Catcheside Cutlery - Works in progress.

[WillC]

My updates thread is getting a bit much to put all in one place. So I have decided to have a general works in progress thread for WIP pictures and leave the updates thread to keep customers informed as to order progress etc.
Here are some progress pics to kick the thread off.
Leading on from here. latest feather billet. This got welded up and drawn out somewhat, into a loaf, which I got 2 big slices and a medium/small slice.

The soap bar sized chunk of feather dammy is forged out to shape.



The taper is also mostly forged. I stopped forging at about 3.6mm at the back 2mm at the front.
If I am clever and avoid to much scale on the last forging stages its only a few passes on a narrow 36 grit belt and i'm down to clean metal.

I then give it a run over with a 50 grit belt and make sure the taper is nice and even.
After that I gave the blade a quick test etch to see how it came out. Forging a blade to size and taper is I find a more pleasant process and has structural advantages in a pattern like this with the grain flowing with the knife. Of course more forging means more distortion of the pattern, but this is something I accept and feel its part of my style of working.
Anyway, this is what I had after an etch. The blade is a 300mm Suji Carving knife for my latest carving set commission.



Here is what the taper looks like at this stage, pre HT.

In feather damascus all the welds cross the edge. Makes for a toothy edge. Great for slicers.

Have a lovely weekend all.

[mhenry]

That's going to be a stunner, you do beautiful work man!

[Eamon Burke]

Whoa, you don't do any bevel grinding pre-HT?

[WillC]

Cheers Mike
Eamon, nope, these big thin beasts are hard enough to keep straight during Ht as it is. So I leave a bit of taper to go and the bevels to grind. The HT generally consists of 3 normalizing cycles, checking for straightness after each, followed by an oil quench, I'll probably give this one a dunk in LN as well as its there, hardness checking. 3 x temper cycles, hardness checking. I normally clamp the knife in between 2 plates in the press after this with part of the spine and tang exposed and torch temper this part back to just over 50hrc. I'll then check the profile again, making sure I take a bit more off where the edge will be, then grind the rest of the taper and bevels.
There are so many advantages to not grinding the bevels before HT, no worries about de-carb, easy to check for straightness, and for hardness near the edge, the ability to plate clamp it during HT or after for a differential temper. If it does move very slightly during HT you can straighten the spine and the edge will come right when grinding.
You would be surprised how much you can hog off an edge with a 25mm wide 36 grit ceramic belt without getting anywhere near overheating it. It gets easy to overheat the tip when its very thin, but you would have that problem still if you had partially ground it prior to HT.

[pitonboy]

Hi Will: Beautiful work as always. Is this one spoken for already?

[WillC]

This one is a commission and the Gyuto is as well, but I got an extra lump. Enough for a 180mm fairly deep Petty at least. This Mix of steel is 1080/15n20. If no-one claims it it will be turned into a Hunting style knife which I've been putting off. Now there's a threat
The Next commissions in feather dammy will be in 15n20/01 as requested. I've been playing with this mix and it gives crisper contrast. I believe edge holding will be improved in a very close high layer pattern with a higher percentage of 01, in a bold pattern I have not noticed much difference, but it does take a wicked edge possibly less of a toothy edge than 1080/15n20 but the pattern will have to be more subtle and fine to get the most of the mix . I'll see what LN does for it also. So far the 01/15n20 mix also is slower to take a patina, more things seem to turn it blue rather than dark.

[TB_London]

That's some badass forging,loads of distal taper in the third pic I thought you might have been doing a western handle for this one.

Any reason for the narrower belt on the grinder?

[WillC]

Yep 2hp over 1inch hogs much faster than over 2. I've been using the narrow belt to get the bevels set too.

[WillC]

Well not much WIP it was a bit hectic getting these done in time. But they are done. Some dark phone pics, but my desire to share is strong. I'll get some proper pics in the morning for the Gallery.

[WildBoar]

Very, very nice. Great-looking stuff!