Bog Oak Bearings Petty 165mm

Bladesmith and artist Joseph Schrum forges his striking, house-made ball bearings carbon damascus steel into a petty chef designed to perform every cut in the kitchen. Its compact overall footprint and versatile, dynamic form on the cutting board, including Joseph’s meticulously honed bevel geometry, the spine’s full distal taper, and the knife’s mass distribution and resulting feel in the hand, produce a powerful culinary tool larger in spirit than its dimensions on paper. At the rear of the 165mm / 6.5″ blade where the heel stands 44mm tall, enough height for knuckle clearance and rock-chopping, the symmetrical bevels are convex and tough for big chopping tasks. The pronounced convexity above a very thin, sharp edge is present throughout its length while at the same time tapering steadily, in tandem with the blade’s rounded spine, towards an extremely fine, needle-like tip perfectly positioned for precision slicing and detail work. The visual effect of the canister damascus’s ball bearings stretching forward to the tip and backward into the tang give the feeing of organized chaos, as though individual atoms are pushed and pulled according to the whims of outside forces. As the 52100 carbon steel ball bearings and the powered steel which fills the space between them disappear into a hidden-tang handle, ancient bog oak takes the eyes, and hands, on the rest of the journey, the fingers wrapping around the simply elegant, slightly tapered, oval profile.