A bit of history…
This artisan has been forging and assembling Corsican knives for 30 years, on the side of “Zoza”, a small village in the south of the island.
He first began by making the “Curnicciolu”, a traditional model of shepherd’s knife with its steel, wide and choppy blade.
It is through the familiar and everyday use of knives that he creates his models.
Knives as part of everyday life
Steel blades have character, they react, change aesthetically and visually and age very well. They irregularly blue and blacken. The patina they acquire over time gives them an experience. Each knife has a story to tell …
Features
- Good hardness and easy sharpening thanks to the carbon contained in the steel
- Purity of materials (iron and carbon), no other material like “chrome or manganese”
- A handle carved in the essence of boxwood, the local “Corsica” wood. Its curvature comes from the natural curve of the goat’s horn!
- Long life expectancy
- A high quality artisanal production recognized by cutlers and great knife lovers
The best way to maintain your knife is to use it every day
Manufacturing history …
To make our knives, we start from a drawing then a first blank is cut on a steel bar.
For kitchen knives, this steel is XC75, a carbon steel that will oxidize but has the advantage of easily sharpening
Then we give the final shape to the knife using an abrasive belt
The next step is the emouture, which refines what will be the cutting edge of the blade
After having made the different holes necessary, we can go to the quenching of the blade
This consists of placing the blade in an oven at 840 degrees and then cooling it very quickly in a quenching oil, this operation is crucial because it will define the hardness of the blade and therefore the quality of its sharpness
Once this blade is soaked, it must go through the oven at 250 degrees, for an hour this time, to make it undergo what is called a “annealing” which will allow it to be less brittle. It is this step that will give this “black” color to the blade
After quenching, we must finish the grinding and give its final sharpness to the blade, for the polishing of it we use grains of different abrasive bands, from the thickest to the finest, and finally we use a cotton and a polishing paste to give it its definite shiny appearance
We then start cutting the wood to the measures of the handle, then drilling and mounting it, and finally finish with final formatting using, again, the different grains of the abrasive strips
The last step is the sharpening; done with a band of medium grain and abrasive paste then, finally, a passage on a leather band to give it a sharp “razor”
Maintenance
- A knife does not wash: it wipes
- Use steel wool and olive oil to restore its original brilliance if by chance the blade should tarnish too much, or even cover with a rust blossom
- Carbon steel blades react with oxidizing foods (eggs, lemons, certain cheeses …)
- Sharpening: rather soft and fine-grained stone, wet with water
