Description
In this three-day course, students will receive a perfect balance of hands-on involvement as well as lecture topics. Upon completion of the course, students will have designed and completed their own personal professional chef’s knife and will possess an intermediate understanding of the blade forging and finishing process. This is the same course as 201 but with the focus on the Chef’s Knife rather than the Camp Knife.
Hands-on techniques will include:
- Selection of steel
- Forge maintenance
- Forging to final thickness
- Traditional annealing techniques
- Scale removal
- Cold forging
- Straightening
- Tempering
- Introductory grinding techniques
- Introductory polishing techniques
- Low temperature silver soldering
- Attaching handles
- Sharpening
- Hand sanding to completion
Lecture topics will include:
- Overview of different types of traditional Japanese cutlery
- Philosophy of Japanese metallurgy
- The five criteria for superior cutlery
- Expose on laminates vs. homogeneous steel blades
- Practical parameters of cutlery design
- Advanced blade sharpening and maintenance
- Slide show of bladesmithing in Japan
Classes taught one-on-one unless otherwise negotiated. Travel and lodging are at the student’s expense.
