Blockward Hand Forged Viking Cleaver with Engraved Celtic Knot | 14 Inch Overall Length | Tall Straight Edge, Cord Wrapped Handle and Canvas Roll | Kitchen and Chef Gift | RK-1826

Blockward is a hand forged Viking cleaver, a tall rectangular kitchen blade with a straight edge, a rounded leading corner and a satin polished flat carrying a cut quaternary Celtic knot at the heel. The spine is thick, the heel steps down into a short choil, and the handle is wrapped in dark cord over a full tang finished with a bright steel butt cap. A canvas blade roll ships with it.

Cleavers split into two families that look almost identical and are built for opposite jobs. A bone cleaver is thick, heavy and ground at a wide obtuse angle so the edge survives being driven through joints and ribs. A vegetable cleaver, the Chinese caidao or its Japanese cousin the nakiri, is thinner behind the edge and ground far finer, and it is used the way a chef knife is used, with the whole straight edge meeting the board at once. Buy the wrong one and you will either chip a fine edge on a chicken thigh bone or crush a tomato with a wedge. This one is built as a vegetable and general prep cleaver, thin enough behind the edge to slice cleanly and tall enough to scoop a board clear in one pass.

Forged, ground, heat treated and handled in the Czech Republic. It ships with the canvas blade roll, a light food safe oil on the steel and a care card for carbon steel in the kitchen. Free shipping inside the United States and one to two weeks of processing.

Specifications

Why the blade is this tall

Height on a kitchen blade is not about looking serious. It does three specific jobs. It gives your knuckles clearance above the board so you can bring the edge down flat without folding your hand, which is what lets a straight edge cut cleanly along its whole length. It gives you a wide flat to crush garlic and to scoop a pile of chopped onion across to the pan without picking anything up twice. And it puts mass directly above the edge, so the blade falls through dense root vegetables with almost no downward pressure from you.

The rounded leading corner is deliberate too. A square corner on a tall blade catches on the board and on the edge of a bowl, and it is the part that gets chipped first. Rounding it costs nothing in cutting performance and removes the most vulnerable point on the whole knife.

The steel and the handle

The blade is 1095 high carbon steel, forged, normalised, hardened and tempered to 54 to 58 HRC. Carbon steel in a kitchen is a real choice with real consequences. It takes a keener edge more easily than stainless and it is far quicker to bring back on a stone. It is also not stainless, and it will darken into a grey blue patina within weeks of normal use. That patina is stable oxide and it is protective. It is not rust, and most cooks who use carbon steel come to prefer the look of it.

The handle is cord wrapped over the full tang, which gives a dry positive grip with wet hands, and the steel butt cap balances the tall blade so the knife does not want to tip forward off the counter.

Engraving, runes and your own design

Use the rune converter on this page to turn a name, a date or a short phrase into Elder Futhark and we will cut it into the steel, the leather or the wood. If you would rather have a Viking pattern than a rune line, choose your own design in the engraving option above the add to cart button and tell us where it goes. Where a piece already carries an engraved design, your chosen engraving replaces it rather than sitting alongside it. On this cleaver the flat at the heel is the natural place and your line takes the place of the quaternary knot. See the engraving page for how much text fits.

Handling and use on the board

A tall cleaver is used differently from a chef knife. There is no rocking. The whole straight edge comes down onto the board at once, or with the slightest forward push, and then lifts clear. Keep your guiding hand knuckles against the flat of the blade and let them walk backward as you go, which is safer than it sounds because the height of the blade means the edge is nowhere near your fingertips.

Use it on vegetables, herbs, boneless meat and fish, and use it to move food off the board. Do not use it on bone, frozen food or a glass or stone board. It is ground thin for slicing and none of those three respect a thin edge.

Care

Hand wash only, in warm water, and dry it immediately. Never put it in a dishwasher. Dishwasher detergent is strongly alkaline and it will strip the patina, dull the edge against the rack and loosen a cord wrapped handle in a season. After drying, wipe a little food safe mineral oil over the flats if the knife is going away for more than a few days.

Acidic food such as tomato, onion and citrus will mark the steel with a light patina straight away. That is normal. If a real orange rust spot ever appears, take it off gently with a cork and a little bar keepers powder and re oil. The steel care page covers this in detail. Keep the cord handle out of standing water and let it dry fully between uses.

Made in the Czech Republic

This piece is made by hand in the Czech Republic, in a workshop that still works the old way. The steel is forged, ground, heat treated and finished by smiths who learned the trade from the people before them, and the wood, horn and leather are cut and fitted by hand rather than pressed out on a line. That is also why no two pieces come out exactly the same.

Ransack Viking is a United States company. We import these pieces ourselves, check every one when it lands and ship from our warehouse in Memphis, Tennessee. Engraving is done here in the United States after the piece arrives, so your runes or your own design go on before it leaves for you.

A note on handmade variation

This cleaver is hand made, not machine made or bulk produced, so what arrives will not be a pixel for pixel copy of the photograph. The quaternary knot is cut by hand, so its line weight and its exact position on the flat will be your knife’s own. The satin finish is laid on by hand and its grain runs differently on every blade. The cord wrap pitch varies. The bare carbon steel will begin taking a patina the first time you use it, which means yours will stop looking like the photograph almost immediately and will keep changing for years. The dimensions, the steel and the build are the same every time. The character is not.

Frequently asked questions

Is it food safe

Yes. It is bare high carbon steel with a food safe mineral oil on it, with no coating and no plating that could flake into food. Wash it before first use and dry it.

Can I chop through bone with it

No. This is ground as a vegetable and general prep cleaver, which means it is thin behind the edge. Bone will chip it. A bone cleaver is a different and much more obtuse tool.

Will it rust

It will darken into a grey patina with normal use and that is protective rather than harmful. It will rust properly only if it is left wet, left dirty or put in a dishwasher.

How sharp is it out of the box

Sharp enough to slice paper. Carbon steel at this hardness takes a very keen edge and gives it back easily on a stone when it dulls.

Is the canvas roll a sheath

It is a blade roll rather than a fitted sheath. It protects the edge in a drawer or a knife bag and it can be washed. A magnetic strip or a block is still the better home for daily use.

How long until it ships

One to two weeks of processing, then free shipping inside the United States.

What is in the box

• One Blockward Viking cleaver with cut quaternary knot
• Canvas blade roll
• Food safe oil film on the steel
• Care card for carbon steel in the kitchen
• Forged and finished in the Czech Republic

Explore the range

See more in chef knives, viking knives and engraved and personalized, or read the guides on carbon steel patina and sharpening.