My scrap metal

[derjaeger]

Here I will post some of my vintage knives.

The first one is a little Nogent style knife which is very thin and flexible. I just cleaned it with barkeepers friend, corrected the profile, thinned it behind the edge and sharpened it, then it was already good for use.

Best regards

Jäger

 

[braxtonrush]

Beautiful

 

[simona]

Very nice - made me think of my cousin, who while being an excellent cook, is no knife nerd; she has an antique butter knife, razor sharp, which she uses as a petty - similar steel colour reminded me I guess.

 

[Ericfg]

Very nice! I've got a couple Henckels nogents that have that thin taper to them.

I'm curious your thinning technique; how'd you go about it?

 

[derjaeger]

This is an old Wüsthof knifecase. Unfortunately some knives are missing. So far no restoration has been done. I have another Wüsthof knifecase which is slightly different and also not complete.

Best regards

Jäger

 

[derjaeger]

Very nice! I've got a couple Henckels nogents that have that thin taper to them.

I'm curious your thinning technique; how'd you go about it?

I removed the overgrind and corrected the tip on a coarse DMT plate by grinding perpendicular to the stone, then i used a Shapton Pro 320 and established a slightly convex geometry behind the edge, I just ground up to 1,5 cm above the edge approximately. Then I refined the coarse scratches with SP 1000 and established a secondery bevel with a SP 5000 if i remember correctly.

Best regards

Jäger

 

[derjaeger]

This is one of my favorite knives of my collection, a huge Henckels Grand Prize. It has a good Taper and is not too heavy. Also the blade height is quite unusual. So far I didn't mess with it.

Best regards

Jäger

 

[derjaeger]

The other Wüsthof knifecase. The Escher hone was probably not part of the case initially.

Best regards

Jäger

 

[derjaeger]

Some unrestored project knives. The pic is quite old so some of them I have already restored or sold.

Best regards

Jäger

 

[derjaeger]

La Trompette and F. DICK, both beautifully restored by a hobbyist knifemaker.

Best regards

Jäger

 

[Ericfg]

This is one of my favorite knives of my collection, a huge Henckels Grand Prize. It has a good Taper and is not too heavy. Also the blade height is quite unusual. So far I didn't mess with it.
Best regards

Jäger

Check out my giant Henckels resto thread: [Vintage chef's knife] Holy Toledo boys!
The height, weight and width(at the bolster) is 79mm, 519g, 9mm. They made monsters back in the day.

The other Wüsthof knifecase. The Escher hone was probably not part of the case initially.

I think I saw that in the 'old carbon' thread on the German forum. What a score that is.

Some unrestored project knives. The pic is quite old so some of them I have already restored or sold.

Wow! Any interesting stories on how these were aquired?

La Trompette and F. DICK, both beautifully restored by a hobbyist knifemaker.

Top notch restorations on both. Thanks for sharing your beauties!!!

 

[derjaeger]

@Ericfg no intersesting stories about these knives unfortunately, some I aquired online, some on fleamarkets. One time I asked a person who sold on Ebay if she had other old knives than the one I was bidding on and I ended up buying about ten old french chef knives directly from her, including some La Trompettes. Here's a pic of this score (actually there were some more knives but somehow I didn't take a pic of all of them):

Some of them NOS, some of them reground and never used after, some used and rusty. I also like the one with the chunky handle.

Best regards

Jäger

 

[derjaeger]

These two were also part of the french lot. One of them being a full tang NOS la Trompette. Unfortunately it has a little nick in the edge so I don't know if it will be thin enough after sharpening it out without further altering the geometry.

Best regards

Jäger

 

[derjaeger]

Some simple NOS knives from Solingen:

Best regards,

Jäger

 

[chefwp]

I was on the fence for a while on whether to clean up these tools after my mother-in-law brought these over from Germany. I finally landed on just leaving the patinas as they are as it gives them some character. I do still toy with the idea of putting a sharp edge on that big cleaver.
https://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/...-from-the-turn-of-the-century-1900-ish.65310/

 

[Ericfg]

Amazing collection! Wunderbar!

 

[derjaeger]

A recent score: This nicelely tapered Henckels Grand Prize 108

Best regards
Jäger

 

[Jovidah]

You really have a gorgeous collection of classics. If they still made them like this today I think the forum's perspective on Wüsthof, Zwilling and modern Sabs would be very very different.

 

[M1k3]

You really have a gorgeous collection of classics. If they still made them like this today I think the forum's perspective on Wüsthof, Zwilling and modern Sabs would be very very different.

Classic shape, with just a simple carbon steel in the 60-62+HRC range would be great! Even better if ApexUltra or something more wear resistant was used.

 

[Ericfg]

If they still made them like this today I think the forum's perspective on Wüsthof, Zwilling and modern Sabs would be very very different.

Zwilling's got a 300 year anniversary coming up (in 2031 I think?) and I'm hoping they do some sort of retro homage like the 102/108 series.

 

[derjaeger]

Zwilling's got a 300 year anniversary coming up (in 2031 I think?) and I'm hoping they do some sort of retro homage like the 102/108 series.

Well if they do probably the bolsters will be thick and the prices high. I'd rather buy vintage. Nevertheless it would be really nice if they started to produce knives with nice geometries again. Here's a fund that got delivered today, a beautiful Henckels Zwillingswerk 12". You can still see that it is "blaugepließtet". Very nice condition, a rare find

Best regards

Jäger

 

[Ericfg]

Well if they do probably the bolsters will be thick and the prices high. I'd rather buy vintage. Nevertheless it would be really nice if they started to produce knives with nice geometries again. Here's a find that got delivered today, a beautiful Henckels Zwillingswerk 12". You can still see that it is "blaugepließtet". Very nice condition, a rare find. Jäger

Nice knife! "blaugepließtet" is what, the type of grinding thinly?
Ideally, in my head, Zwilling would do something just like you post, in 8 and 10 inch lengths, maybe just slightly shorter at the heel, but with that same finger guard.
I wish I would have gotten one of those knives they made from the steel when they restored that famous bridge near Solingen.

 

[deltaplex]

Nice knife! "blaugepließtet" is what, the type of grinding thinly?
Ideally, in my head, Zwilling would do something just like you post, in 8 and 10 inch lengths, maybe just slightly shorter at the heel, but with that same finger guard.
I wish I would have gotten one of those knives they made from the steel when they restored that famous bridge near Solingen.

It's a specific traditional finishing process typically reserved for the knives considered to be the "best" by the maker:

A reasonably brief explanation of it here, makes sense after it's been run through a quick translator:

https://der--schleifer-de.translate..._sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

 

[Keithpaints]

First I've seen this thread. Some very nice blades.

 

[Heckel7302]

Well if they do probably the bolsters will be thick and the prices high. I'd rather buy vintage. Nevertheless it would be really nice if they started to produce knives with nice geometries again. Here's a fund that got delivered today, a beautiful Henckels Zwillingswerk 12". You can still see that it is "blaugepließtet". Very nice condition, a rare find

Best regards

Jäger

With todays robotic technology, you’d think they could figure out how to make a knife with a beautiful distal taper, tapered tang, thin bolster, and convex geometry like the old days.

 

[Keithpaints]

With todays robotic technology, you’d think they could figure out how to make a knife with a beautiful distal taper, tapered tang, thin bolster, and convex geometry like the old days.

Distal taper, convex geometry yes.
Any bolster below the handle no thanks. In production kitchen bolster pinch grip down the heel after years & many sharpenings leads to deformed geometry at heel & loss of height at the tip of the blade.

Look at all the well used Sabatiers after many sharpenings.

 

[Heckel7302]

I don’t mind the thin bolsters on vintage knives. I usually grind them down to the same angle as the edge bevel. That way they just continue to grind down with further sharpenings. And eventually they become sharp. Like having a little axe on the heel of your knife.

 

[Keithpaints]

Yep same here. Grind the bolsters off. The awesome knives on this thread haven't been sharpened a hundred times over the years. Same when I was restoring vintage stag handle carving sets. You have to be very selective blades not used very much & without pitting. Some of the blades are worn down to spikes. The late 1800's thin carbon knives carve poultry & meat better than some modern carving sets.
Bought a couple German vintage chef Knives on ebay years ago for cheap.

With loss simple knife care knowledge in modern society knives & folders are made with thick grinds indestructible. Who sticks a folder through a car hood or batons it hammering on the spine to split wood.
Can you imagine what would happen to the thin grinds on this thread by a majority of people. They would get destroyed.

 

[Jovidah]

Nice knife! "blaugepließtet" is what, the type of grinding thinly?
Ideally, in my head, Zwilling would do something just like you post, in 8 and 10 inch lengths, maybe just slightly shorter at the heel, but with that same finger guard.
I wish I would have gotten one of those knives they made from the steel when they restored that famous bridge near Solingen.

No, blaupliessten is basically 'blue polishing'. It's about a finely polished surface. The idea is that if you polish it very finely it supposedly gets a bit of a blue hue to it... although the real advantage is that they're supposedly less reactive / less prone to corrosion.

Hard to say whether that's actually true; my Robert Herder knives that have such a finish are indeed rather nonreactive, but that might also be due to the alloying elements in the steel (1.2519 - there's a tiny bit of chromium in there). Actually the thing that is most noticable is that like all finely polished finishes it has poor food release...

The term for the thin grind normally used is "Solinger dunnschliff"; a Solinger thingrind.

I'm also in team no-bolster. A classic Nogent sabatier with no bolster and a modern steel...

 

[user 52613]

Some simple NOS knives from Solingen:

Best regards,

Jäger

Amazing collection! How did you come by so many if you don’t mind me asking?