My visit on March 13th, 2026 was my third time creating a chef's knife, and it was as enjoyable and productive as my previous two!! Paulie; the class instructor; is very knowledgeable about metal working about eagerly shares his knowledge and experience. He is also quite fun and humrous. As to the actual workshop, the participant is provided with a bar of steel about 10 in x 2 in and later in the evening two wooden blocks about 3/8" x 1-1/2" x 5" for the knife handle. the steps in creating the particular chef knife that was decided upon from the templates, self designed or printed from someplace are relatively simple to perform, just somewhat labor intensive and also require; for some steps; caution as to not injure oneself or someone else. The most labor intensive portion was the filing of the steel to create the bevel for the cutting edge. Using the jig that was so graciously developed and supplied by the Craftsman Ave staff, makes getting the bevel to the correct angle. Just requires quite a lot of back and forth and left to right movement to get the bevel. The steel is then heat treated abd quenched then heat treated a second time to get the proper hardness. The remainder of the class is spent on fashioing the handle to the particular handle of the knife created. All in all, a very pleasurable and productive afternoon.
Thank you for such a thorough and generous review — and for coming back! Returning guests are the best endorsement we could ask for. Paulie is a fantastic instructor and we're so glad his expertise and personality continue to make the class such a great experience. It's wonderful that you took the time to describe the process in such detail — future guests reading this will really appreciate knowing what to expect. We look forward to welcoming you back to Craftsman Ave again soon!
