Damascus Paring Knife, Camel Bone Handle and Carved Cover

Hold an apple in one hand and take the peel off with the other. No board involved. That is what this one does, and why the smallest knife in a kitchen logs the most hours. The blade is 3.5 inches of Damascus over a high carbon core and the handle is camel bone, 4 inches of it, short enough that your fingers steer, not your arm.

Specification

The blade

Damascus over a high carbon core, etched in a raindrop pattern. Raindrop comes from dimpling the billet before it is forged flat, so layers ring out around every dent. Surface, nothing else. The carbon under it is what you sharpen. It is small and pointed with a short curve behind the tip, and both ends earn their keep. The point goes into a strawberry hull or an eye in a potato. The curve follows round fruit as you turn it. Carbon steel greys as it works and spots if left wet.

The handle

Camel bone is dense, cool to hold and close to cream in colour, and it does not turn slippery when hands are wet with fruit. Full tang, with three brass pins through the scales and the steel. The handle is 4 inches, shorter than anything else on the bench, and that is deliberate. A long handle levers against your palm when you work in the air. A short one sits in the fingers, and the blade pivots where your thumb sends it.

The leather blade cover

Vegetable tanned leather, hand stitched, cut around this small blade's outline so it cannot slide inside. A welt sets into the seam, a leather strip keeping the thread off the edge. The face is carved by hand, a rose and scroll cut with a swivel knife and punched down around. It covers the blade and leaves the handle standing free, which is what a drawer or a packed roll asks for. None of it belongs on a belt.

Who it suits

Ask which knife somebody used most last week, then check the sink.

• Anyone peeling, hulling and coring by hand
• Cooks wanting an etched blade in a small size
• Buyers filling the gap under a chef knife
• People with small hands who dislike long handles

What comes in the box

• The Damascus paring knife on camel bone
• The hand carved rose and scroll blade cover
• A care card
• Free resharpening as long as you own it

Every piece is different

A raindrop pattern depends on where the dimples were punched, so the rings sit differently on every blade and some run clean off the edge. Bone varies in colour and takes a polish its own way. The rose is cut freehand into each cover, which is why the petals lean.

Looking after it

Hand wash it and dry it the moment you finish, since this is the knife that gets rinsed and left in the rack. Then a light coat of food safe mineral oil before it goes away. The bone asks for a dry cloth and nothing stronger. Use wood or plastic boards on the days it meets one. A blade this short takes minutes on a whetstone at roughly 20 degrees per side, then a strop. More on the care and sharpening page.

Put a name on it

Engraving is 20 dollars per blade, ticked on this page. Around 30 characters fits, though on 3.5 inches the lettering runs small, so initials and a date read better than a sentence. You see a proof image before the laser touches steel. It adds 3 to 5 business days. At 10 blades or more we stop charging. The engraving page explains.

Questions buyers ask

Why is a paring knife used off the board? Because you can see what you are doing. Peeling happens against your thumb, where the fruit turns and the blade barely moves.

Why does the smallest blade get the most hours? Small jobs outnumber big ones, and none of them are worth clearing a board for.

What is the short curve behind the tip for? It keeps contact as you rotate an apple. A straight edge would touch in one place only.

Will it rust? It can. Carbon steel sits under the pattern, so dry it and oil it. It is never loaded into a dishwasher.

Is camel bone fragile? No. It is dense and pinned to a full tang. Dropping it on tile is still a bad idea.

How soon does it ship? Most US orders arrive in 5 to 7 business days.

When the job outgrows it, the kitchen utility knife on green micarta picks up, and at the other end sits the 9 inch Damascus carving knife on stag antler. Small blades and long live in kitchen knives, etched work in Damascus steel, the rest under every knife we make.