A Custom Damascus Collaboration with Jaden Hair

New West KnifeWorks Press Release Oct. 15'

Over the past 25 years New West KnifeWorks has traveled the globe to provide its customers the best chef knives possible.  Along our journeys we have met so many extraordinary and talented people.  Since moving production back to the Greater Yellowstone Area we have developed a relationship with some of the best Damascus Steel forgers in the country.  Damascus Steel can be found all over the world in swords, hunting knives, and very high-end Japanese chef knives.  With our partners in Idaho Falls, ID we are now manufacturing America’s best Damascus Steel Chef Knives.

 In January of 2015 we decided to put our skills of knifemaking and forging to the test.  Jaden Hair, writer, author x3 and nationally acclaimed blogger is a good friend of ours.  Jaden and her blog Steamy Kitchen and New West have been collaborating together for over seven years.  Her recipes, ingredients, and knife skills make for a great judge of character for our knives and accessories.  She was the first person we reached out to try one of our custom Damascus chef knives.  But instead of just sending her a knife, we decided to make the knife of her dreams.

Jaden knows her way around a kitchen and knives, and asking her the hard questions was rather easy. 

What kind of knives do you have?
What do you really want in a knife? 

We learned rather quickly that Jaden enjoys a lightweight knife, with a smaller, simple styled handle. Jaden referred to her Global knives as her preferred weight and handle style, and New West’s durability and edge retention. Our vision of Jaden’s knife swiftly took shape.  Based on her description, we sent Jaden our 8” chef knife as a demo because of its purposefully lightweight and flexible design.

Corey Milligan: “ We have such a similar style, blade and shape as Global Knives but with a way better steel.”

We were right. With a few tweaks to our original 8” Chef knife design Jaden’s knife slowly took shape. We created a blade with more belly allowing more of a rocking motion- a better fit for Jaden's Asian influenced recipes that call for a lot of chopping. We coupled a well -bellied blade with a smaller, straight handle to fit Jaden's smaller hands.

Once our designs were complete, we sent them to the forge.  It took over 30 man- hours to create this knife.  And the results were just as we expected-perfect.

“I love it. I love it.”  Jaden’s reaction was quick and expected.  We hoped to deliver the knife of Jaden’s dreams, and did so. 

Jaden’s 8” American santoku hybrid features a Damascus Firework pattern blade, dyed Box Elder burl handle, nickel silver bolster, and mosaic pinwork.

Our custom Damascus chef knives are hand forged and comprised of 15N20 &1095 high- grade tool steels.  To learn more about our Damascus and to check out our full line of custom Damascus visit our Info Page

 

And to learn more about Jaden and her awesome recipes, visit her website. www.steamykitchen.com