Astounding Cleaver

Description

Why choose this knife

All the fun of a cooking cleaver without the learning curve: deep enough for serious root vegetables, good enough knuckle clearance for fast prep work, and with enough rock to handle more than you would expect from a blade this shape.

Dimensions

Blade 17.5cm. Overall 30cm. Depth 6.9cm. Weight 232g.

The Story

We love the Chinese cleaver as a concept. What we are less keen on is the significant learning curve it tends to impose before it becomes useful. The Astounding Cleaver is our answer to that: all the fun, most of the capability, and none of the six-month adjustment period. The bottom inch of the blade is a near-parallel sliver of hardened steel less than a millimetre thick. It will handle a pile of carrots, a pumpkin, a rack of lamb, and a lemon. It is the personal favourite knife of the person who makes all of them, for whatever that is worth. The one thing it will not do is get into tight spaces that require a point, which is the only honest limitation we can name. It is also pretty much the only knife Laurie uses at home.

Performance

CATRA – the global authority on cutlery performance – rank our knives in the top 2.5% of all blades ever assessed for initial sharpness and edge retention. The Astounding Cleaver is hardened in-house to 60 HRC using a nitrogen atmosphere process, taking the steel from 1080°C to -75°C in a controlled cycle that maximises carbide formation, edge stability and corrosion resistance. The blade is ground to a unique concave profile – a geometry that reduces drag and improves slicing performance without sacrificing rigidity. Each knife is sharpened to 15 degrees per side.