Beau Nidle
KKF Sponsor
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2011
- Messages
- 160
- Reaction score
- 238
I got an anvil a while ago and while I mainly intended to use it for larger stuff, I also thought I'd give it a go for kitchen knives. If I'm quite honest I find forging more fun than useful most of the time, unless you're hugely bothered about cutting off a few edges of your billet to shape a knife, then stock removal is much faster and presents a much lower chance of ruining your steel. However sometimes it can be useful. I picked up a smallish billet of damascus on ebay that would have been fine for an outdoor knife, but was a bit small for a gyuto at 9" x 1.5". I was able to draw out a tang as well as form a point, extending the length by a useful amount. I then forged in some bevels that brought the width from 38mm to 45-46mm, or a reasonable heel height for a gyuto.
Here's the forged shape, still pretty rough:
Cleaned off the scale and put a profile on it, as well as roughing in the shape of the choi and the tang:
And finally gave it a quick test etch just to see how it was looking:
If anyone has feedback on the shape I'd like to hear it! My next step is to even out the thickness of the edge before I heat treat it as it varies from 1.9mm - 2.2mm right now in spots. I'll be going for an even 1.9 all along the edge, so it would be a good time to fine tune the shape too.
Here's the forged shape, still pretty rough:
Cleaned off the scale and put a profile on it, as well as roughing in the shape of the choi and the tang:
And finally gave it a quick test etch just to see how it was looking:
If anyone has feedback on the shape I'd like to hear it! My next step is to even out the thickness of the edge before I heat treat it as it varies from 1.9mm - 2.2mm right now in spots. I'll be going for an even 1.9 all along the edge, so it would be a good time to fine tune the shape too.