About Us

Pilvarox makes kitchen knives to one specification and eight shapes. One steel, one handle material, one edge angle. There is nothing on the blade but the grind.

What we make

Eight knives, from a 90 mm paring knife to a 240 mm slicer, plus a boxed set of four, a whetstone, a honing rod and a waxed canvas roll. Twelve things in total. That is the whole catalogue and we are not planning to pad it.

Every blade is X50CrMoV15 stainless hardened to 56 HRC and ground to 15 degrees a side. Every handle is linen micarta — woven cotton canvas set in resin — in two flat scales pinned through the tang with three brass pins, with the steel of the tang left showing along the spine.

Slabs of linen micarta, a length of brass rod, cut brass pins and two bare blade blanks on a workbench.

Why linen micarta

Because it does not care about water. Wood moves, swells and eventually splits at the pins; a moulded plastic scale does not move but always feels like a moulded plastic scale. Micarta is canvas and resin pressed together, so it is dimensionally stable, it grips better when your hands are wet than when they are dry, and the weave shows in the surface, which we like.

It has one real drawback and it is worth saying: it will take on a patina from oils and tomatoes over the years, and it will not come back to the colour it arrived in. We think that is the same bargain you make with a wooden board.

Why there is no pattern on the blade

Layered and etched blade patterns are a manufacturing signature, and on most knives at most prices they are a cosmetic one — a pattern rolled or etched onto the surface rather than a property of the steel. A pattern does not cut anything. We would rather spend the money on the heat treatment and the grind and leave the blade plainly finished.

A finished knife held in the leather-lined jaws of a bench vice beside an abrasive block.

What we are not

We are not a forge and we do not pretend to be one. The knives are made to our specification and our drawings by a manufacturing partner, and we say so here rather than let a photograph of a workbench imply otherwise.

We are also not the cheapest way to get a sharp knife, and not the sharpest-for-longest either. At 56 HRC the edge trades a little longevity for being easy to bring back on a stone in five minutes. If you want an edge that holds for a year and needs a specialist when it goes, that is a different knife from a different shop, and we would rather tell you now.