Chef J. Looney

The Japanese have been well ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to bladesmithing for hundreds of years. When Europeans were using sharpened stones and crudely-wrought iron instruments for cutting, the Japanese had already mastered the process of folding steel and working the metal into ridiculously sharp-edged swords for their samurai that were capable of cutting a man in half with one stroke.

Well, with an acute lack of samurai for the last little while, these Japanese bladesmiths have turned their skills to the culinary world, and now produce some of the finest cutlery available to professional chefs. Chroma is one of the most prestigious manufacturers, and their signature line is the Haiku. Now these are no ordinary knives. You can’t put them in a dishwasher, they’re prone to rust easily, they’re expensive and if you’re distracted for even a second while using one, you could lose a finger. Really.

What makes them so great? Well, most knives today (even the really nice, “professional” ones) are stamped from a big sheet of steel before being sharpened, boxed and sold. Not so with Haiku knives. No, no – Haiku knives pass through the hands of several different artisans that have developed their skill level in their chosen craft to god-like perfection. Here’s what goes into the crafting of one of these knives:

Forging
Down a long narrow alley at the back of a house in a dense residential area of Sakei, Japan is a third-generation bladesmith and his brother.

They work with a tiny forge that’s about the size of an average oven to marry two rods of steel – one is a hardened steel that will become the sharp edge of the knife, the other a softer ferrite that will keep the knife from breaking.

The two steel rods are inserted into the 2000 C° forge and heated to white-hot. The steel is then removed from the oven and hammered together until it blends properly.

Once the steel has been blended and flattened, a pattern is taken from the wall and the blade is again heated to around 800 C° and hammered into the shape and dimensions chosen. This is delicate work, and although this has been his life’s work and purpose for the last 40 years, the bladesmith will break one out of every three knives he forges in the process.

Once the knives are forged and shaped, they are sent on to the sharpener a few blocks away.

Sharpening
You’d never know that the small two-story house in the tightly packed neighborhood houses one of the finest artisans in the world today. In fact, to get to the workshop where he practices his craft, you must go through his living room and his kitchen. But the work that goes on in this shop is just as magical and methodical as the forger.

There are several large grinding wheels that the sharpener uses to gently and patiently hone the blades that have been sent to him, delicately grinding away microscopic layers of steel and bringing the edge to a polished edge so fine even a razor is dull by comparison.

As a finishing touch, the sharpener gently and carefully grinds microscopic grooves into the upper part of the blade that will help discourage rust, however, these blades require a great deal of care, and need to be coated with a drop of camelia oil fairly frequently to prevent rusting and maintain their edge and beauty.

The blades are then wrapped in paper and stacked in bundles of 10 arranged by shape to be sent on to the man that finishes the job by putting a handle on the nearly complete knife.

Handle
The final step in the process begins with logs from 100-year-old Whitebark Magnolia trees that are cut into logs and delivered to the handle-maker.

He splits the logs into smaller sections, which are then shaped into long rounded handles using machinery older than this man’s father. A small hole is drilled to insert the shank of the knife.

Stepping outside, the handle-maker now cuts off a short piece of buffalo horn to be used as the bolster, which is a ring between the handle and the blade that ensures a snug fit and lasting firmness once the handle is placed on the knife. Only about an inch of the buffalo horn is used, the rest will be made into combs.

The bolster is boiled in water to make it just slightly maleable, then the handle is tapped into place for a perfect fit.

The finished handles are then carefully sanded again, ensuring a smooth and even surface between the handle and the bolster, such that no crevice or difference is felt between the two.

The shank, or tang, of the knife is then heated red hot and gently tapped into place with a mallet. The handle-fitter needs to listen carefully to hear how far up the handle the tang has gone – too far and the handle will split, not far enough and the blade will eventually loosen and fall off.

Engraving
The final step in the process is engraving the Haiku logo (a falcon) onto the blade. The chef’s name may also be engraved.

Actually, just about anything can be engraved on the blade, as there’s a fair amounbt of room, and all the engraving is done by hand on a small anvil.

These knives retail at around $600 a pop. A quick Google or Amazon search will bring up a list of Chroma Haiku knives for much less. These knives are stamped from stainless steel, and are very good knives, but don’t even begin to compare with the Haiku Pro or Haiku Itamae lines which are both hand forged in Sakai.