Catcheside Cutlery - Works in progress.

[WillC]

Thank you Sir, well there is probably a saying about pushing the boundaries making mistakes and learning to get closer to perfection.
Ed's Suji from the accidental billet.

I heat treated it, cryo to max hardness. There are large differences in hardness between my uber carbon mix and the mix with veins of pure nickel, (Which should be on the spine half only) The super damascus is 66hrc everywhere, the nickel veined parts test uniformly at 56 hrc. I'm surprised tiny veins of pure nickel make that much difference but it does as tested. I will finish this blade to keep with me as an example.
So I have enough of the stuff that works for 3 of 6 orders. it looks great on the blade too but i'll keep you in suspense about that. This stuff will not be wasted, I will mke a composite of it with and edge steel to use for wide blades like special grind nakiri, will look stunning in that format. I will make some more of the feather damascus as planned next week for the other orders. So bit of a set back, but it does all translate to more material and more great knives ultimately.
I got a couple of stainless damascus clad pieces welded up at the end of today also, and a proper test of my new burner. Its the beans
Held upper stainless welding temps to within a few degrees with much less fettling than my previous set up.

Equally accurate control at 800 degrees or so for heat cycling, turned down so much here its just pushing out a visibly slow rolling curtain of flame, bearly running and holding 800 degrees to within 10 degrees or so.

Someone clever worked this one out a long time ago and its put together with off the shelf parts, I'm sure you can get something similar out there, here tis

[WillC]

Here we have a 240mm Gyuto from the feather billet which was all the correct orientation. Ed's suji is a write off due to the soft Nickel parts near the edge. Gutting, but thats the way things play sometimes, I not be having any days off for sometime pushing through. But at least when I have finished there will be more damascus than planned.
Anyway this is a 240mm from the good billet. The bolder parts a little distortion but it should look fab all finished and polished.
Profile, this could be Chucks...



After cryo, 66 hrc everywhere on the edge half of the blade, 55 hrc spine half. Success.


Plenty of length for profile tweaks....


Out of interest this is the mongrel pattern. Looks ok in places, I have welded an 01 edge on the rest of the billet, will forge it out into a few Nakiri, hopefully will get something decent out of it, or hours and hours of work down the toilet, c'est la vit.


Im going to coventry to pick up a new grinder for the Apprentice to learn on tomorrow, Something like a Raduis master, complete with guards and meets health and safety guidelines....So will be quite lonely in my shop
Anyway the lad starts wednesday, I say lad, he is 40 And quite a skilled man. It will be handy to get some help prepping all these billets at the moment and getting the shop in order. So thats all good.

[Mrmnms]

that blank is insane Will! Good luck with the new guy. Looks like we'll be seeing some new Catchsides more often. 2 thumbs up

[WillC]

Thanks Mike, we shall get there, would be nice to actually finish a knife of some sort this week. Damascus making is going on a bit longer than planned.

[WillC]

Sneaky peak of some just finished handles are now gluing up will sharpen get some photos and specs for each and add to my site over the weekend.
All in stainless/stainless dammy clad carbon.

[sachem allison]

Big Sigh!

[ejd53]

Boy Will, those are gorgeous. It was exciting to see my "almost suji", but that's the way things go. Only makes it that much better when it finally arrives. The feather Damascus is fantastic.

[Twistington]

One day... one day you will make a knife for me you talented SOB. :P

[WillC]

Thanks Guys, yep bit gutted about that billet of feather, The plan is to remake the whole batch as I have a better idea for the the construction with the nickel stuff and the edge material. Then I can use the pick of the lot for the commission pieces.

[Mrmnms]

Boy Will, those are gorgeous. It was exciting to see my "almost suji", but that's the way things go. Only makes it that much better when it finally arrives. The feather Damascus is fantastic.

The almost suji is something else. Love the parers. They won't last a day.