Vintage American 8″ Chef Knife Carbon Steel & Beechwood LF&C? ~1920’s-50’s

 Vintage stamped (non-forged) carbon steel chef knife marks lost but certainly American and most likely LF&C from 1920’s to 1950’s probably on the earlier end with the steel rivets on this one. Carbon steel and beechwood are an old combination of materials used in the USA, UK and Europe and are great for working knives.

 
This knife has been re-ground and thinned behind the edge on a large 3 foot diameter Japanese water stone wheel (kaiten mizu toishi) and then resurfaced with a medium fine finish, our take on an old style grinding and finishing technique. While the particular wheel used to refurbish this knife is typically used in Japanese knife making it is very similar to the old grinding wheels used to shape European and American hand ground cutlery. A convex face to a blade greatly increases a knife’s performance as there is less sticking as there is on a flat face and the blade does not get thick behind the edge nearly as fast as with a flat faced blade. Being that we are often working with old blades that need re-shaping and might have been rusted expect some minor imperfections, we try to give a fresh start to our re-ground blades with an eye towards their original grind style and keeping as much metal is needed on a blade when ever possible. Check out Bernal Cutlery co founder Josh Donald’s book Sharp to see these wheels in use and more about their history in Europe and Japan.