Dan Bidinger

Washington, USA · Best-In-Class Cutting Performance Kitchen Knives

Dan Bidinger

Bidinger Knives

Dan Bidinger works from Washington State, producing refined, performance-driven kitchen knives with a strong focus on balance, geometry, and finish. Best known for his B-grind geometry, his knives are designed to move cleanly through food while maintaining excellent release and edge stability. The result is contemporary American bladesmithing with a highly practical centre: cleanly executed, comfortable in hand, and built for serious kitchen work.

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The latest from Bidinger Knives

Recent work

Recent releases from this workshop. Each made by hand in extremely limited numbers.

About the maker

On the workshop

Dan Bidinger grew up in Alaska, where an early appreciation for well-made tools was shaped by hands-on work in construction and high-access rigging. After more than a decade abroad in Dubai, he returned to the United States in 2018 and set up shop in Sequim, Washington, where Bidinger Knives took its current form. He is largely self-taught, but has drawn insight from some of the most respected artisans in the field, and the workshop's trajectory has been one of steady, deliberate refinement rather than rapid expansion. The result is a practice grounded in tools, materials and a clear sense of how a knife should perform in working hands.

Performance sits at the centre of his thinking. Bidinger Knives are made for chefs and serious home cooks who expect precision and consistency, and Dan's signature is the careful resolution of balance, cutting efficiency and finish into a blade that feels like a natural extension of the hand. His best-known geometric work is the B-grind, a compound blade geometry designed to improve food release and reduce friction through the cut. Across the range, the attention is on grind, finish and overall coherence, with each knife treated as a discrete exercise in fit and form rather than a repeat of a template.

What makes Dan's work distinctive is the alignment between the aesthetic he pursues and the cutting feel he engineers; neither is allowed to override the other. The knives are visually composed, but the visual character only registers because the underlying geometry is cleanly resolved first. For Modern Cooking, Bidinger Knives belongs in the Collectors Selection as a clear example of maker-led, performance-driven work from the contemporary American scene — knives sought after by buyers who want aesthetics and performance held in the same hand, and built to be used across years of serious kitchen work.

Steel preference

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Signature construction

Cutting edge steel

AEB-L

Fine-grain martensitic stainless steel

Typical HRC
60–63
Corrosion class
Stainless
Production
Conventional
Origin
Sweden (Uddeholm)

AEB-L is the original fine-grain razor stainless — a steel developed for safety razor blades and rediscovered by knifemakers as one of the most refined stainless choices available. About 0.67 percent carbon and 13 percent chromium, with very low impurity content, allow the steel to take a near-carbon-grade edge while remaining genuinely stainless.

In a custom or boutique kitchen knife AEB-L typically lands at 60–62 HRC, sharpens with the easy feel of a clean carbon, and produces a polished apex that holds an edge longer than its modest carbide content might suggest. Toughness is exceptional: at 62 HRC, AEB-L compares well to 52100 at the same hardness in published toughness data, which is the point that contemporary metallurgical writing on the steel has emphasised. It is the steel that taught a generation of makers that stainless need not feel coarse.

AEB-L is heavily used in the modern American custom scene and is an honest answer to the cook who wants the feel of a clean carbon without the maintenance burden. Among the makers Modern Cooking carries, Lew Griffin and Oliver Märtens work in AEB-L. It is closely related to Sandvik 13C26 and a direct ancestor of 14C28N.

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Cutting edge steel

CPM 3V

Powder metallurgy chromium-vanadium tool steel

Typical HRC
58–62
Corrosion class
Carbon
Production
Powder
Origin
United States (Crucible)

CPM 3V is the toughness specialist of the powder-metallurgy world: about 0.80 percent carbon, 7.5 percent chromium, 2.75 percent vanadium, 1.3 percent molybdenum, and 1 percent tungsten produce a steel with toughness that is, in most published comparisons, the highest of any non-PM3V variant tool steel in commercial production.

For a kitchen knife — which is generally not a knife asked to chop bones — 3V's toughness is somewhat over-specified. Where the steel earns its place is in heavy chef's knives, large cleavers, and crossover camp/kitchen blades. At 60 HRC it offers respectable edge retention (better than 80CrV2, short of 52100 on a clean cut), and it is genuinely difficult to chip. It is not stainless, despite its moderate chromium, and will patina politely.

You will see 3V most often in the work of American forging custom shops that want a "do not worry about it" carbon steel. As a kitchen-only choice it is somewhat overbuilt, but for a one-knife-fits-all enthusiast it is an honest and very durable answer.

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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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Limited release

Reserve your place

Dan Bidinger's work is highly sought-after for its distinctive combination of craftsmanship, performance, and design, with each piece produced by hand in extremely limited numbers — a pace of production that naturally cannot keep up with demand.

For those hoping to secure a piece through Modern Cooking, joining the waitlist is the best way to register your interest in Dan's work and share your preferred dimensions, design preferences, and intended use. As opportunities become available, we use this information to guide future allocations with care and consideration.

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