Damascus Steel

A Damascus blade is built up rather than cut down. More than 300 layers of hard and elastic steel are forge-welded together, folded and drawn out, until the boundaries between the layers surface as a pattern no two blades share. Güde forges and finishes each one by hand in Solingen, so the grain running along the flat of the blade is structural — a record of how the steel was worked, not a finish applied afterwards.

The collection runs to six knives, all from the Franz Güde line and all handled in desert ironwood, a dense, close-grained wood that takes a fine polish: a 4-inch paring knife, a 6.2-inch Chinese Chai Dao, a 7-inch santoku, an 8.2-inch chef's knife, an 8.2-inch fillet knife and a 12.5-inch bread knife. As with every Güde wood handle, these should be washed by hand rather than in the dishwasher.