Plate 01 · Finished

Folded,
ground and

handled in
one shed.

Maker's mark on the ricasso: Ricasso · Woodside

This one's just come off the grinder. Watch the layers come up.

Start a knife

Chef's knife · 240 mm · 7 layers × 2⁵ = 224 layers · Straight · Red gum

Knife on the bench

Kitchen knives forged by hand in Woodside, in the Adelaide Hills. Pattern-welded or plain carbon steel, handles from local timber, each one made to order. And I'll sharpen the knives already in your kitchen.

Plate 02 · Stages

One knife, laid out on the bench.

Every knife starts as a short bar and ends here, on the same bench. Nothing leaves the shed between.

Six stages of one kitchen knife in a row on the steel bench: layered billet, drawn-out bar, forged blank, ground blank, hardened blank and the finished knife.

01 Billet Two steels stacked, welded in the fire.
02 Drawn out Folded and drawn until the layers are fine.
03 Forged Hammered to shape. The scale comes off later.
04 Ground The bevel cut, spine to edge.
05 Hardened Quenched, then tempered back so it isn't brittle.
06 Handled Timber fitted, pinned and oiled.

Plate 03 · The pattern

Seven layers, folded into hundreds.

A pattern-welded bar starts as a stack of two steels: one that etches dark and one that stays bright. Seven layers, welded together in the fire.

Heat it, weld it, draw it out, cut it, stack it again. Every fold doubles the layers, so five folds turns seven into two hundred and twenty-four.

The pattern isn't painted on. It's the layers themselves, bent by whatever I did to the bar and then cut across by the grind, which is why the lines bunch towards the edge.

Try the steps. The knife at the top of the page follows.

Up close you can count the folds. From arm's length, past a few hundred layers, they read as grain.

Patterns drawn for this page from the same steps. Every bar at the forge comes out a little differently.

Heel, choil and ricasso · close upStraight · 5 folds

End of the barSide of the bar, the grind in blue

An etched steel coupon with fine flowing layers like wood grain — Straight · 5 folds

An etched steel coupon with a twisted pattern of stars and chevrons — Twist · 4 folds · 2 turns

An etched steel coupon with evenly spaced ladder rungs — Ladder · 10 mm

An etched steel coupon with scattered raindrop rings — Raindrop

Plate 04 · Parts of a knife

Every part has a name, and a job.

A good kitchen knife thins as it runs out to the point. That's distal taper: a light, quick tip for fine work, and a heel with enough weight behind it to go through a pumpkin.

Tap a part to read what it does.

Tip The fine point, for scoring and small work.
Belly The curve you rock on when you chop herbs.
Edge Where the two bevels meet. This is what I sharpen.
Spine The back. Rest a finger here for control.
Heel The back of the edge, for the tough cuts.
Choil A small notch at the heel, so the stone reaches the whole edge.
Ricasso The flat, unground steel just ahead of the handle. It's where the maker's mark goes, and where your fingers sit in a pinch grip. The forge is named for it.
Bolster The shoulder between steel and timber. It keeps the handle dry.
Tang The steel inside the handle. You never see it; it's why the knife feels whole.

Plate 05 · Handle timber

Four squared handle blocks on the bench, each with its pins: river red gum, sheoak, mallee root burl and blackwood.

Handles from down the road.

Timber comes from fallen and cleared trees around the Hills, where I can get it. It's dried, stabilised where it needs it, shaped by hand and oiled.

Pick one for the knife at the top River red gum Dense and deep red. It darkens with oil and use. Sheoak Silver ray fleck, light in the hand. Mallee root Burled and swirling. No two blocks alike. Blackwood Golden brown with a sheen that moves as you turn it.

Plate 06 · Care

Why carbon steel darkens.

Carbon steel doesn't stay bright, and it isn't meant to. Cut onions or a lemon and it picks up colour: grey first, then blue-grey, sometimes gold along the edge. The dark layers take it first, so the pattern stays in the patina. It's a thin skin of oxide from food and air, and it slows rust.

The straw and blue on steel in the fire are something else: temper colours, oxide from heat. They're ground away before a knife is finished.

Looking after it

01 Wipe it dry when you've finished, not later.
02 Keep it out of the dishwasher and off the rack.
03 A drop of food-safe oil if it's going to sit.
04 Timber or soft boards, never glass or stone.
05 An orange spot? A little baking-soda paste on a soft cloth.

New
1 week
2 weeks
1 month
2 months
3 months

Your pattern from the bench above, as it colours in a working kitchen. Illustrative: drawn for this page from a simple oxide model.

Plate 07 · Sharpening

Knives from any kitchen, sharpened on stones.

What I do Set a new edge on stones, fix chips and broken tips, thin a knife that's gone thick behind the edge.
What comes in Any kitchen knife, carbon or stainless.
How Tell me what you've got through the form and we'll arrange a time to drop them at the shed. They come back wrapped in paper with a tag saying what was done.

Three wet whetstones from coarse to fine, a leather strop, a bowl of water and a worn kitchen knife waiting to be sharpened.

Plate 08 · The shed

Gloved hands holding a glowing layered billet on the anvil with long tongs, seen from above.

One fire, one anvil, one pair of hands.

Ricasso is one forge in a shed in Woodside. I work alone, so every knife is forged, ground, hardened and handled by the same hands, one or two at a time. When the fire's lit I'm at the anvil; when it isn't, I'm at the grinder or the stones.

Steel: Pattern-welded, or plain carbon
Timber: Red gum, sheoak, mallee root, blackwood
Knives: Chef's, slicer, vegetable, petty
Sharpening: On stones, any kitchen knife