Gyuto (Chef's Knife)

A 215mm Nitro-V LWH Gyuto Chef Knife

A couple of years back I purchased two bars of NJSB’s proprietary steel, Nitro-V, intending to make bowies with it, but that plan never really came to fruition. Instead I’ve used it to make a couple of more workhorse oriented blades in my Sabatier styled pattern. In spite of the thick stock and micarta handle, the blade is actually still relatively light, owing to its heavy distal taper and nail flexing grind.

Nitro-V is a modification of AEB-L that includes a nitrogen addition as well as a smidge of vanadium. It practice the steel’s properties land somewhere between AEB-L and 14C28n, though nearer to AEB-L than the latter.

Blade Details

• Blade: 215mmx51mm Nitro-V (63hrc) fine belt finish
• Neck: 19mmx18mm
• Handle: paper and canvas micarta-waxed
• POB: At the heel
• Spine: 4.63mm at the handle, 2.7mm at halfway, .43mm 1cm from the tip
• Grind: flat to convex RH bias
• Weight: 190g
• Relieved choil and spine
• Edge: .17mm@1mm, .25mm @2mm, .48mm @5mm, .7mm @10mm measured at the midpoint,

Blade Special Features

Very thin behind the edge with a very durable handle material

A 225mm CPM-D2 (Semi Stainless) Gyuto Chef Knife

D2 is a steel that requires very little introduction in the knife world, and none at all to those versed in pocket knives. I’ve been hearing about D2 tool steel for a long time, it was probably the first higher performance steel I’d ever heard of. It has a well established reputation, as it is one of the first high performance steels used by knifemakers. D2 is renowned for having good edge retention and the ease with which it forms a very sharp edge.

Conventional D2 tool steel has very large carbides that make it somewhat ill suited to very acute edges such as those found on kitchen knives, and so its formed a reputation as a somewhat brittle steel, but this is the CPM version, which is a very different animal in that respect. CPM-D2 has much finer and more evenly distributed carbides and is in the order of 2x (or a little better) tougher than conventionally produced D2 at the same hardness. For the above reasons this steel in particular has been on my mind a while, and I’m really happy I tried it! I really like this stuff. At this hardness it has edge retention somewhere in the lower range for MagnaCut, and Z-Wear, but is more easily serviced on conventional aluminum oxide stones than those steels, (as the primary carbide forming element in D2 is chrome). Regarding corrosion resistance, D2 is often referred to as a semi stainless, it’s alloyed with 12% chrome. It will rust if left wet for too long, but it is less corrosion prone than conventional carbon steels and doesn’t require quite the same degree of care.

Blade Details

Blade: 227mmx54mm CPM-D2 (64-65 hrc) belt finish
Neck: 18mmx16mm
Handle: Bloodwood and walnut, oil finished and waxed
POB: 28mm from the handle
Spine: 2.36mm at the handle, 2.18mm at halfway, .52mm 1cm from the tip
Grind: flat to convex RH bias
Weight: 154g
Relieved choil and spine
Edge: .18mm@1mm, .26mm@2mm, .43mm@5mm, .69mm@10mm from the edge, measured at the midpoint,

Blade Special Features

* * * Type Specs Here

To learn more about CPM-D2 click here: https://knifesteelnerds.com/2020/08/31/how-to-heat-treat-d2-psf27-and-cpm-d2/