Design Series
My small-batch series of knives. The goal is to make more accessible knives at a lower cost that still have the performance and fit and finish of the Signature pieces. All of the geometry and final touches are done in my small shop, where I still grind, thin, and blend every knife by hand to make sure they have straight, zero edges with subtle convexity.
Made-To-Order
Years of R&D and soul searching, this is Generation 2 of the Design Series. The goal is to make small batches of knives that cut and feel just as good as any of our customs at a more accessible price point, without any compromises in fit, finish, and geometry.
These have gone through countless iterations now, going from cut all by hand on a tiny bandsaw, hidden tangs, carbon steel, now to a stainless full-tang design with a scotchbrite belt finish and removable handles. I have always been searching for a design that was elegant in its form, but also elegant in their process. I wanted something that has the same geometry as my Signature work, with a gentle, clean convex grind coming down to a zero-thickness edge. It must have a zero-thickness edge, and it has to have a clean bevel that smoothly transitions to the rest of the grind - to do this efficiently, consistently, and sustainably was seemingly impossible until recently. I finally found a way to hit all my requirements.
The final result is a knife that cuts beautifully with little drag because of the thin convex grind, feels substantial yet balances and rotates quickly from the distal taper, and maintains and repairs more effectively than any of my other knives due to removable handles and scotchbrite belt finish.
Specifications:
14C28N steel (stainless)
62 Rockwell C Hardness
210mm (8.25”) Edge Length
55mm Heel Height
Satin Scotchbrite Finish
Convex Geometry with Zero Edges and Subtle Distal Taper
G10 Fiberglass Handles with Stainless Hardware, TPU printed gaskets
These knives will be made-to-order. Please allow me 4-6 weeks to complete the knives, I will follow up with an email update when they are nearing completion.
For international orders, I will follow up through email with a separate shipping quote (depending on your location it can be anywhere from $80-$150, including insurance). If you are ordering from outside of the US and have questions, please inquire through email before placing the order.
Years of R&D and soul searching, this is Generation 2 of the Design Series. The goal is to make small batches of knives that cut and feel just as good as any of our customs at a more accessible price point, without any compromises in fit, finish, and geometry.
These have gone through countless iterations now, going from cut all by hand on a tiny bandsaw, hidden tangs, carbon steel, now to a stainless full-tang design with a scotchbrite belt finish and removable handles. I have always been searching for a design that was elegant in its form, but also elegant in their process. I wanted something that has the same geometry as my Signature work, with a gentle, clean convex grind coming down to a zero-thickness edge. It must have a zero-thickness edge, and it has to have a clean bevel that smoothly transitions to the rest of the grind - to do this efficiently, consistently, and sustainably was seemingly impossible until recently. I finally found a way to hit all my requirements.
The final result is a knife that cuts beautifully with little drag because of the thin convex grind, feels substantial yet balances and rotates quickly from the distal taper, and maintains and repairs more effectively than any of my other knives due to removable handles and scotchbrite belt finish.
Specifications:
14C28N steel (stainless)
62 Rockwell C Hardness
150mm (6.0”) Edge Length
Satin Scotchbrite Finish
Convex Geometry with Zero Edges and Subtle Distal Taper
G10 Fiberglass Handles with Stainless Hardware, TPU printed gaskets
These knives will be made-to-order. Please allow me 4-6 weeks to complete the knives, I will follow up with an email update when they are nearing completion.
For international orders, I will follow up through email with a separate shipping quote (depending on your location it can be anywhere from $80-$150, including insurance). If you are ordering from outside of the US and have questions, please inquire through email before placing the order.
Years of R&D and soul searching, this is Generation 2 of the Design Series. The goal is to make small batches of knives that cut and feel just as good as any of our customs at a more accessible price point, without any compromises in fit, finish, and geometry.
These have gone through countless iterations now, going from cut all by hand on a tiny bandsaw, hidden tangs, carbon steel, now to a stainless full-tang design with a scotchbrite belt finish and removable handles. I have always been searching for a design that was elegant in its form, but also elegant in their process. I wanted something that has the same geometry as my Signature work, with a gentle, clean convex grind coming down to a zero-thickness edge. It must have a zero-thickness edge, and it has to have a clean bevel that smoothly transitions to the rest of the grind - to do this efficiently, consistently, and sustainably was seemingly impossible until recently. I finally found a way to hit all my requirements.
The final result is a knife that cuts beautifully with little drag because of the thin convex grind, feels substantial yet balances and rotates quickly from the distal taper, and maintains and repairs more effectively than any of my other knives due to removable handles and scotchbrite belt finish.
Specifications:
14C28N steel (stainless)
62 Rockwell C Hardness
60mm (2.5”) Edge Length
Satin Scotchbrite Finish
Convex Geometry with Zero Edges and Subtle Distal Taper
G10 Fiberglass Handles with Stainless Hardware, TPU printed gaskets
These knives will be made-to-order. Please allow me 4-6 weeks to complete the knives, I will follow up with an email update when they are nearing completion.
For international orders, I will follow up through email with a separate shipping quote (depending on your location it can be anywhere from $80-$150, including insurance). If you are ordering from outside of the US and have questions, please inquire through email before placing the order.
Archive
Years of R&D and soul searching, this is Generation 2 of the Design Series. The goal is to make small batches of knives that cut and feel just as good as any of our customs at a more accessible price point, without any compromises in fit, finish, and geometry.
This one has a unique handle out of Ultem 1000. I will not make another one like it any time soon, because working this material by hand is an absolute nightmare.
Specifications:
14C28N steel (stainless)
62 Rockwell C Hardness
150mm Edge Length (6.0”)
Stone Washed Finish
Convex Geometry with Zero Edges and Subtle Distal Taper
Ultem 1000 Handle
For international orders, I will follow up through email with a separate shipping quote (depending on your location it can be anywhere from $100-$150, including insurance). If you are ordering from outside of the US and have questions, please inquire through email before placing the order.
Pocket paring knives! I’ve been wanting to make these for a long time. I want one myself, maybe I’ll keep one, maybe not…
52100 carbon steel. Subtle convex geometry with a thin edge (don’t use these as prybars and screwdrivers…) Texturized G10 handles. Boltaron sheaths.
Steel: 52100 (carbon steel - keep dry when not in use, will develop natural patina)
Handle: Black G10 with textured finish, stainless pins
Edge Length: 76mm (3.0”)
Overall Length: 178mm (7.0”)
Length with Sheath: 190mm (7.5”)
These have a slightly wider than usual width for parers, but for an EDC I wanted them a little wider. They also have closed heels, so they lean a bit more into the EDC side of things than a pure kitchen knife. I chose that design to function as a small finger guard and to have a feature for the sheaths to click onto. Keep that in mind for sharpening. The actual point where the heel starts is a touch forward from the plunge so it doesn’t completely impede on sharpening, but it’s still a closed heel. For pocket knives I personally much prefer a closed heel like this compared to something with a sharpening notch (my personal one I made eons ago has a sharpening notch and it catches on everything.)
For international orders, I will follow up through email with a separate shipping quote (depending on your location it can be anywhere from $100-$150, including insurance). If you are ordering from outside of the US and have questions, please inquire through email before placing the order.
These are the last of the stock and will be sold at a discount!
This is the second new we've been working on for a long time. I've been wanting to do a series of knives that are more accessible for people to buy for years. The pursuit of this was way more tricky than expected, because of existing work flow, expectations, requirements, life shit, etc. This is only gen 1 of my new Design Series; they're all still completely hand made. These are:
52100 boning knives (carbon)
Etched blasted satin finish
Texturized G10 handles
The goal is to make small batches of knives that cut and feel just as good as any of our customs, has nine tenths comparable fit and finish, and is one third the price. The new signature represents a team effort in our shop - I'm not the overarching hand micromanaging every step. Hopefully this is something that will represent something bigger than just the individuals.
These boning knives were particularly tricky because of a couple of reasons. One, they have curves. Curves always increase the amount of time in shaping and finishing by about 3x. I tried my best to come up with a handle shape that was dynamic, comfortable, aesthetically pleasing, and repeatable. The guard and that birds beak in the back of the handle make that process very tricky, so some of it is just done the hard way. The second problem is grip and texture. Boning knives, especially in professional environments, need to be grippy. Most of my usual finishes are fairly clean and shiny, which….. are not grippy. This whole batch of knives actually had rubberized G10 for handles to start with, but the rubber would rub off a little too easily - amazing texture, great looks, but too flawed for my personal tastes.
Lastly, this newest batch has all hollow ground blades. The biggest problem with boning knives is that they are pretty much disposable. They’re narrow, and they get used hard, and they get sharpened frequently. That also means that when they get sharpened up, their edge thickness very quickly gets substantial. The hollow grind helps with that, such that over time over repeated sharpenings, the edge thickness will stay manageable over a longer period of time. This increases the complexity a lot, but is worth the work.
These are part of a small, limited run of nakiris we are making before transitioning to the Gen 2 designs next year. They have some nice thin grinds, balanced right at the end of the Nguyen Design mark. We have a couple of these white handle ones, and then we’ll have a couple black handled ones in December.
6" vegetable knives
52100 steel (carbon)
Satin blasted finish
White G10 fiberglass composite handles (with micarta inner frames and carbon fiber pins).