Kamon x Prince 7-Year Nakiri 195mm

Another collaboration piece for the books comes to us by way of Austria’s Benjamin Kamon and Rhode Island’s Joshua Prince. Long before Benjamin set out to forge the exquisite nakiri profile, monolithic construction chef knife from a single piece of steel, Joshua was hard at work preparing the ingredients. At the time, this was unbeknownst to Joshua. Those ingredients are, in fact, ‘end cuts,’ in other words, small pieces of various damascus and mosaic damascus patterns that went unused in previous projects. The extraordinary damascus artist that he is, Joshua knew the time would come to use these surplus pieces of pattern-welded steel, and the opportunity to collaborate with the talented Mr. Kamon (again) presented the perfect opportunity. Joshua carefully compiled a collection of said unused blade steels and proceeded to forge them together. To complete the process he created an opposing-twist pattern mosaic made up of the previously separate elements, producing an all new material: 7-year Damascus. Finally, Joshua forge-welded a 15n20 edge bar from which the final cutting edge would be shaped, and the material he would send to Benjamin was complete. Once received at his studio north of Vienna, Benjamin went to work hand-forging the one-of-a-kind knife seen here in his well-loved monolithic style, this time in a blade shape we have not seen from him. The edge is thin and sharp, bevels convex for performance, and the finish on Joshua’s 7-year Damascus is unique and mesmerizing. But he didn’t stop there. For another monolithic first, Benjamin made from raw ingredients a piece of mokume gane, a damascus-like combination of nickel and brass, which he has fit into the handle as both a structural and decorative element. With this, the Kamon x Prince 7-Year Nakiri was complete. As is customary with kitchen cutlery from Ben’s studio, a custom saya is included.