American Made on the Cutting Edge Again
Highly skilled hands and modern precision tools have worked together to create new standards in the quality and workmanship of American made kitchen and chef knives. At New West KnifeWorks, the finest materials are sculpted, assembled, and hand-finished to ensure every piece is a perfect work of art. (Learn more about our G-Fusion knives.)
For more than a decade, New West's founder, Corey Milligan, exhibited these knives and won awards at the top juried fine art shows in the U.S. The brand’s American made knives have since been featured in top culinary and design magazines.
We have spent the last several decades on a quest to find the ultimate steel for our knives. This journey has taken us around the world, from Sweden to Seki, Japan.
After studying the great traditions of knife making, we realized we could do it better back home, using breakthroughs in metallurgy led by advanced American industries. All New West knives are made with U.S.A. steel at our production facility in Victor, Idaho.
Both Sharp & Durable
The traditional knife-making powerhouses have been Germany and Japan, with kitchen knives developed to address the cooking styles and needs of these countries.
In Japan, the diet and cuisine called for a knife that is used primarily for slicing, and the traditional Japanese knife is therefore extremely sharp.
Meanwhile, German knives were developed primarily to handle chopping and are known for their toughness and durability. In the modern kitchen, however, people need to do a variety of tasks. Chopping and slicing. We've created the ultimate American made kitchen knives using the best of those Eastern and Western traditions: super sharp and extremely tough.
A More Advanced U.S.A. Steel
For the last half century, fields like aeronautics, computing, and medicine have invested heavily in the development of new "super-steels." The same folks who took us to the moon helped inadvertently solve the riddle of the ultimate chef knife: How to make a super-sharp steel that won't stain, break, and chip easily.
Knife-makers have tried to mitigate these negatives by adding specific alloys and various heat treatments, but their solutions always had trade-offs. CPM S35VN "powder metal" steel solves this riddle.
Molten metal is sprayed into a cold environment, freezing into "nano" structures. The molecular density of its molten state is preserved instantly in newly formed "steel flakes." This "super powder" is then combined using intense compression, similar to the way diamonds are formed.
Made in the U.S.A., S35VN powder metal steel exceeds other manufactured steels in just about every category: sharpness, toughness, stain-resistance, edge-holding, and ease of sharpening. But why isn’t every knife-maker using it?
Simply put, many of the overseas knife-giants have gone the way of Walmart, outsourcing their manufacturing and sacrificing quality for volume and cost-cutting.
Elite Blades
CPM S35VN: a steel that gets sharp, stays sharp, and is easy to sharpen.
All of our knife blades are designed, engineered, crafted, and tested in the U.S. at New West KnifeWorks headquarters in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Powder metal steel allows our craftsmen to accentuate the tapering of the blade to realize its maximum potential.
The tapering from the spine to the edge lightens the knife and allows for an incredibly fine edge. Further tapering toward the front of the blade gives extra bite where you begin most of your cuts.
In the past, you had to choose between toughness and sharpness, but this very special material lets you have it all in an American made, super high carbon steel chef knife. And it makes a profound difference on the cutting board.
"Bombproof" G-Fusion Handles
Our American-made knife handles start as layers of fiberglass cloth-epoxy that are compressed and cooked into “bombproof” G10 sheets. The material is hand-shaped and polished around the knife tang, and as the material is ground away, the layers of color reveal themselves in resplendent patterns. The results are colors which seem to dance on a handle that is virtually indestructible.
The only other entities combining this elite handle material with S35VN steel are the U.S. Special Forces. Don't let the pretty handles fool you – these are the highest-performing materials on the market, and they are 100% U.S.A. made and shaped by skilled American craftsmen.
At New West KnifeWorks, we aren’t interested in selling our knives to the masses if it means sacrificing quality. That’s why we confidently back our American made knives with a lifetime guarantee. There will always be people who are interested in the best, and our knives are created for those customers.