Beau Nidle
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- Joined
- Mar 14, 2011
- Messages
- 160
- Reaction score
- 238
A while back I picked up an offcut of damasteel (half price!) from my steel supplier with the intention of making a gyuto out of it. It wasn't ideal, being 4mm thick when usually I'd start with 3mm but I figured what the hell. Mistake number one.
I roughed out the profile, realising too late that the billet wasn't really big enough for a gyuto. Not to worry I thought, I'll just do a shortened tang on it and weld an offcut of my offcut to it later. Mistake number two. Mainly a mistake because my welder packed up and so I decided it would be fine to do the grinding on it as it was, and I'd get round to welding the tang together later. Well it was unsurprisingly really difficult to hold it to grind it with a short tang, but I managed it. Probably made doubly difficult by the fact that I HT kitchen knives before doing any grinding to them. Never mind.
I just discovered I have almost no pics of the process, so you'll have to imagine grinding hardened steel down from 4mm thick to about 2.5mm at the spine and trying to keep it even. Even with a good grinder and a 36 grit belt it was tough going.
Yesterday I did a quick test etch to it, which looked like this
A quick trip to a stone showed a couple of spots that needed some more work with a fine belt, so I did that today, and did a full etch on it before doing a final check of the edge. Next will be a weld of the tang at last and then handling.
I roughed out the profile, realising too late that the billet wasn't really big enough for a gyuto. Not to worry I thought, I'll just do a shortened tang on it and weld an offcut of my offcut to it later. Mistake number two. Mainly a mistake because my welder packed up and so I decided it would be fine to do the grinding on it as it was, and I'd get round to welding the tang together later. Well it was unsurprisingly really difficult to hold it to grind it with a short tang, but I managed it. Probably made doubly difficult by the fact that I HT kitchen knives before doing any grinding to them. Never mind.
I just discovered I have almost no pics of the process, so you'll have to imagine grinding hardened steel down from 4mm thick to about 2.5mm at the spine and trying to keep it even. Even with a good grinder and a 36 grit belt it was tough going.
Yesterday I did a quick test etch to it, which looked like this
A quick trip to a stone showed a couple of spots that needed some more work with a fine belt, so I did that today, and did a full etch on it before doing a final check of the edge. Next will be a weld of the tang at last and then handling.
