The Origin Culinary Series: Professional Knife Set

The Final Fourteen
about 1 year ago – Mon, Feb 27, 2023 at 01:51:23 PM

Hi folks, 

I daresay this is going to be the second to last update!

I have all of the Santokus completed and the final fourteen Utility blades forged, plus a few extra. Over the next four weeks my plan is to harden, grind, handle and sharpen this last batch of knives and begin the final shipment of the rewards.

To those of you still waiting on knives…the wait is almost over! Thank you so much for your patience. Its been a long road and although it hasn’t been longer than I expected, it still felt like too long to keep people waiting who have so generously supported this project. So thank you.

Right now I have nine completed Santokus sitting in my basement waiting for a Utility knife to ship with and if the last 6 months of production have taught me anything its that the remaining knives will take almost exactly four weeks to complete. So I should be all done by the end of March. Expect my final update to come around then, or maybe early April depending how quickly shipping goes. But yeah, the end is in sight.

All the best,

Marc

January Update -
over 1 year ago – Thu, Jan 19, 2023 at 07:14:24 AM

Hi folks,

Time for a quick update!

Things have continued to progress, a bit slower than I’d like at times, but with no major hiccups or delays. Everything still looks on track for the completion of fulfilment in March, which was my estimate during the campaign.

As of last week more than half (26/48) of all backers have had their rewards shipped and right now I am in the midst of completing the last 13 Santokus and 3 more Utility knives. They are all fully heat treated and many of them are finish ground and almost ready for handles. This means I’ve got 16 knives nearing the finish line, which will put the count at 58/72 knives completed. Plus the last 14 knives are currently in the works as well. I dropped the blanks off at Cloverdale Forge here in Manitoba last week and Matt Jenkins is in the midst of forging them out. So the next update will likely see me finishing up the last of the 72 knives.

Not much more to report, but I will say that working at this scale of production for the last 5 months has been really beneficial for me. It’s allowed me to see inefficiencies in my process and tighten things up, leading to faster and more consistent production. This wouldn’t be possible if it weren’t for you all placing pre-orders. It means that every knife I make is spoken for, and no time is wasted, which is otherwise quite difficult to achieve for a small time producer of handcrafted knives. So I’ll wrap up by saying thanks. Your support and continued patience is very much appreciated :)

Let me know if you have any other questions.

All the best,

Marc

Monthly update!
over 1 year ago – Mon, Dec 19, 2022 at 06:53:04 AM

Hello again,

Time for a monthly project update!

Things moved a little more slowly this month due the busy-ness of the season with our other wedding band making operation, but I still made some good progress and some excellent knives have been completed.

I don’t have a picture of the full set all completed like usual because I finished the blades all at once and for the past couple weeks I have been finishing a couple handles as I go. But here is a photo of dozen blades I was able to complete.

This set started at 14 but the heat treating process cracked two blades, which isn’t unusual because the process is quite stressful on the steel especially when it is so thin. Once again I am very proud of this batch. Other than the two I lost everything has come together very nicely and the knives I have shipped so far have been very fine.

I have also begun production on the magnetic knife racks, some of which just shipped today!

The count is now at 42/72 knives completed, but only 1/3 of all orders have shipped as a lot of the early knives I am shipping are sets, with two knives per set and racks etc. Once I am done shipping all of the sets the remaining 30 or so knives will ship more quickly. The target of having everything shipped by March is still the goal.

Thank you for your continued patience. As always reach out if you have any questions or concerns.

Happy Holidays

Marc

More Knives Completed :)
over 1 year ago – Tue, Nov 08, 2022 at 09:44:13 AM

Hi folks,

Hope you’re all doing well.

I just wanted to touch base and let you know where I am at with the Origin Culinary Series:

October was a bit of an unusual month. I had a scheduled surgery on my nose on October 7th and I had to stay out of the workshop for a week as my nose healed. I wear a respirator all day every day and my tender nose needed to heal up before I could get back at it. But everything went as expected. I was soon back to work and I was happy with the progress I made in October.

I took a different approach for this batch of knives to see if it helped speed things up a bit as I knew I’d be losing out on a week of work after the surgery. Instead of doing a mix of both knife styles I opted to just focus on Santokus this month. It paid off and I was able to make 14 of them. I will begin shipping this next batch later this week. Not all of them will ship however, as some are destined to be paired with a Utility knife, which I’ll be focusing on for the next round of production as well as the magnetic racks.

I also did a fairly good job of documenting the handle making process on my Instagram page this time around. If you go to @origin_handcrafted on Instagram and look in the “Story Highlights” on my profile you’ll see one called “Handle Making”. Its a fairly in depth look at what goes into each of the handles for the Culinary Series.

Anyway that’s where we are at for now. The count is now at 30/72 knives completed.

Oh and one final thing: some of you have noticed that the knives are now available to order on my website. Rest assured this is still only a pre-order and any knives purchase on our website will be shipped after the Kickstarter orders are fulfilled.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you for your patience and support!

All the best,

Marc

The First Batch is done :)
over 1 year ago – Thu, Oct 06, 2022 at 02:41:27 PM

Hi folks,

Quick update:

Things are proceeding nicely. I have officially completed 16 of the knives (8 Utility and 8 Santoku) and shipping began last week!

Obviously this is still only a small portion of the total knives that need making, but from here on out I’ll be continuing to make a batch of knives every month until completion. I anticipate being done with production and shipping by around February or March.

The total count right now is 16/72 knives. I’ll continue updating that number as we go along.

I have also submitted the order for the T-shirts, which I should have in the next couple weeks, and the magnetic racks will be made as needed each month.

So that’s about it for now. Everything is going as planned.

Thank you for your patience and support of this project of ours. Let me know if you have any questions.

All the best,

Marc