Dexter lists three Chinese chef’s knives at this size and annotates this one specifically as walnut, where its siblings are simply hardwood. Walnut is denser and darker than the usual handle stock, and it is the visible difference between this model and the 5178.
Everything forward of the handle behaves the same way: a thin, wide, high-carbon blade for slicing and scooping, not for going through bone. Used properly it is the fastest vegetable knife in the range, because the width lets you clear the board with the blade you just cut with.
Dexter-Russell has made cutlery in Southbridge, Massachusetts since 1818 and is the oldest cutlery manufacturer in the United States. Traditional is its original pattern book — high-carbon steel blades on hardwood handles, ground to shapes the company has been making for over a century.
