Forged chef's knife with burl wood handle on a wood-grain surface

Kitchen

8in Chef’s Knife

Our standard kitchen workhorse: Ladder Damascus at 60–61 HRC, flat ground, with a stabilized curly maple handle.

Steel
Ladder Damascus (1084/15N20)
Hardness
60–61 HRC
Blade length
8.25 in (210 mm)
Handle
Stabilized curly maple, hidden tang, mosaic pins

Edge geometry

Full flat grind, 15° per side

8.25″ of Ladder Damascus (1084/15N20), flat ground from a 3/16″ stock thickness down to a thin, food-release-friendly edge. We heat-treat to 60–61 HRC, which on this steel combination gives an edge that holds a working sharpness through a full prep shift without the chipping risk you’d start to see much past 62 on a carbon steel this thin.

The flat grind runs the full height of the blade with no secondary bevel until the final micro-bevel at the edge itself — easier to sharpen freehand than a hollow grind, and it doesn’t bind in dense vegetables the way a full convex grind can. Handle is stabilized curly maple, hidden-tang construction with two mosaic pins; stabilization resin-fills the wood’s natural porosity so it won’t swell or crack from repeated washing the way untreated maple would in a kitchen environment.

Steel Program Used

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