REVIEW: Zen-Wu Palm Blade

Review: Raf Nathan

Knives have always held a special place in human history and are often considered great works of art. With the advent of CNC becoming common-place, the engineering capacity for making woodwork tools has increased exponentially. Witness this neat palm knife with its obviously high degree of engineering, all used to create the designer’s dream. You could say this particular piece of art also doubles as a workshop marking knife.

The blade is a white steel milled to slide onto the brass body via a dovetailed way. The brass then tapers out and up with multiple sweeping cuts as decoration with the brass given some sort of colour treatment. A nice rosewood handle is fixed to the brass making the tool 140mm long overall.

The base of the 20mm wide blade is perfectly flat and lets the tool work as a chisel plane. As the blade is short you can’t bear down too much however I trialled it and it was pretty good for this sort of work.

As a marking knife of course it is excellent, as are all my marking knives. This one though has a good sized comfortable handle and looks better than all the other knives combined.

The build quality is pretty well perfect with the laminated blade tip nicely ground to the centre as the highlight. The knife comes in a substantial fitted leather holder that can be belt worn to keep it handy. The price reflects the fact that it is a very special tool of heirloom quality.

First published in Australian Wood Review, issue 131, June 2026

Review tool from zenwutoolworks.com