• Gyuto 230mm Damasteel Masur & Beach
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Gyuto 230mm Damasteel Masur & Beach

Gyuto 230mm Damasteel Masur & Beach

By Fredrik Spåre

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Fredrik Spåre

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Forged from premium Damasteel, a high-grade stainless steel produced in Sweden, the knife features a beautiful, sharp, thin, and tough edge at approximately 63HRC. The profile is a Spåre classic, with a good amount of height throughout. The tip is slightly walkschliffed for handling fine detail cuts, like dicing onions. Overall, the blade has a convex geometry, subtle taper, and is fine and thin.

Finished with a deep etch and high polish, the knife performs exceptionally well in most tasks, from fine slicing with minimal drag to delicate ingredients like herbs. It also handles tougher ingredients, such as root vegetables, with ease.

The knife is completed with a classic rectangular handle in masur birch, featuring a spalted beech ferrule. This high-performance kitchen knife is designed with utility in mind, boasting exceptional looks and low-maintenance, high-performance stainless steel that also looks incredible.

Product Specification
  • Blade Type:
  • Overall Length: 370mm
  • Edge Length: 230mm
  • Spine Heel: 3.3mm
  • Spine Mid: 2.05mm
  • Spine Tip (20mm before): 0.65mm
  • Blade Height: 55mm
  • Weight: 170g
  • Cutting Edge Steel:
  • Steel class: Stainless
  • HRC: 63
  • Blade Construction:
  • Blade Finish: Mirror Polish, Acid Etched (Forced Patina)
  • Grind:
  • Handle Construction:
  • Handle Materials: Masur Birch, Spalted Beech
  • Handedness: Ambidextrous

Blade type

Gyuto

牛刀

The gyuto is the Japanese interpretation of the western chef knife, and the most versatile blade in a modern kitchen. It carries a long edge, most often 210 to 270 mm, that runs flatter through the heel than its western counterpart before rising in a gentle, late curve to a fine point — a line that favours push- and pull-cutting while still allowing a rocking motion when the work calls for it. There is enough height at the heel to keep knuckles clear of the board, and the tip is fine enough for detail work, which is why most cooks reach for it first.

The flatter edge is the defining characteristic and the trade-off both. More of the blade lands on the board at once, which suits push cutting and gives clean, decisive contact through an ingredient, but a cook who works primarily by rocking will find less curve to work with than a western profile offers. Modern makers increasingly blur the line between the two, drawing a profile that rocks and push-cuts equally well — Birch & Bevel's Modern Gyuto profile, Antoine Kniamen's Western Gyuto, and Benjamin Kamon's own gyuto profile are all examples of that hybrid thinking.

View full knife type guide →

Cutting edge steel

Damasteel

Brand / process — powder metallurgy stainless damascus

Typical HRC
60–63
Corrosion class
Stainless
Production
Pattern-welded
Origin
Sweden

Damasteel is not a single steel but the brand and process of a Swedish manufacturer producing pattern-welded stainless damascus from powder-metallurgy steels — most commonly RWL34 paired with PMC27 (a softer stainless contrast layer). The two powders are layered, hot isostatic pressed, and forge-welded into patterned billets with names like Odin's Eye, Vinland, Hakkapella and Thor.

In a kitchen knife built from Damasteel the metallurgy is governed by the harder layer (typically RWL34); the softer layer is cosmetic. Hardness in the low sixties is typical, and the cutting behaviour is for practical purposes that of a RWL34 blade — a refined, stainless powder edge with very good corrosion resistance and respectable edge retention.

You see Damasteel most often in high-end custom folders and in display-grade kitchen knives where pattern is part of the brief. Among the makers Modern Cooking carries, Fredrik Spåre, Martin Huber, Jonas Johnsson, and MCx work in Damasteel. It is the gold standard for visually expressive stainless damascus and a reliable indicator that the maker is comfortable working at the upper end of the steel-supply chain.

View full steel guide →

Blade construction

Mono Steel

A knife forged from a single piece of steel — no laminations, no clad layers. The simplest and most direct construction. The entire blade is the cutting steel, with no softer outer jacket to protect or contrast it. Most contemporary Western kitchen knives in carbon and stainless steel are mono-steel constructions, as are honyaki and most European bladesmith work.

The trade-off is straightforward: mono-steel knives are easier to forge, sharpen, and reason about, but the entire blade carries the cutting steel's properties — including its reactivity if it's a clean carbon. There is no soft jacket to protect a more brittle core from impact, so the heat treatment and geometry have to do all the work.

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Grind

Convex

A grind whose faces curve outward in a continuous arc rather than falling in a straight line. The practical consequence is that it has no shoulder — no abrupt step where a bevel meets the blade face. Food release improves for the same reason: a curved face touches the cut surface along a narrow band instead of a full flat plane, so slices break away rather than clinging. Drag behaves differently too. A convex blade carries more steel than a flat grind of the same spine thickness, so it is not the lowest-drag geometry available, but the resistance it does create builds smoothly through the cut instead of arriving all at once as the food meets a bevel transition. The feel is progressive rather than sudden.

The curve also supports the edge. Steel thickens quickly behind the apex, which raises edge stability at a given sharpening angle — the apex is less prone to rolling or chipping under lateral load. How much of that you get depends on where the convexity sits. A face can be curved the whole way from spine to edge, or the curve can be confined to the last millimetre or two as a convex "appleseed" edge on an otherwise flat blade. The first shapes how the knife moves through food; the second is felt almost entirely at the edge.

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Handle construction

Hidden Tang

A construction in which the tang runs into the handle but stays concealed inside it, rather than showing between two scales. A narrower tang — a full-length stick or a shorter projection — is set into a drilled or burned channel in a one-piece handle and secured with adhesive, a friction fit, or a threaded fitting drawn up against the blade. This is the traditional construction of Japanese wa-handles and many European hidden-tang knives.

The design puts the handle material in charge of the look and feel: a single piece of wood, horn, or composite — often with a ferrule or spacers at the front — is shaped into any cross-section the maker wants, from the classic octagonal and D-shaped wa profiles to fully rounded Western forms. With no steel showing along the grip, the handle can be slim and light, and is frequently made to be removed and replaced, with the balance sitting toward the blade.

View full construction guide →

Shipping & Returns

Shipping

We process orders 5 days a week (Monday - Friday) and ship from our shop in Sydney, Australia. We ship with FedEx, UPS and DHL.

We are happy to offer free international shipping on a variety of orders depending on location and order value.

Free Shipping Regions and Minimum Order Values

For Australia and New Zealand the minimum is $500AUD. For the rest of the world it is approximately €1000EUR. The discount is applied automatically when you reach the minimum cart value at checkout.

Returns

If you're not entirely happy with your purchase, you can return it within 14 days of delivery for a refund. The item must be in its original condition with all original packaging.

  • Returns are accepted for 14 days
  • The customer is responsible for return shipping costs
  • A 15% restocking fee may be applied to change-of-mind returns
  • We do not accept returns on second-hand items for change of mind

Faulty or Damaged Items

You must notify us within 5 business days of receiving your order. Photographic evidence of damage is required. Once approved, Modern Cooking will cover return shipping costs.

Product Care

Cleaning: Clean by hand with warm water. Avoid wetting the handle when possible.

Sharpening: We advise using whetstones to sharpen your knives and a honing rod or steel to maintain the burr between sharpening sessions.

Reactive Steels: Reactive steels like Aogami Super, Apex Ultra or premium reactive German and Swedish steels are susceptible to rust if not properly cared for. Keep the knife dry between uses and when storing for longer periods, wiping the blade with Tsubaki oil or another food-safe oil is a wise choice. A patina can be a beautiful personal feature on your knife and helps to stop rust forming.

Handle Care: For non-stabilised wooden handles, apply Tsubaki oil or another food-safe oil from time to time. Food-safe wax can be applied to both stabilised and non-stabilised wooden handles. Never apply hot wax or oil as you risk warping or damaging the handle.

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