Here's a little story and a summary of the last week.
I'm lucky to have a friend/collaborator who likes challenges and trying new things.
@MSicardCutlery had the idea of wanting to manipulate the alloy banding in the steel in order to obtain something a little more organic with a pattern that is close to what we can see in wootz. I say close, because wootz is so magical and unique and can't be replicate. But you got the idea!
52100 steel is the one that could be ideal for this and that's exactly what Matt chose. Matt produced two 220mm x 54mm gyuto and then sent me the blades. I had already accentuated the banding in other knives before but it's a gap that I have in my polishing and I could finally have fun working on this aspect. But I didn't know I was going to have so much difficulty with this project...
To make a long story short, I spent more than 30 hours doing different tests to highlight the banding. Nothing worked the way I wanted it to and the more tests I did, the more painful it became. I did 12 resets, which involved going back to 1k sandpaper and redoing the mirror finish before continuing with my etch again. It was brutal!
Oxalic, FeCl3, citric, ascorbic, coffee etch. With a cotton pad, submerging the blade, heating the blade before etching or treat the blade in a water bath at 100°C to set the etch. I did everything possible and experiment a lot. And I failed a lot too. It's so painful to see that the project is going in the right direction and then suddenly I had to start over again.
BUT! I finally arrived at a result that I'm starting to like. The banding is uniform and distributed entirely over the entire blade. This was, among other things, one of the biggest challenges. The blade still retains a nice reflection and that is something I definitely wanted to keep. This project is not finished at all. In fact, I have to do one last reset before doing the final polishing again. But at least this time I know how to do it and I can finally stop the research and development
A
huge thank you to everyone I bothered in a mad rush for advice. It feels good to feel supported by colleagues! Thanks to
@Blank Blades.,
@brooksie967,
@ethompson,
@DanielC and Joel Black for your precious advice and moral support. Love you guys!
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