Bunka Knife // Black Damascus // 6.5"

The Bunka Black Damascus features a 6.5" long blade clad in Black Damascus. This 33-layer Damascus cladding means every piece has a unique pattern on the blade, so every knife one-of-a-kind. Bunka Black Damascus is a multi-purpose knife, suitable for cutting veggies, meat and fish. Compared to ZDP-189 Bunka Black, this knife is shorter with smoother curves, making it friendlier to a home-user, more comfortable to hold, and easier to maintain.

Bunka Black Damascus is forged by Japanese knifemaker Suncraft in the famous knife city Seki in Gifu prefecture. The heart of the knife is the most popular and widely-used steel for Japanese knives— VG-10 steel. When selecting which steel to choose for a specific knife, Suncraft looks at the material's hardness, its ability to hold a sharp, smooth edge, ease of maintenance, and how easy it is to sharpen. In the case of Bunka Black Damascus, VG-10 ticked all of the boxes.

VG-10 (V for Vanadium, G for "gold" as in "gold standard" is made in another cutlery-famous city Echizen, just a short drive from Seki. VG-10 is made by Takefu Special Steel Company, a relatively small steel company that around 60 years ago managed to find just the right balance of different elements to create the most popular Japanese knife making steel today. VG-10 steel is stainless steel with relatively high Carbon (C) content (1%), 15% Chromium (Cr), 1% Molybdenum (Mo), 0.3% Vanadium (V) and 1.5% Cobalt (Co). The combination of Cr, Mo, and V forms a lot of hard carbides, making the steel abrasion resistant which translates to long-lasting, smooth sharpness. Heat treated to the hardness of 60-61 HRC.

The handle chosen to be attached to the Bunka Black Damascus followed the same logic as the blade— universal and easy to maintain. A beautiful, dark brown, octagonal-shaped pakka wood handle sits well in your hands regardless if you are left- or right-handed. Pakka wood is a mixture of laminated wood and epoxy resin which is highly durable and will not get stained easily.

This knife includes a custom-fit saya (knife sheath) individually handcrafted from walnut wood, with unique patterns and colors that vary slightly with ever piece. The engraved dragon on the saya is the symbol of SharpEdge's hometown Ljubljana (the capital of Slovenia). Since their new knife is a collaboration with Japanese blacksmiths, the dragon is a nice symbolic bridge between the two cultures.