How Important is it to you that your knife is forged?

[Alpine.knifeworks]

Curious about how people feel about forging vs stock removal in general. (I do not make knives, just curious)

Obviously there are varying levels of creation methods between these as well, but just generalizing to fully forged or full on blank stock removal for the purpose of simplicity

 

[BillHanna]

I used to care, when I first got into this; but now, fudge it. If it cuts, it cuts. I’m unsure how to assign value to the work involved, because I know nothing about it. I feeeeeeel like I want stock removal to be cheaper, from a currency per hour perspective.

 

[Alpine.knifeworks]

I used to care, when I first got into this; but now, fudge it. If it cuts, it cuts. I’m unsure how to assign value to the work involved, because I know nothing about it. I feeeeeeel like I want stock removal to be cheaper, from a currency per hour perspective.

I'm with you 100% on all of the above

 

[HumbleHomeCook]

Despite what so many out there want to believe, in the modern age, any performance benefits of hand forging are likely miniscule to none.

Heat treating is different.

 

[Jovidah]

All I care about is performance and price while I'm actually using it. How that is achieved is utterly meaningless to me. I do not care whether something was forged by full moonlight out of virgin steel melted by Odin himself, quenched in unicorn tears and gracefully hammered into shape by some geriatric 23th generation grandmaster who only makes 3 blades per year.... In the end half of those stories are marketing anyway and I have no way of verifying its authenticity, or whether any of it impacts the actual performance.
For all I care it's made by some bored underpaid teenage apprentice who's playing crappy mobile games on his phone in between the occasional button press on a CNC machine. As long as the knife is good it's all the same to me.

I think from a metallurgical point of view the general concensus seems to be that it doesn't really make a difference.

 

[mockit]

I’m not sure if I’d say forge vs stock should be less per hour but I sort of assume that stock removal skips a step and thus may take less time. Fit, finish, details may counteract that. Bidinger is a stock removal artist and his knives are worth every penny to me. Im sure I’d feel similarly about Kipp if I could get a hold of one 🥹. I think there are makers who focus on forging, grinding, or both. Everyone has their specialities and I’m happy to appreciate them all when executed well.

 

[tostadas]

I dont think I can't tell the difference in performance or in sharpening. But I find myself gravitating toward knives that feature some rough forged finish due to the added character. I also like the look of banding in the steel when polishing, though I'm not sure if it's a direct result of hand forging or something else.

 

[M1k3]

I appreciate the skill and art to those that forge weld and hammer out their blades.

I have no preference towards or against it or stock removal.

For me, it's about the performance of the knife first. How it got there and looks come secondary.

 

[esoo]

Every knife we use is a stock removal knife. It may be forged to rough shape, but after that it is stock removal.

 

[Alpine.knifeworks]

I'm curious to hear from the people that are saying forging or stock removal have performance advantages! You guys should chime in. Honestly curious and hoping to learn, not sarcastic haha

 

[spaceconvoy]

For me it's about the bolster and weight distribution. Some knives I want a neutral balance, like my 180mm gyuto that I use more like a utility knife. I want this knife forged because I loathe the sharp edges of a pinned bolster, and I don't care if you say the gap is imperceptible, it's there and I know it's there. Only a forged bolster can have that perfectly smooth curve I want.

Or someone could do stock removal on a 20mm blank for all I care, but I image the price would be insane

 

[mockit]

Whether it’s between the bolster and the handle or the tang and the handle there is going to be a gap somewhere. It’s pretty imperceptible to me on full tangs and can be minimized with a tapered handle on Was. I hear you though.

 

[MSicardCutlery]

If properly set up, I'd be willing to bet that with a power hammer a forged low bevel gyuto could be made faster than a stock removal blade with ground in taper...especially if working in batches.

 

[BillHanna]

If properly set up, I'd be willing to bet that with a power hammer a forged low bevel gyuto could be made faster than a stock removal blade with ground in taper...especially if working in batches.

This is something I’d never guess, since I’m a know nothing Jon Snow.


I’ll take a knife course, one day.

 

[MSicardCutlery]

This is something I’d never guess, since I’m a know nothing Jon Snow.


I’ll take a knife course, one day.

I...never watched GOT

 

[mockit]

@MSicardCutlery
Interesting and good to know / think about. All depends on level of detail and complexity I suppose.

GOT was alright . Just don’t watch the last season and you won’t feel entirely disappointed like the rest of us lol.

 

[MSicardCutlery]

GOT was alright . Just don’t watch the last season and you won’t feel entirely disappointed like the rest of us lol.

That's what I keep hearing...a friend of mine was genuinely pissed off at how they ended it. I seem to remember him going on a 30 minute rant about it shortly after it aired

 

[BillHanna]

the books were betterrrrrrrrrr

 

[esoo]

the books were betterrrrrrrrrr

The first few. I started skipping chapters in the later ones.

 

[Matt Jacobs]

I don't think there is much difference in performance but I prefer a thick spine and good distal taper which I think would be easier to forge. Pure cutting performance is probably easier to get to starting with thin stock then removal. I also love the look of forge marks.

 

[mengwong]

I started skipping chapters in the later ones.

Word to the wise: Wheel of Time now streaming, you can skip entire novels in the series or even better skip the whole series on Amazon Prime Video.

 

[Barmoley]

I'm curious to hear from the people that are saying forging or stock removal have performance advantages! You guys should chime in. Honestly curious and hoping to learn, not sarcastic haha

It doesn’t really matter how a knife is made. All steels today are forged at some point and are ground at some point. Hand forging is just a method of taking forged steel from the factory and shaping it so that less grinding is needed. There are a few potential differences though. If you want forge welded damascus or sanmai knives someone has to forge weld the steels together. So you would have to buy the blanks if available or if not do it yourself especially if the combination or the dimensions you want are not available for purchase. So in this case the blank has to be created and then either forged to shape or stock removal.

With high alloy steels in general stock removal might be the only option as very few people forge these. There is Devin Thomas of course that can forge weld anything, but very few people besides him can.

A maker can ruin a steel by forging, but in some rare cases the steel can also be improved when it comes from the supplier in a bad shape as is the case with 1.2562. The improvement might be mostly from thermal cycling though, which any maker can do, and not from the physical hammering.

In the end it doesn’t matter how you get there as long as the knife is good, but some features like integral bolsters or extreme tapers might be easier to get with forging, on the other hand getting high alloy steels might be easier and more common with stock removal.

 

[Delat]

Every knife we use is a stock removal knife. It may be forged to rough shape, but after that it is stock removal.

Not sure this statement applies to forged geometry knives, assuming around 1/3 or less of the blade touches sandpaper with those.

 

[Naftoor]

I don’t care either way. My preference is for knives north of 7-8mm at the spine, I don’t care which method it takes to get there but forging seems to be more common since getting an under 1mm tip with a 8+mm spine is a loooot of wasted material

 

[EricEricEric]

Literally no comparison between the two

 

[Jovidah]

For me it's about the bolster and weight distribution. Some knives I want a neutral balance, like my 180mm gyuto that I use more like a utility knife. I want this knife forged because I loathe the sharp edges of a pinned bolster, and I don't care if you say the gap is imperceptible, it's there and I know it's there. Only a forged bolster can have that perfectly smooth curve I want.

Or someone could do stock removal on a 20mm blank for all I care, but I image the price would be insane

I get where you're coming from, but the sheer majority of 'forged' bolsters are actually just welded on and then smoothed out. In practise a lot of the 'bolstered' knives are really just stamped.

 

[Jovidah]

If properly set up, I'd be willing to bet that with a power hammer a forged low bevel gyuto could be made faster than a stock removal blade with ground in taper...especially if working in batches.

Yeah I can imagine that if you wat a certain level of spine thickess and taper you eventually reach a point where forging to shape is actually more efficient and cheaper. Grindig down 5mm blanks is probably not the most cost-efficient usage of abrasives and time.

 

[Barmoley]

Literally no comparison between the two

How so? Could you expand on this?

 

[jsandvad]

Another ignoramus here. I don't know of any performance differences, but I'm still awed by the skill of forging a beautiful, high performance knife from a rectangular piece of steel. Stock removal just feels too industrial to me. I'm painfully aware that this is irrational, but I don't care. I would never feel the same joy over getting a stock removal knife as I do when getting my hands on a expertly made forged knife.

 

[blokey]

If properly set up, I'd be willing to bet that with a power hammer a forged low bevel gyuto could be made faster than a stock removal blade with ground in taper...especially if working in batches.

I’d imagine stock removal a 7mm would be a lot more annoying and wasting than forge one, that said some steel just aren’t suppose to be forged by hand.

personally i love both, the unique aesthetic of hand forged knife and the cleanness of stock removal, tho for stock removal I have a lot higher standard for fit and finish