The 1834 Hammer Forged Collection

“The most influencial culinary knife ever designed”

Box label for the new stainless steel knife circa 1957

Philippe Sabatier’s handmade hammer forged knives have delivered French cuisine for 200 years. His designs have influenced the culinary knife traditions of Europe and most recently have been used as the templates for the Gyuto and Petty culinary knives of Japan.

Philippe Sabatier’s design is France’s chef’s knife because of its versatility which is why its design is so widely copied. Its versatility was born by the demand of the cuisine to exactly process the bounty of France which is a result of the nation’s unique geographic location in Europe.

The 1834 collection received 1st prize at the IWA Exhibition Nurnberg Germany 2009 for 100% Forged Gourmet Knives when it was already 185 years old. It is the only Sabatier collection to receive such a distinction which acknowledges the materials and methods employed that have created the finest example of his original forged designs.

Each member of the handmade 1834 collection is forged from a single piece of steel, it is not cut from plate steel, a method (stock removal) employed almost exclusively by the Japanese. To create a member of the 1834 collection each single piece of steel is first hardened by heating to 1040ºC then air-cooled followed by treatment of liquid nitrogen at -70º to -80º C. This sets the crystalline structure of the steel prior to grinding, polishing, final tempering and sharpening.

The reason for this stage is to decrease the steel’s brittleness while increasing its hardness and edge durability. The blade is then crosswise ground to create a finer cutting edge along its whole sharpened length. The final stage of preparation is to manually crosswise polish the blade to eliminate all tell tale scratches and sharpen the edge to a finished angle of 20 degrees. Each member of the 1834 collection requires over 150 steps by hand from beginning to finished blade.

The K-Sabatier’s 1834 hammer forged collection is the definitive example of this method of knife making. Not because of how cool they are but because of their proven ability, not because of the marketing story but because of their proven influence. For 200 years these knives have been made by the family of French craftsmen who live its cuisine and are of the terroir of France. It is this essence that is put into each and every knife made by Philippe Sabatier’s family.