Refurbished K Sabatier Jeune 10″ Chef Knife Cuisine Massif Nogent Carbon Steel Thiers 1950s-60s

Vintage K Sabatier Jeune chef knife made in the 1950s or 1960s in Thiers France with a hand forged after drop forged carbon steel blade, nickel tube (not braised sheet) ferrule and walnut or fruitwood handle. 

This knife had been sharpened in just enough to warrant a thinning and refacing of the blade to bring it back to a good usable geometry. It is a bit narrower than original at 1 11/16″ at the heel but still tall enough to work as a chef knife for those with average sized hands. A little bit of the original stamp is still visible as are the trade mark bunch of grapes on the handle. 

The K Sabatier family business had been run by two brothers who split up due to a falling out between them resulting in the offshoot Jeune brand started by the younger brother (Jeune means young) .This knife was hand forged after being drop forged and ground on water stones in the old style giving them a great geometry; nimble where they need to be and tough in the heel. These are the quintessential post war French chef knife and K Sabatier Jeune are sought after for good reason.

This knife has been re-ground and thinned behind the edge on a large 3 foot diameter Japanese water stone wheel (kaiten mizu toishi) and then resurfaced with a medium fine finish, our take on an old style grinding and finishing technique. While the particular wheel used to refurbish this knife is typically used in Japanese knife making it is very similar to the old grinding wheels used to shape European and American hand ground cutlery. A convex face to a blade greatly increases a knife’s performance as there is less sticking as there is on a flat face and the blade does not get thick behind the edge nearly as fast as with a flat faced blade. Being that we are often working with old blades that need re-shaping and might have been rusted expect some minor imperfections, we try to give a fresh start to our re-ground blades with an eye towards their original grind style and keeping as much metal is needed on a blade when ever possible.