put on at the end. Its nothing drastic, all done with a Takashimi or a 5k chosera. But it should give the end user something to follow which will maintain thinness for a long time to come before further compound work is necessary.

Couple of pics from last weeks knives.





You can bearly see the change in angle into the edge which is as it should be.





This is a 3mm Suji, thickness and geometry is almost identical from the base of the choil to the 4mm. 4mm carries more weight on the spine. The weight alone gives the different feeling to cutting.



Thanks All, you can join my mailing list in my shop or contact page on my website.

http://www.catchesidecutlery.com/shop.html

If you have difficulty just let me know and I will add you manually.

Cheers

Will

Here is an example of the 2015 profile in a 235mm Gyuto, Has a little more belly and comes parallel with the spine towards the heel, really nice blend of gentle curve/flat heel and belly.


A further subtle change on the next four blades that will come up is I have returned to forge tapering with the mono steel. It just works out very well with the heavier steel I am working in. The change is very subtle, but aesthetically pleasing in that you get a nice swift taper from the thickest part as the tang enters the handle diagonally into the heel, then gentle taper to the tip. So really it just gives me more control and fits best with my skill set. But it does give a nice aesthetic and that extra strength flowing into the tang. Subtle but pleasing changes, and all contributes to the Combination of a dead stable stiff blade combined with thin geometry.

Some pics to illustrate what I mean as forged and heat treated....



As foged thicknesses before grinding.





Next 4 blades up two 270mm and two 210's



Another thought on handles is that I have some makings left for the old Utility line handles which were very basic, blackwood ferrule and african rosewood. Sometimes I get asked if I do blade only and while I would not provide a blade without handle in most cases, this could be a compromise doing the odd knife with basic handle, burnt in not epoxied, so as to provide a working finished knife with the option to change handles later if desired, for budding handle makers or those who might like to install a Japanese handle or one made by one of KKfs Handle guys.

Basic handle in the foreground, will likely install this on one of the 210's. With a discounted price. Others glued up are all premium burls and buffalo horn. Would like your thoughts and feedback on this idea. Cheers

Will

Forgot the pic.... duh

I think the options are a great idea. I also like the idea of having the handles burnt in so that while thinning it can be removed. Looking forward to seeing pics of these all put together.

Cheers

I can't believe you are using a Milwaukee radio - or is it just for charging your batteries? Those things are the bane of my existence on jobsites!

Back on topic, those are really sweet knives!!! What is the white - red spacer?

Thanks Fellas Ha ha , I used to be much louder with an old Pa system , competing with the power hammer, so the Milwaukee was a sensible downgrade to keep the neighbours happy, and it seems quite content to be constantly blasted with dust and chucked around

The White spacers are a rather nice ivory substitute, some kind of GPS blend, they kindly added some kind of scent as well so it smells like coconut when you grind it, The Red/purple In the top is a slice of dyed maple burl.

Will - I just finished a weekend of putting the Mono to work (home user) and all I can say is wow. Gorgeous (as expected) but also a fantastic performer. I took apart a few bags of onion (after getting a base patina from some other onion, lemon, garlic, and beef), and it performed admirably. Nice heavy/sturdy blade, but still very nimble. I really like the '15 profile as well. These mono steel knives are tremendous, and I am thrilled to have one. Thanks again for doing these!

After all the hard work on these thats great to hear:doublethumbsup:

Last couple of mono's. Quite a bit on the go at the moment but added these yesterday and will get around to finishing a couple more by the end of the month.



And some real close up work with my macro lens.....left the tripod in the workshop so excuse the background blur in some....

To give you some idea of scale as everything looks huge through macro Spine at handle measures 4.2mm over the heel around 3.8, 1cm from the tip 0.8mm.
And on the heel, halfway down is around 2mm, 1cm from the edge just over 1mm at the heel tapping from there. This should give you an idea of the extreme geometry and keeping just the right amount of meat in the blade at the apex of the change in angle...around 12mm up from the edge, to allow convexity right to the edge allowing release without wedge. You can see it keeps this strength and a degree of convexity into the tip, until the very point, so there is no flex anywhere. The edge geometry is controlled at every finishing grit by visiting the stones in-between each grit. While painstaking I have found this the only way to repeatably and consistently achieve this thinness at the edge, while maintaining the convexity. This leaves very little to do on the stones when the knife is finished, I can usually go straight to a Takashima stone where I set a thinning bevel around 6-7 degrees per side, (this helps the user and gives a bevel to follow when ever the knife is sharpened to maintain a thin edge without any further thinning further up for a long time.) and a microbevel on this. Enough babble...Hopefully the photos clearly show these details for you.

Spine... Forging helps here in this larger stock...



Heel, remember for scale the apex at about 12mm from the edge up measures approx 1.2mm at this heel section.



This shows the apex clearer, and the low angle thinning bevel set at the end.



Tip remember for scale about 0.8mm 1cm from the tip.



Very close with complimentary fabric fluff!



Thanks for looking