Our Story

Don is a retired machinist who’s trained hand and eye shows in the fit and finish in the knives they produce. When he’s not bestowing his lifetime of skills on Jordan, he enjoys doing honey doos for his wife, Lu, fly fishing on the nearby rivers and chasing the grand kids around the yard.

The Dream Team

Don lives on Jordan’s UPS route where they met in the Spring of 2019. Jordan began taking his lunch breaks at Don’s shop. A common topic of discussion was trying to figure out how to make their commercially bought kitchen knives perform better. Both started researching the topic and would compare notes when Jordan came by on his lunch break on a daily basis. It didn’t take long for them to discover Don Nguyen of Don Nguyen Knives. I specifically remember telling Don, “There is no way those are done entirely by hand” because they looked absolutely flawless. Since his knives were so expensive, in our minds at the time, we determined we would just make one for ourselves instead. I mean, how hard could it be?

Well, five years later, with thousands of combined hours in researching Japanese chef knife designs, building and buying all of the necessary equipment, and developing the needed skills to make those knives, we are ready to launch our own line of Japanese styled chef knives. We both agree there is a lot more involved in regards to blade geometry, handle design, fit and finish, and overall user comfort then we ever could have imagined goes into making a quality hand made chef knife.

Neither one of us regrets the decision to start this endeavor. If you are considering doing something similar we would say go for it…. as long as you don’t mind sleepless nights watching every knife making related video on youtube repeatedly, grinding on steel and wood just to throw it away and that’s only after investing enough money to buy a dozen custom knives from various makers in the first place.