Harbeer Chahal

Apex Ultra is one of the most carefully engineered non-stainless kitchen knife steels in modern circulation, and the project of an Austrian smith — Tobias Hangler — who set out, with Marco Guldimann, to design a steel for the kitchen rather than borrow one from another industry. It carries roughly 1.25 percent carbon, around four percent chromium, modest tungsten and molybdenum, and a small vanadium addition. The composition is tuned to produce a fine, evenly distributed carbide structure that supports hardness up to 67 HRC while delivering toughness comparable to 52100 at the same hardness — a combination that is the entire point of the steel.

What this means for a cook is unusual permission. You can ask a maker to grind an Apex Ultra knife thin enough that a White #1 owner would call you brave, then ask for the heat treatment to land at 65 HRC, and the resulting edge will hold for longer than Aogami Super without microchipping. It sharpens cleanly on natural and synthetic stones alike and patinas slowly because of the chromium content, though it is not stainless and should be treated as a carbon steel.

Apex Ultra has become a signature steel of the European maker community, and the Modern Cooking catalogue carries an unusually deep bench of smiths working in it. Tobias Hangler himself heads that group, alongside Marco Guldimann, Benjamin Kamon, Martin Huber, Jonas Johnsson, Karol Karyś, Birch & Bevel, and MCx. It is genuinely a step forward — one of the relatively few cases where the marketing claims and the underlying metallurgical data are saying the same thing.

CruForge V was Crucible's deliberate attempt to design a "best forging carbon" — about 1.05 percent carbon, half a percent of chromium, three quarters of a percent each of manganese and vanadium — released in 2009 with significant input from Howard Clark and Dan Farr. The aim was to give bladesmiths a steel with the easy forge feel of a simple carbon and the wear resistance of a more alloyed grade, with a dramatic hamon to match.

In a kitchen knife it runs at 60–62 HRC, sharpens cleanly, takes a quietly polished apex, and holds an edge slightly better than W2 at the same hardness. Toughness is good for the hardness; patina behaviour is conventional. It was, in its brief commercial life, well respected.

The catch is supply. Crucible's bankruptcy and reorganisation meant CruForge V never reached the production scale it deserved, and remaining stock now trickles through specialty suppliers. As a practical recommendation it is a known and beloved steel in the American forging community, but a customer who wants one will need to find a maker who has it in inventory. Among the makers Modern Cooking carries, Harbeer Chahal works in CruForge V.