160mm Honyaki paring knife - full whale fossil handle
Ok, lets starting that this one is unique in the world.
Literally.
This is the unique chef knife on internet to be reported to have such handle. Fossilized and stabilized whale bone is such material that is beyond words to describe, obviously extremely hard and dense material, but its porosity stabilized with resin turns it into something near indestructible material.
Not only beautiful, but extremely functional. Unfortunately, this material is crazy expensive and too rare to be available more often.
To honor such handle, i did what i believe to be more artistic when it comes to steel: a hamon.
A hamon can be described as controlling the pure chaotic nature of iron - it is a technique limited to very few steel alloys as well being incredibly tricky to make.
Out of curiosity, honyaki blades cannot be mass produced. It is popularly known that honyaki blades are literally unique, reason for this is that basically in order to produc such blade, you have to treat it as it has its own personality, each one on their own.
You must precisely control the grain size of the steel, then produce exactly the correct clay that will be able to withstand austenitizing temperature and quenching, control the right ammount of clay, the area to be covered, the correct cooling rate, and finally, how to properly polish it.
It is literally like an orchestra, every single detail must match all the others, otherwise, it wont work.
Too large grain size = crack/poor pattern
Wrong clay = wont stick to the blade during quenching
Wrong cooling rate = poor pattern/crack
And the list keeps going to dozens of variables.
A successful blade with a hamon, is literally the result of controlling a bunch of very bad possibilities.
Now, IF you manage to make this all correctly (big IF), you will now have a differentially heat treated blade that must also be specifically etched and polished.
Again, the chaotic nature of a hamon, isnt just like sanding and polishing a normal blade.
A hamon is not something on surface, it is literally the "dna" of the blade, will be there forever as long you dont heat it to critical temperature (usually near 780°C degree). Even if the blade develop patina, rust or whatever, it will still be there.
By having two areas of unhardened and very hard steel, you must sand and polish it very carefully as unhardened steel will be ground much easier and in a faster rate than hardened steel.
I could list a description for this knife that you would be scared to read, but let me just summary in one sentence:
Hamon is the exact spot where art and science meets.
Finally, japanese bladesmiths used to say "Asa Mae Shigoto Dewa Nai" (not a task to accomplish before breakfast) which is an old Japanese expression meaning something that will take a very long time.
Out of curiosity, this blade has only 160mm, but took me the same ammount of time to craft that other 3 regular stainless blades with 210mm length.
Its grind is a very aggressive, near zero convex.
The convexity is precisely done in such thin edge to increase food release as well adding some strength to the blade, since we are talking about a 63HRC honyaki.
It has both choil and spine hand polished and rounded as well. Something to pass to your children.
Includes "Kando" japanese mark, which means something of exceptional value.
Delivered with zipped pouch and hand sharpened to 3000 grit.
Questions: fvazcustomknives@gmail.com
