zetieum
Senior Member
Order
I ordered this custom knife from Dan in late September 2016. It was supposed to come 6 weeks after, but it got some big delays at the making and was ready before just before xmas. Then, it got some huge extra delay during the shipment: it traveled a lot before arriving in the beginning of March 2017 in my mailbox. (It seems that UK post and German post are competing for the title of worst post ever). The knife itself came well warp, but go some few rust stains because of the shipment. They went easily away. I cannot complain much: the shipment that was supposed to last few days lasted few months, which certainly explains that it had time to suffer.
Exchanges with Dan have been fine. It went though forum's PM and instagram. Dan sent intermediate pictures etc. I could adjust the profile to my desire. Only downside of the process were much longer delays than initially discussed, and the f***** post.
some specs:
edge length: 195mm
height: 48mm
bolster length: 20mm
total handle length: 145mm
weight: 171 g
Steel: 1.2210: carbon steel with a bit of chrome and Vanadium
General feeling and F&F
The feeling you have by grabbing this knife is confidence and power. It is clearly not a laser precision style knife. It is a grab-me-for-whatever-I-will-handle-it type. It has some weight: the forged bolster definitively plays a role there. The general look also transmit this feeling: simple black bog oak handle, forged bolster with forged marks, out of the forge marks on the top of the blade and sanded finish with light regular scratches parallel to the edge. All that gives a rustic yet refined look. It is rounded where it needs to be in a way that fits the rusticity of the knife. I like it.
Profile:
I could hardly complain because I choose it
. In short, I ask for a K-tip with a quite high blade and some flat spot. Dan forged it accordingly. Dan sent me some pictures out of the forge and after some discussion, we have decided to give a bit more curvature in the tip area. The result is excellent and the curvature really flows.
Handle: It is in bog Aok. Nicely made and rounded. The form is nice and flows. It is quite big in the middle, but it gives a very nice stable pinch grip avoiding the knife to move backwards. Initially, Dan planed on putting a pin, but it reveals not possible for technical reasons.
Steel, reactivity, sharpenability,etc:
I like a lot the color of the steel. It is a bit lighter grey than what I usually see and tend to look a bit like silver. It gives a nice contrast with the forge finished.
I have to say that the OOB edge was not good at all. No big deal though. So I directly sharpened it to a more acute angle and to a finer refined edge. The knife sharpen like a charm, very easy. Not as easy than @casca steel or Watanabe, but definitively fun to sharpen. It got a very nice edge on natural stones.
I cannot speak of edge retention yet.
In term of reactivity, it is very good. It is very little reactive and it starts getting some patina in the dark blue patterns. Nice.
Geometry: this is in my eyes the only down side on the knife. It is a convex blade. But it could be either thinner behind the edge, or thinner at the apex of the convex. It is not dramatic, but it is sub-optimal. This makes the knife more on the workhorse side than the scalpel. When cutting one clearly feels the blade and can hear carrots cracking. On the other hand, it makes the knife that clearly can handle anything, that is forgiving on bad technique, and that you can use without thinking. The geometry fits the rustic style of the blade. It has some distal taper. Although it could be more pronounced, the K-stype makes the tip efficient. Food release is good, but considering the convex geometry and thickness of the blade, there is room for improvement.
Altogether, I am happy with the knife. I do not have anything like that in my collection. There is clearly improvement possible for the geometry, but it is a knife that is extremely fun to use. A fell-good knife that begs for being used. Its design, performance and style make me think of a old-style countryside family house with old forged tools that are unbreakable and go from generation to generation. It is not the style of knife that you are going to be scare to use because it requires a perfect technique, or the style that is more a piece of art that you are afraid to damage etc. It is a knife that you grab with confidence like a excellent tool for doing what it was made for: cutting food.
I ordered this custom knife from Dan in late September 2016. It was supposed to come 6 weeks after, but it got some big delays at the making and was ready before just before xmas. Then, it got some huge extra delay during the shipment: it traveled a lot before arriving in the beginning of March 2017 in my mailbox. (It seems that UK post and German post are competing for the title of worst post ever). The knife itself came well warp, but go some few rust stains because of the shipment. They went easily away. I cannot complain much: the shipment that was supposed to last few days lasted few months, which certainly explains that it had time to suffer.
Exchanges with Dan have been fine. It went though forum's PM and instagram. Dan sent intermediate pictures etc. I could adjust the profile to my desire. Only downside of the process were much longer delays than initially discussed, and the f***** post.
some specs:
edge length: 195mm
height: 48mm
bolster length: 20mm
total handle length: 145mm
weight: 171 g
Steel: 1.2210: carbon steel with a bit of chrome and Vanadium
General feeling and F&F
The feeling you have by grabbing this knife is confidence and power. It is clearly not a laser precision style knife. It is a grab-me-for-whatever-I-will-handle-it type. It has some weight: the forged bolster definitively plays a role there. The general look also transmit this feeling: simple black bog oak handle, forged bolster with forged marks, out of the forge marks on the top of the blade and sanded finish with light regular scratches parallel to the edge. All that gives a rustic yet refined look. It is rounded where it needs to be in a way that fits the rusticity of the knife. I like it.
Profile:
I could hardly complain because I choose it
. In short, I ask for a K-tip with a quite high blade and some flat spot. Dan forged it accordingly. Dan sent me some pictures out of the forge and after some discussion, we have decided to give a bit more curvature in the tip area. The result is excellent and the curvature really flows.
Handle: It is in bog Aok. Nicely made and rounded. The form is nice and flows. It is quite big in the middle, but it gives a very nice stable pinch grip avoiding the knife to move backwards. Initially, Dan planed on putting a pin, but it reveals not possible for technical reasons.
Steel, reactivity, sharpenability,etc:
I like a lot the color of the steel. It is a bit lighter grey than what I usually see and tend to look a bit like silver. It gives a nice contrast with the forge finished.
I have to say that the OOB edge was not good at all. No big deal though. So I directly sharpened it to a more acute angle and to a finer refined edge. The knife sharpen like a charm, very easy. Not as easy than @casca steel or Watanabe, but definitively fun to sharpen. It got a very nice edge on natural stones.
I cannot speak of edge retention yet.
In term of reactivity, it is very good. It is very little reactive and it starts getting some patina in the dark blue patterns. Nice.
Geometry: this is in my eyes the only down side on the knife. It is a convex blade. But it could be either thinner behind the edge, or thinner at the apex of the convex. It is not dramatic, but it is sub-optimal. This makes the knife more on the workhorse side than the scalpel. When cutting one clearly feels the blade and can hear carrots cracking. On the other hand, it makes the knife that clearly can handle anything, that is forgiving on bad technique, and that you can use without thinking. The geometry fits the rustic style of the blade. It has some distal taper. Although it could be more pronounced, the K-stype makes the tip efficient. Food release is good, but considering the convex geometry and thickness of the blade, there is room for improvement.
Altogether, I am happy with the knife. I do not have anything like that in my collection. There is clearly improvement possible for the geometry, but it is a knife that is extremely fun to use. A fell-good knife that begs for being used. Its design, performance and style make me think of a old-style countryside family house with old forged tools that are unbreakable and go from generation to generation. It is not the style of knife that you are going to be scare to use because it requires a perfect technique, or the style that is more a piece of art that you are afraid to damage etc. It is a knife that you grab with confidence like a excellent tool for doing what it was made for: cutting food.
