Faber Knives 

 

Fabrication Process

 

Knife blades can be formed by forging or stock removal. In forging, a bar of steel is heated and hammered into the desired shape. In stock removal, material is removed from a flat bar of steel by sawing, grinding and filing until the desired shape remains. Neither method inherently produces a better knife; the quality of any blade is determined by the design, steel selection, heat treatment and workmanship.

 

I make Faber knives by stock removal. Starting with a cut-to-length bar of precision ground steel, the holes necessary for the bolsters and handle scales are precisely located and drilled through the blade blank. Additional holes are drilled through the tang to reduce weight and shift the center of mass. The outline of the knife is scribed on the blank and the profile is ground. The sides of the blade are then ground to shape and sanded to a 1000-grit finish.

 

The steel is heat treated to optimize its performance. I do all of the heat trteatment myself. The blade is heated in a furnace and held at an intermediate temperature to relieve any inherent stresses in the blade, heated to the critical temperature at which a crystalline structure transformation takes place, then quenched (cooled rapidly) to lock the new crystalline structure in place. Immediately after quenching, the blade is cryogenically treated by soaking in liquid nitrogen for at least eight hours to drive the crystalline structure transformation to completion, resulting in maximum hardness. The blade is then tempered (heated at a lower temperature) twice to reduce the hardness, producing the optimum balance between hardness and toughness.

 

After heat treatment, I sand the blade to a 2000-grit finish and buff it to a mirror finish. Some Faber blades (generally non-food contacting utility blades) are sanded to a 600-grit satin finish.

 

I cut bolster blanks to size from bar stock. I cut wood handle scales to length from bookmatched slabs. The faces and ends of the bolsters and handle scales are milled to ensure flatness and a precise fit. The holes for pinning the bolsters and scales to the tang are precisely located and drilled. The front bolster edges are ground to shape, sanded and buffed. The handle scales are sawed and ground to approximate shape. Prior to assembly, I rough sand and carefully clean the tang and the faces of the bolsters and scales that contact the tang to ensure maximum adhesion. The bolsters and scales are pinned and glued to the tang using high-strength epoxy and cured for 24 hours before additional processing.

 

The bolsters and handle scales are profile ground to fit the tang, and front and rear handle tapers are ground. I do all remaining handle shaping by hand using files and sandpaper. The handles are sanded to a 2000-grit finish and buffed.

 

I make the sheaths that accompany Faber knives from vegetable tanned cowhide. The pieces of the sheath are both glued and stitched together. The stitching used is a hand sewn alternating stitch which is stronger and more durable than the lock stitch produced by sewing machines. Once the sheath is assembled, it is wet formed to exactly fit the specific knife it was made for. When completed, the sheath is treated to preserve the leather and provide moisture resistance.

 

Sharpening is the final step in the fabrication process. I sharpen Faber knives at an angle of approximately 23 degrees using a series of progressively finer diamond stones. The blade is held in a clamping fixture using a guide rod to hold the stone at a constant angle the entire length of the blade. This produces an extremely uniform cutting edge that gives a very smooth and uniform cutting action. I finish the cutting edge with 1000- and 2000-grit ceramic stones. I remove the microscopic wire edge left by the 2000-grit stone using a buffer, resulting in an extremely sharp and long-lasting cutting edge.