6 inch Chef in AEB-L with Curly Maple

John Wilson

John Wilson

Well-Known Member
Here is a 6 inch Chef I just completed. Blade is .110 AEB-L with a full distal taper, rounded spine and rounded heel. I did the handle from a darker piece of curly maple, with Honey Amber tint and black liners.
 

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Beautiful!! If I wanted to try making a kitchen knife what would be a good one to start with? Also are there any good videos on doing the Distal tapers??
 
Yet another beauty John.
I am curious as to how you do the grind without the knife showing a bevel. I like that feature and would like to learn how to do it. Saying that, I inderstand that it may be a desireable feature on kitchen knifes and in particular Japanese cutlery, but not necesarilly on other types of knives.
 
Gliden07 said:
Beautiful!! If I wanted to try making a kitchen knife what would be a good one to start with? Also are there any good videos on doing the Distal tapers??
Click to expand...

A 6 inch Chef is a good way to learn kitchen knives. It's long enough to develop your feel for tapers but it's not so long as to be unwieldy when you grind it. I don't know of a video, but the trick I've found to distal tapers is marking your centerline on the spine and heel of the knife, too- not just the cutting edge. You do your bevels just like a normal knife, but you are going to grind past the spine. Once you have gotten past the spine along the whole blade you really start paying attention to the spine, and the thickness from each side to the centerline of the spine. Since you grind edge up, this means you are blind, but that's okay because when you are focused on the spine you want to know your edge is not on the belt. You'll begin watching that gap between your edge and the belt very closely- and that gap will begin to show you your taper.

You also pay really close attention to the centerline on the heel of the blade. That's how you make sure your bevels are the same angle on the both sides of the blade. As your distal taper starts coming in, you start paying a lot of attention to the line at your heel. This begins your blending, which is how I don't have plunge lines.

To not have plunge lines, you will allow your bevels to extend back past where your handle scales go. Your front pin hole is a good target. You want your bevels coming back evenly on both sides, this is how you ensure symmetry on both sides of the blade. On this style of no-plunge full height grind, you spend a lot of time blending. But the key is FLAT FLAT FLAT. Don't chase your low spots on the grind. Grind the flats until the low spots are gone and your flats extend back into the handle area.

Right now you're probably thinking... "Hey, wait a minute. If you grind into the handle area the scales are going to have gaps." Well, yes and no. If there's just a little taper the scales will flex the tiny bit you need to close the gaps when you clamp them to the blade during glue up. On a big knife, you have to fill that gap rather than stress the scales. This is where liner material comes in. A black liner and black epoxy works like magic to fill that gap. Once you grind the handle out the black line will be wedge shaped, filling the gap.

Of course, another way to do it would be to drill your scales at an angle, as if you were doing a tapered tang on a hunting knife. That's not necessary on a kitchen knife. A hunting knife made from 1/8 or thicker material would have a drastic taper, whereas a full distal taper on a kitchen knife made from .110 stock is such a gentle taper that you almost don't notice it visually.
 
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Johan Nel said:
Yet another beauty John.
I am curious as to how you do the grind without the knife showing a bevel. I like that feature and would like to learn how to do it. Saying that, I inderstand that it may be a desireable feature on kitchen knifes and in particular Japanese cutlery, but not necesarilly on other types of knives.
Click to expand...


Hi Johan, I replied above with my method before I saw your post!
 
bodam said:
wow love it. No grind lines looks so slick
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Lots of people love plunge lines on kitchen knives. I prefer not to have them, probably because I love Japanese style knives even though I put western handles on them. I'm not a fan of bolsters on kitchen knives and plunge lines look like bolsters to me. Again, it's just an aesthetic preference and in no way a dig against that style of knife. If someone asked me for a knife with plunges I'd absolutely do it that way for them.
 
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Nice job!

I like the look of smooth chef knives and decided to give it a whirl a few days ago. Definitely a lot more "real-estate" to deal with than the 4" hunters I've been focusing on.
 
Yeah, there's a lot to grind. But the plus side is that all isn't lost if you make one slip. And once you get a "flat"that big to work on, the knife pretty much grinds itself.
 
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