Steelport 4” Paring Knife 52100 Carbon Steel Stabilized Maple

Steelport 4” Paring Knife 52100 Carbon Steel Stabilized Maple

Steelport knives are made in Portland Oregon, USA by Eytan Zias and a highly specialized group of individuals who collaborated in 2020 to bring back the drop forged hand finished American carbon steel knife, albeit in an upgraded form. 

First the blade, bolster, tang and pommel are formed in a drop forge, the historical driver of fine American industrial cutlery that has largely disappeared from American cutlery. Next a proprietary 8 stage heat treatment with both oil quenching and air cooling finished by a cryogenic treatment in liquid nitrogen is done one knife at a time. The edge half of the blade is hardened to 65 HRC with the spine and handle being under 40 HRC. The blade is convex ground and polished with heel and spine ground with eased edges, and after an etch in coffee the knife is completed with a stabilized Oregon bigleaf maple handle. Each knife is unique in both  the pattern of the maple burl and the banding in the grain of the steel visible from the coffee etch. 

After testing the Steelport 8” chef, we found it has the more robust weight and balance of a Western chef knife with excellent performance. It's an easy, punchy feeling knife with a smooth cutting feel with good food release from it’s convex face. This knife was very easy to sharpen and worked well with a wide variety of finish types; from 3000 to 8000 grit (I thought 4-6K to be the sweet spot).

The smooth, dark patina is not rough and grabby on food and does not impede the cutting. It will change as the knife picks up a patina with use of course as it is not stainless, for this reason it must be wiped dry after use and never put in a dishwasher. 

The edge has excellent edge life and toughness (capable of cutting hemp rope 100 times and also being able to cut a brass rod without chipping) while being easy to sharpen and maintain

Part of the Steelport process involves running them through a vibratory vat where the unfinished knives bump into each other and potentially leave marks on the soft spine half of the blade, this is not a defect and will blend into the working surface of these knives as they age. 

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