Kiridashi

Quick practice piece, and a Christmas present for father. A Kiridashi, made quite traditionally, Japanese Vanadium steel edge welded to mild steel. The Hollow on the back was shaped initially on a wheel the brought into the edge by hand with a course Wa stone. Really pleased with the look of the Ura, and the bevel. If you look closely you will see it is a compound bevel as in single bevel knives.















Thanks to Maxim for the Wa stones and pointers on the hollow back.:thumbsup:

:doublethumbsup:

That looks really nice.

Very, very nice work :doublethumbsup:

Is that a Takashima finishing stone?

Thanks all yes it is, from Maxim, been very useful to have around.

Here are a few more in progress for my shop. Laura is making these cute sheaths for them.



Here is a special one, with a piece of weapons grade iron found by my friend on the isle of Jersey. I was a little confused as it is from the german occupancy in the 2nd world war. I was confused as to why wrought iron was used on 2nd world war guns, but it turns out it is a piece of a french 155mm cannon from the 1st world war, pinched by the germans in the second world war and used as coastal defences. Either way its the cleanest iron I have ever worked, wish I had more to play with.













Will have some wonderful grain in it, a pleasure to work, not ground the piece yet, it will be for a neck carry, the edge is high tungsten/carbon, similar to blue 1.

I would be all over this if the blade was 40-50mm and had slightly more of an angle. Still tempting at £120.
Please tell me you have a larger one in the works....

Thanks! Have a few chunkier ones coming, This one is a reduced price though. Chunkier handles for wood work, edge length probably more like 3cm, 4-5 cm seems excessive for this type of tool? Do you see Japanese examples at this much angle/edge length? What would be you use, purpose, more utility knife type use than wood working, general cutting out?

Any idea about the price range some of these chunkier ones with be in?

Maksim had some in stock a while ago, including one from Okazaki Takeshi which he was extremely impressed by. I borrowed some pics from his site for reference.

Okazaki Takeshi:


Shigefusa:


The Takeshi measures 220mm in length, 22mm width, with 50mm in blade length. The Shigefusa is 230mm in length with a blade length of 55mm.

I've been looking for something similar within the EU ever since I saw those on his site. I'd be using it for woodworking but also as a utility knife for general use. That's where the longer and more angles bade comes into use.


Oh, and if I am breaking any rules or stepping on toes by sharing these images or mentioning a different store, please do let me know.

Thanks very much for the valuable feedback and clarification.
I don't think Maxim will mind as naturally the Shigs will sell when ever they become available

Some things I do to promote and create regular lines of work, Others I just do for fun and to get a good look at certain materials and heat treatments.

These fit into the latter category.
The reason I started to doing these was as an exercise in single bevel really and use of stones both in polishing the bevels and making the hollow and Ura correct, (or at least neat) Many western makers seem to churn these out straight off the grinder without any regard to the proper geometry and doing this with excessive attention to detail and a hand finished hollow back was part of the exercise as well as further exploring materials I'm using.

So these are part of a learning cycle for me and I will make and put for sale the odd one.
The Shig one looks very comfortable, I have handled them at Maxims, fantastic.

When I next experiment in this area they will be more fully proportioned, price dependant on materials, but you take the £200 mark as a base for mild steel/1.2442.

Cant take any commitments at this point as I'm fully booked. But I will do the odd piece, my mailing list on my website is where to be to find out when new things become available.

Thanks

Will