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Elias Sideris

@litvvs

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Tools, knives and hardware,
handmade in Oakland, CA

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Lots of videos because it’s a dynamic knife and there weren’t any cloudy days for photos. A client in England asked me for a “Nogent style” chefs knife. Most knife people would think of a drop forged and hand ground knife made by one of the Sabatier companies operating out of Thiers, France.

I reproduced this style from the in-between handmade and industrially produced era maybe in the 1920s, with good quality carbon steel and still a soldered nickel silver bolster (which I soldered and made a tapered mandrel to form around) and handle made of African Blackwood instead of the cheaper domestic iron-gall dyed beechwood of later years.

Mine follows the grind geometry of the drop forged era though more convex than flat. The handmade predecessors on which the Nogent style knives were based were actually produced in Paris in the late 1700s-early 1800s and feature much more complex hand forging and grind geometries—the legendary Tichet knives—arguably the origin of both the western chefs knife and its Japanese descendants, maybe more in a later post by @litvvs

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4 months ago

New batch of 8.25” chefs available! (the two on the right are sold) All 52100, one in Indian rosewood and two in black and white ebony all with western handles, one in cocobolo with octagonal handle (this one is the thicker than the rest). Shoot me a dm if you’re interested! by @litvvs

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4 months ago

During December I made this pepper mill with a solid burr mechanism I found on the internet. All the parts I made are machined out of brass. It was a labor of love. 🌬️🤍 by @litvvs

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8 months ago

A while ago @rolin_knives bought this E. A. Grabo grinder base and a new old stock Norton wheel (30”x4”x12” arbor) and asked me to make it all work. I’d have preferred to cast iron wheels but I don’t have the knowledge or means, so got some waterjet cut from 3/4” plate and welded plugs in for the hubs. I turned the rims and bored the hubs in the same setup for concentricity, working from what I learned building a kaiten toishi for @bernalcutlery.

The most novel part of the project was melting out and repouring the babbitt bearings, thanks to the youtube tutelage of @vintagemachinery.

Thanks to @rolin_knives, @jeffreypringle, @imperfectform, @mkmachine and @mkenneymusic for their various advice and assistance throughout ☸️🪐 by @litvvs

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a year ago

Last summer my dear friend and shop neighbor @leaharipotch helped me come up with a project for her kitchen: a fabricated brass dishtowel holder for her butcher block.

I’d been playing with the idea of milling a vee into brass square bar and silver soldering it on the bias. I turned internally threaded round tenons on the main bar and tapped the back of the standoffs, so it’s all held together with four countersunk screws.

It turned into one of my favorite pieces ever; machining brass is always a pleasure as is contributing a functional and elegant object to a beautiful kitchen in which I’ve been cooked some of the best meals of my life 🌞 by @litvvs

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a year ago

Back in the fall, a local woodshop called saying their 36” Tannewitz resaw machine had a wobble in the drive wheel. It came down to slop in the bore, and the company rep said a boring and sleeving job had “never successfully been done” which was obviously bs and a challenge. It’s a strange construction of a cast iron hub welded to a spun sheet steel wheel and rim.

The diameter was so big it just fit on the mill, and I had to get creative with extending the arbor press to broach the keyway—not to mention all sorts of other clearance issues that necessitated making extra tools: sleeves, plugs, extensions, washers, and drill guides.

I only had a few days to do it and like to mark the year on machine replacement parts because if they get treated right, there’s still always a “next time”—and a vain hope a future machinist will appreciate my work (though instead they’ll probably wonder why the hell I did it that way, like with most machine repairs). by @litvvs

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a year ago

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a year ago

Continuing my last post from May, a collection of some of the industrial buildings of Sheffield, England. Cutlery works, tool works, and steel manufactories, these buildings are stout, flooded with natural light, and optimized for hand and machine work, loading in materials, and loading out product. They generally feature an inner courtyard and are decked with windows inside and out, with arched entryways for freight carriages and integral chain hoists. Many stories have overbuilt brick vaulted ceilings for supporting heavy equipment on upper floors such as large stone wheeled grinders and even trip hammers. It was a true pleasure being among these cathedrals of early industry. by @litvvs

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3 years ago

I recently had the opportunity to visit a number of cutlery manufacturers in England! Here is the first of a few posts.
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This is A. Wright & Son, primarily makers of pocket knives and some moldmaking/clay tools, who operate out of this 1750s tavern building in downtown Sheffield.

Stamping, forging, heat treating, grinding, and assembly are all done in-house by the skilled hands of Michael, his son Ashley (@a.harrison.knives), and Beth, who gave a gracious tour of the place and every little tool and setup I wanted to ask about. taken in Sheffield, UK by @litvvs

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3 years ago

Very proud to have designed, built, delivered, and installed this “kaiten toishi” (rotating whetstone) for @bernalcutlery in San Francisco. It was a huge learning curve from boring and sleeving the mounting wheels to designing the sheet metal parts in @adskfusion360 for cutting and forming. Thanks to Josh and the whole Bernal team for this awesome opportunity, and can’t wait to see them grinding knives and growing with this machine!

#kaitentoishi #knifemaking #carbonsteel #manualmachining #manualmachine #kitchenknives #handforgedknives taken in Oakland, California by @litvvs

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4 years ago

Lots of very green powder coated parts coming together for this 36”x6” grinder I’m building for @bernalcutlery ! by @litvvs

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4 years ago

Those cast iron wheels i machined a while ago were for this massive knife grinder I’m building for @bernalcutlery

After machining and powder coating the wheels, here’s some process of me using the bridge crane to assemble the iron wheels to the shaft and the abrasive wheel before installing it in the machine. by @litvvs

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4 years ago