Making A Damascus Chinese Cleaver.

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I've always wanted to make a Chinese cleaver, just a giant vegetable knife, and here we are. I wanted this to be the best cleaver in the world, and I decided to go with big random damascus, with a classic theme on the handle. A massive struggle was just the sheer real estate on this blade, there's so much material and surface area. Trying to get it to cut well without wedging and without sticking were a challenge. This was an experiment with a crazy S-Grind for the geometry.
Thanks for watching. This one was a love-hate relationship.
Edited by: me

[@patkal3987]

You deserve way more views for that quality work

[@noahnipperus7320]

Great video, you can feel the tension! Thanks for reminding me to be careful with wood allergies btw

[@DAVIDMILLER-nc9vo]

Thanks for the great video. I especially liked the way you fixed the blade so that it would not stick on the potato. I hope you make more videos like this one. That is a great looking Chinese cleaver. Please comment on tangs. What are the pros and cons of the tangs that are inserted into the handle and the handles with scales. Why one and not the other?

[@DonNguyenKnives]

Honestly with proper construction, either tang style is definitely going to be strong enough. It's a stylistic choice. Hidden tangs are also generally easier to push the weight forward too.

[@thiago.assumpcao]

Awesome work man

[@pearshaped9116]

i actually (foolishly) decided to take the matte finish of the large aesthetic 2ndry bevel on my own 210mm cleaver and discovered a whole world of weird shapes in the grind lol. one side is convex, the other is concave, ugh so much work... anyway u doing it the right way is appreciated, there are customers out there that will see. Or at the very least go to you because they know they don't have to look. Edit: also watching you sharpen it was hilarious, i just learnt to do the left side left handed, it was easier than than handling that tall ass shape the normal way.

[@zhenbiaoli297]

Dream Knife

[@arikl.5319]

I learnt so much through your video l, thank you heaps!

[@scherlfirearts7142]

Absolut C H O N K E R

[@krissteel4074]

Love to see you guys making long form vids again I started making the Chinese cooks knives about 4-5 years ago after getting some requests for them and I had a look at the commercially made ones and it quickly became apparent why, they're almost all somewhere in the terrible to not good in terms of geometry, handling and the handles. A lot of people look at them and say, well its just a big rectangle, its thin and you chop stuff, but no there's quite a lot of work to go in and make sure that its all dead straight out of the quench because its next to impossible to fix it if it warps. So I tended to use my aluminum air quench blocks after coming out of the oil and it helped a lot to avoid that. Size is mostly personal preference, so thats usually be between 80-100mm tall and somewhere between 170-200mm long seems to be the happy place for most people depending on the size of their cutting board. But the fact I put a western or gentle oval handle shape is the real selling point because a lot of the commercial stuff is hot trash that's nothing more than a shovel handle or some kind of cheap plastic. Its also interesting to see how these are used, everything from a meat tenderisier with the rounded back edge, crushing garlic flat like a great big spatula to very fine fillets of thin meat and scooping everything off the board at once loading it up for adding the whole lot at once to the wok. They're a really amazing workhorse of a knife in the hands of a pro that knows how to use it.

[@bb-ko2nm]

Wow! turned out great, the attention to detail is next level man ;)

[@brosius85]

Very cool project Don, thanks for making the vid and sharing so many of your thoughts

[@williamsellers1904]

That's a heck of a tall knife. As a home chef with too many knives, I appreciate your commitment to quality and the future of the blade. Much respect Don.

[@DonNguyenKnives]

Thanks Will!

[@williamsellers1904]

Absolutely friend, I have your back.

[@Logan.H.L]

It is fun to see the process, at least the stuff I didn’t see in person which was a lot.

[@thedfarm01]

It turned out great! I appreciate your detail in describing the edge geometry and how you you adjusted it.

[@peterlai9018]

Congratulatioins! You were half way to a S grind like the CCK and Sugimoto cleavers 🙂

[@DonNguyenKnives]

It has two hollow grinds, is that now a W grind?

[@KevinMeeker4L]

That's a T H I C C B O I

[@DAVIDMILLER-nc9vo]

At 8:47 what is the liquid and why? And please explain the method. Thank you.

[@DonNguyenKnives]

Ferric Acid, to etch the steel and bring out the Damascus contrast

[@DAVIDMILLER-nc9vo]

Thank you, I appreciate the reply. I really liked your discussion of why the potato stuck on the blade and how that problem was solved! A great part of the video. More videos like this one. @@DonNguyenKnives

[@RoscoPColetraneIII]

Too buku. Nguyen wins. Someone better appreciate the literary masterpiece I just wrote.

[@TheRoffnar]

Is Don

[@_jaeger_fabian]

Jep.... I mean....why not 😯

[@ryancumiskey3054]

What RPM do you run your disk sander at?

[@DonNguyenKnives]

A wide range depending what we're working on, but I think anywhere between around 300-1000 rpm.

[@AhnDhyYhu]

It could have been better if it was only 4" tall.

[@DonNguyenKnives]

This is actually shorter than a lot of the standard ones out there.

[@AhnDhyYhu]

@@DonNguyenKnives I beg to disagree, but I think most Chinese cleaver knives height is 4" maximum, and 3.5" minimum.

[@DonNguyenKnives]

@@AhnDhyYhu I think you're right that most do fall in a range around 100mm/4" tall and for someone my size that would work really well, but I see many examples that are 115mm or even greater. This one was a custom order for a very tall person with large hands, and he specifically requested 110-120mm tall.

[@AhnDhyYhu]

@@DonNguyenKnives oh I see. I have to admit, your cleaver was well made and very nice though. Keep up the good work. I just subscribed and like your video.👍

[@DonNguyenKnives]

@@AhnDhyYhu thanks so much! Appreciate it

[@gorodph]

Why not machine sharpening?

[@DonNguyenKnives]

We're dealing with VERY thin edges here and I want to keep the material removal to a minimum. I also have much better feel and control with stones, and then lastly there's a huge range of different stones for different qualities.

[@gorodph]

@@DonNguyenKnives Wouldn't something like Tormek work better?

[@DonNguyenKnives]

@@gorodph I guess this goes into the territory of 'if it's not broken, don't fix it.' A Tormek is probably the best option for a machine, but even then it's another investment to purchase, and I love sharpening by hand. It takes me just a couple of minutes to sharpen a knife; if I was making a production run, maybe a Tormek would work well.