Rolin Knives 205mm Santoku Apex Ultra Argentine Lignum Brass

Hand forged oil quenched santoku featuring a belt ground then hand finished convex Apex Ultra blade. The handle is also handmade from Argentine Lignum Vitae with a brass ferrule that was machined in-house then textured by hand. This blade has a strong distal taper, a feature that is becoming a calling card of Rolin Knives.

Apex Ultra is a fine grain, fine carbide low alloy steel made specifically for fine cutlery. Developed by an international team of metallurgist, Larrin Thomas (US), Marco Guldimann (CH), Tobias Hangler (AT). It’s valued for its high hardness and toughness, it’s considered to have the highest toughness of any knife steel, reaching a 66+ HRc in some instances. Usually, when chasing hardness and toughness in a blade steel, one will detrimentally effect the other, but Apex Ultra has been formulated to balance both thanks to it’s purity, homogeny and fine microstructure. It takes and holds a fine edge while remaining tough by design.

Argentine Lignum Vitae shares the same high density and natural oiliness as the more commonly known Geniune Lignum Viate but it’s not nearly as regulated. Lignum Vitae species are so dense that they were once used as wooden ball bearings on ships. Argentine Lignum Vitae’s oiliness allows it to take on an hyper-smooth polish and can change color tone when it’s exposed to sunlight. When we received this knife it was a pale yellow but we anticipate it showing significant shades of green in the nearterm.

All aspects of this knife were meticulously forged, treated, ground, machined, worked, shaped and fit with an incredible amount of detail and intention by Nick Rolin. Originally from the Bay Area, Nick’s blade shapes and styles are inspired by his years as a fine-dining line cook that preceded his time spent in NYC as a bartender after earning a degree in Sustainable Agriculture from UCSC. After a weekend knife making class in 2016, Nick began making knives for friends and the eventual demand lead to returning to the Bay Area in 2022 to make knives full-time.

We have been able to test a few of Nick’s knives and were impressed not only with the craftsmanship and aesthetics but also the edge performance, cutting feel and sharpenability of the knives. We are lucky to have Nick in our backyard and are proud to be able to introduce his work to our knife community.