225mm Aogami super Gyuto.

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J

John N

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Hello,

This is one I just finished up, the blade is AO super blue, carbon clad. The handle is bog oak with ebony and a stirling silver spacer.

I have been spending quite a bit of time working on grind geometry, and my knives are staring to cut ok now ! (even though the finish on this one is quite agricultural!)

All the best !

John

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not the best pic in the world, but this gives an idea of the grind. It not 'thin thin' this one, but does release quite well.

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Nice knife! I haven't seen many people able to source ao super in the states (can only think of MC) you must have some good comnections. Profile looks nice and my personal tastes fall in line with food release.
 
Thanks for the nice words ! I am in the UK, and the availability of good steel is improving, if you know where to look :)

Ive got a tasty looking bar of Blue2, some pure Ni sheet, and some of the mankest wrought iron ive ever seen, so back to forging soon (I kind of view the grinding and handle making as a necessary evil!).

I was happy with my forge finish a month ago, but now decided it needs improving, so I only have to grind the lower bevel, and there is a sharp transition from ground to forged. The one posted above was forged to finish, but I know I can do better with a bit of practice !

I am shooting for super minimalist at the moment, which seems harder to get right than you would think. The silver spacer on this one was an experiment to break up the bog oak and ebony, which do not look quite right together without a spacer. (my handle construction is 'blind dowel' so it needs to be made in 2 bits) - I am working on a couple which are just bog oak front and back. One with a copper spacer to see how that looks. So many things to try, so little time !!
 
The finish on that knife isn't that far off at all,
it has a kind of 'inustrial' look to it. ;)

I'd just be a bit concerned about wiping fully clean
(if its reactive).
 
Industrial is what I do (im a factory monkey by trade, building forging machines) - Im not to sure about the reactivity of the cladding on this one, as it is 'pre laminated', Its just described as carbon clad super. I have got some stainless clad super which is nice, but it takes a bit of finishing, and I don't like grinding stainless !

I will make my own san mai for the next few I do, and then probably use a bit more of the pre-lam (although it feels like cheating!) - I bought the pre-lam so I could practice forging fully to profile, without having to much time investment in the staring material.

The photo below is a stainless pre-lam 'super' It has a Ni barrier layer, but I think there is still some carbon diffusion from the core into the cladding, I showed this blade to some super knowledgeable bladesmiths, and the consensus was carbon diffusion.

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It's very beautiful, great job! I like the grind too, not every knife has to be crazy thin behind the edge in my opinion. There are some advantages to a thicker convex edge.
 
Im still playing around with grinds at the moment, ive built a decent sized horizontal wheel wet grinder which is making things a lot easier. I currently taking them to about .15 mm at the edge from the grind stone, before hand sanding and sharpening, I think this ones a bit too meaty behind the edge, but not by much. Im dialing it in :)

I took a few blades to a 'gathering' earlier this year to get some advice on grind geometry, including the stainless one pictured above. I sought opinion on the blade from a very experienced kitchen knife guy, and he bought it off me on the spot. Nearest Ive got to a win :D
 
Found another couple of blades I had forged and pretty well forgotten about so finished them up on sunday, tried a couple of variations on the dark : dark handles. The all bog oak handle has a copper spacer, and an ebony / bog oak spacerless.

The all bog oak handle blade is wrought / mild & 15n20 damascus cladding over HItachi Blue2.

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Eventually managed to get back to forging last weekend, made a monster billet of wrought iron with Takefu blue2 core, Ni barrier layer. The billet started at 2kgs !! :) welded cleanly and had the look of a slice of streaky bacon at test etch!

Middled the billet and drew half of it out to 'knife starting stock' , the second pic shows half the billet as was, and half drawn out.

I have forged a knife from a bit of this, and it looks promising, which is good as it was unknown wrought iron, and there is enough material here for about 8 decent sized knives ! just need to find a bit of time to get the first blade finished and tested, before I get giddy and forge loads from the rest of the stock. Will put up some pics of 'test blade' when its done. (did not want to clutter up the forum with a new thread for this, so tacking it onto the previous one!)

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this is the billet in 'kit form' The wrought iron was dug up on the industrial estate my factory is on, it was a structural beam, the building near the find spot is 1900'ish, the wrought could have pre-dated that building! Its really 'dirty' wrought, so should have some nice character when on the blade ! :D (but it makes it a real pig to work, very splitty)

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Very nice work as always! Making san mai with local wrought iron is cool, it's a good story (in my opinion) and looks fantastic.
 
Got an unexpected knifemaking pass this morning for 3 hours ! - I finish forged the small one, and got the first forge and anneal done on the other 2. The wrought is splitty to forge, so it was slow going, and I had to err on the side of caution with overworking it (hence the fat tangs)

These did not make the length I was hoping for (240) - one is a petty at 170, the others are 200 & 210. I am pretty sure if the billet was not so splitty these would have made to the desired length, but I was nervous about working down on the narrow edge of billet after a certain point, as it was folding over and splitting. There should be enough material in the other half of the billet to get 4 blades the desired length.

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milkbaby said:
Very nice work as always! Making san mai with local wrought iron is cool, it's a good story (in my opinion) and looks fantastic.
Click to expand...

thanks! I think dug up stuff is pretty cool :) - im getting my ass kicked a bit as the wrought is such crap quality. I should have refined it with a few weld and draw out passes to improve its final workability. But I want the character in it, and also could not be bothered, as its boring! - might change my tune if these all go blister pop split when I heat treat them. There is a reasonable chance, There were blisters in one of the blades, that were not 'my' weld seams !
 
I have some wrought with inclusions, have tried forgewelding them shut to find it borderline impossible, which makes me think these are slag inclusions rather than welds/seams. Just a thought
 
John N said:
Found another couple of blades I had forged and pretty well forgotten about so finished them up on sunday, tried a couple of variations on the dark : dark handles. The all bog oak handle has a copper spacer, and an ebony / bog oak spacerless.

The all bog oak handle blade is wrought / mild & 15n20 damascus cladding over HItachi Blue2.

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Click to expand...

Beautiful work!
 
I think some of the defects on the edges are my cack handed forging, but agree, there is some defects in the wrought that just dont want to weld up, and blister etc. (makes me feel better its not all my welding anyway :) ). Not a great deal of progress on the 3 above, but have got them to a state where all the metal looks clean, and they can be progressed to cold forging, normalising, logo stamping, and heat treating. They have got smaller in the process !

Took this quite nice photo, which shows the compression of the original billet, next to the spine of the blade rough forgings. They are forged to 1.5 mm at the edge.
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Quite pleased with the composition of this san mai cladding. Its 90 layers a side of wrought, mild, and a high chrome bandsaw blade backing steel. There is a pure Ni barrier layer and the core is Takefu blue2. The photos are after the first grind so the steel will pop a lot more when its finished properly.

The blades profile and distal taper is all forged, though not quite there, as the grind line is showing 'wobbly' a bit. Ill tidy up the forging on the next ones :)

Blade is approx 210 mm x 51mm at heel.

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(the 'splodges' at the edge on the photo are just light reflecting off the acid on the blade, the core is good, no Ni on the edge!)
 
The rough ground blade in the post above has come out quite nicely! got a lot more forged geometry into this one than my previous efforts. The handle is bog oak, and silver spacer. Blade is 205, by about (from memory) 52 at heel.

Got enough steel left from this billet for a couple of 240 plus gyutos, Ill take it steady on the forging so they are neater than this one!

The san mai would look great with a Kasumi finish, rather than the 'etch polish' I have put on this one. I have 'hazed' it a bit just behind the edge on the stones, it shows promise.

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Thanks Bill - When I get myself a bit more organised (I have a very demanding company as a day job, so knife making tends to take a back seat) I will pay my subs here, and try and get a knife on a pass around if there is enough interest!
 
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