In 2010 a stamped stainless chef knife split at the bolster while someone was breaking down a chicken. That cracked handle ended up on a bench in a Hamilton garage with a small gas forge and a very optimistic first billet. The first twenty blades were bad. Some were too soft, some cracked in the quench, and one came out of the temper warped enough to use as a bottle opener.
By 2011 the process had settled into something repeatable, and the order list started filling from people at the local market. Since then we have moved to a proper workshop on Kahikatea Drive in Melville, added a second person at the grinder, and stopped counting somewhere past 1,480 finished knives. The approach has not changed much: forge or cut the blade, treat the steel properly, then spend far longer on the finish than looks sensible from the outside.
Callum spent eleven years as a line cook in Wellington and Auckland before the forge became a full-time job. He does the forging, the heat treatment and every hardness check. Anyone who commissions a knife will end up talking to him directly, usually about the balance point and the handle length.
Rangi joined in 2016 and took over the grind room and handle work. He is the reason the spines come out rounded rather than sharp, and the reason every set that leaves the workshop has matched timber. He also does the sharpening service on Fridays, which is the busiest day of the week.
Most makers we know have either gone fully machine-made or gone boutique and stopped taking orders. We sit in the middle: small enough that the person forging your blade is the person answering your email, large enough that the workshop has proper equipment and the process is documented rather than improvised.
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Folded 1084 and 15N20, usually somewhere between 180 and 320 layers. The pattern is a by-product of the fold, not an etch, and the core sits at 60 HRC after two tempering cycles. Made for cooks who want a knife that looks like something and cuts like it too.
See the Damascus knife
R2 powder metal at 63 HRC with a very fine carbide structure. Takes a surgical polish and holds it through a full shift on the board. This is what most of the working chefs in Hamilton order.
See the powder steel knifeReprofiling, thinning behind the edge and stone sharpening for knives we did not make. NZ$45 for a standard chef knife, NZ$70 over 240mm.
New scales in stabilised hardwood or micarta, shaped to your grip. NZ$180 plus materials, and we keep the original blade profile.
A blade can be forged in ninety minutes and then sit on the stones for six hours. That ratio surprises people. The thinning behind the edge, the spine rounding, the removal of every deep grind mark with progressively finer belts, then hand stones from 400 up to 6000 grit: that is where the knife becomes pleasant instead of merely sharp.
Heat treatment is the other half of it. Every blade gets a triple normalise, a controlled soak, an oil or plate quench, a straightening while still warm, then two tempering cycles with a Rockwell check in between. We write the numbers on a batch card and keep the card.
I asked for a knife that felt light at the front because I do a lot of vegetable prep and get wrist strain. They built the grind so the balance sits behind the bolster instead of dead centre. Four years on, no wrist pain.
Sent them a set of four knives from a commercial kitchen and got them all back thinner and sharper than new. The batch card with the angles written on it was a nice touch, told me exactly what to sharpen at.
Visited the workshop before ordering and got to feel the steel billets and see how the pattern forms. That is unusual these days. Ordered a matched pair for the kitchen and they arrive with a numbered card each.
Stacking the billet is not an exact science. Here is how the fold direction, the number of layers and even the temperature on the day turn into completely different patterns.
Fourteen years of repairs have shown the same handful of patterns over and over. Almost none of them are the steel's fault, and nearly all of them happen in four seconds.
BladeFoundry is at 181 Kahikatea Drive in Melville, Hamilton. We are here Monday to Friday from 8:00 to 17:30 and Saturday mornings by appointment. Bring a knife you already enjoy using and we will measure it, so the next one feels like it was built around your hand. Give us a ring first on +64 7 849 3027 so nobody is out the back with the quench tank. Pricing for every commission lives on our price page, and the full contact details are on the contacts page.
