205 & 240 San Mai Gyutos

[John N]

Hello,

These are the latest couple ive made, been a bit of a learning curve on the forging and heat treatment, but its starting to come more naturally. The blades are a mix of wrought iron, mild and 15n20 damascus cheeks over a blue#2 core.

Ive been winging it a bit on the profiles (just forge and grind until it looks something like), hopefully they are starting to look a bit more balanced blade shapes now.

Handles are cherry & rosewood with ebony. All feedback appreciated.

The marks on the blades are pitting, as they were pretty well forged to thickness. Got a blade stamp made, though I have still never sold a knife ! , they were looking a bit naked unmarked so I thought it was time !

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[Timthebeaver]

Beautiful knives. How is your wrought iron in terms of reactivity?

 

[Bill13]

I like the lower right profile, the blade stamp is nice too.

 

[John N]

The cladding does not seem to do much, this a quick pic ive just taken of one I made a few months ago and is in regular use, its gone a bit blue in places (not pictured)! - My knife maintenance is shocking (bordering on negect) - hence the odd patches of, errrm, stable rust in places!

The one pictured has a barrier layer of pure Ni, more recently ive been putting a layer of 15n20 either side of the blue steel core. It wont stop the carbon diffusion like the pure Ni, but it gives a bit of insurance against a mis-centered core, and its carbon suck should be a lot less than the wrought and mild steels.

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[milkbaby]

Those are beautiful, great looking work! Really nice profiles and handle shapes in addition to the cool cladding.

What etchant are you using? Have you seen the guy who's been using a layer of I think copper between the core and cladding? He calls it Oh-Mai IIRC... Edited to add, it may just be nickel layer then etched with copper containing etchant, I've never looked at his process.

 

[Keith Sinclair]

Nice is that a honey bee in the logo? The rustic look, Damascus looks great. Like tip profile of lower right blade. Good work.

 

[John N]

Thanks guys, The logo is a bee, its the symbol of Manchester UK which is my home down, dating back to the industrial revolution (working together and hard work I think!)

I've not tried forge welding with copper in it, though I'm also sure I saw a reference to it somewhere. Ill put it on the list of things to try.

I'm enjoying working with the wrought iron cladding mix at the moment, Its a bit more interesting than just sticking mild steel either side of the core. TBH, it does not take very long to forge weld a big bar of cladding material with the right tools !

The soft cladding on the san-mai construction is also a lot easier to get an acceptable finish on vs using a mono steel (or all hardenable damascus) , whilst i'm experimenting with different profiles and grinds I don't want to spend hours hand finishing a piece that I might decide I don't like 1/2 way through !

 

[John N]

Got a bit of play time today, so I finished the 3rd of 3 that I forged at the same time (from the same bar as the 2 posted above) Its come out at 215 along the edge. It still needs thinning a bit on the stones before sharpening, its about 0.25mm thick, a couple of mm behind the edge at the moment. I spent quite a bit of time trying to introduce a bit more convexity, seems I have just managed to make it a bit asymmetrical :scratchhead:

Its forged to thickness from about 20mm up from the edge towards the heel, which is the uneveness in the 'choil' shot.

Handle is bog oak & thya. After a couple of messages with a member here where we discussed weight of knives I am sure my handles are on the small side (the 240 is 160 grams, but I don't think the blade is that 'laser') - I bulked the handle up on this one a couple of mm each way, and the finished knife is 165 grams. balance point is right on the heel.

Again, all comments appreciated (other than about the massive ding on a virtually new worktop :eyebrow

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[merlijny2k]

That is one cool looking blade. That wrought Iron cladding definitely has the 'homemade cookie' smell to an otherwise slick blade and handle. I like. Wasn't it on the old stock Keijiro Doi yanagiba's one could find a copper layer between cutting side and topside? What are your 'right tools' for forging the sanmai stock?

 

[John N]

Thanks for the nice words ! I have worked on forging equipment sales / spares / maintenance / installation etc for the last 25 years, so have pretty well got a handle on forging, and managed to put a couple of nice hammers 'in the stable' over the years

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