225mm Aogami super Gyuto.

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Got some better pics of it in daylight, the steel has started to take a nice blue patina from dicing a couple of kilos of chicken ! The blade is pretty smooth, although the pics make the topography of the blade look like the alps !

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Cool stuff you are making! I like the wrought iron angle. Haven't seen one up close yet unfortunately.

Could you explain what constitutes 'forged geometry' in your view?
 
The blade is forged quite thick at the neck, then almost steps down before the makers mark, to the forged distal taper. The bevels are also forged in, so only the lower portion of the blade is ground. I need to get a bit neater at this, as the grind line is showing a bit wobbly in places.
 
Pinched a couple of hours this afternoon, and got these 2 forged out, a 210, and a 250 is SC125 that was gifted to me by another maker. Nice to be working something that did not want to fall apart at the first missed hammer blow! - will try and wave a hamon down these next week.

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Man don't post pictures like that! Makes me get the forging itch big time!!!
 
Dont get into it ! this is the first time ive forged for a couple or 3 weeks, and Ive been like a junkie thinking about it! - very addictive hobby. I do manage to forget the world when im forging for a couple of hours though.

Got the two above annealed, cold forged and lashed a rough profile onto them. Really on the fence about the profile of the larger one. It might throw a bit of Sori when its quenched, which would improve it.... its just not there at the moment.

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How comes I have missed this thread for so long? You are doing some great work. The choil shot you posted earlier reminds me of some asymmetrically ground Japanese gyutos. Very nice. I went to check whether you are on IG just to find out, that I have commented on your last post today (the photo above actually) :)

The blade above look great. Do you have a power hammer of some kind or do you do this all by hand? EDIT: nope, you do not, I just checked your IG :)

And not to forget - the handles you are making are really nice. The way you taper the ferrules reminds me a bit the way how Will Catchside does it.

Please keep posting your WIP and finished blades :)
 
Thanks Matus ! I am having to do quite a bit of hand hammering on kitchen knives, which is pretty alien to me, but im starting to get into it, and enjoy it. I'm still very power hammer dependent, but I am 'time poor' so need the power whackers to get anything completed.

Edit, Ive known Will for about 15 years, I have not deliberately 'copied' the handle shape, but I think its just in my head that's how you do them !
 
Had to re-quench this 240 gyuto as I put the hamon too high, and think I over refined the grain, reducing the hardenability so the hamon is not quite where I intended to put it, now a bit too low, but im pretty pleased for my first try at honyaki blade in 8 years ! - this is SC125, which is a steel ive not learnt properly yet. I think I can do good things with it in the future.

This would probably survived a water quench, with the excessive normalisation's, and put the wiggle where I intended, but its all good learning :)

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edit, this blade is the one shown as forged, as a 250 above. it lost a bit doing the heel / handle transition !
 
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Got a forging day today! some interesting metal in this batch. two of them are AO super, carbon clad, two are the wrought iron damascus mix san mai, same as earlier in this thread, and a 260 in SC125. Also did 4 little ones in wrought iron over blue2.

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These are 100% as forged, hence the slightly wonky profiles! - the profiles will mellow after 30 seconds on a belt grinder, they look 'honest' as forged I think.
 
Quick tidy up on the profiles, and successfully heat treated (except the sc125, Ill do that one next week - it needs a dose of thinking about !)

Ive had some good feedback on a blade profile I made a couple or 3 months ago, so have loosely based a couple of these on that one (low ish tip, long flat portion).

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These all look nice. The bottom one with the clipped heel looks like it has less belly going to the tip? Or is that an optical illusion due to the vantage point?
 
@milkbaby - I really only gave the profiles on these 2 or 3 mins 'lash' on the grinder with a 36g ceramic from the 'as forged' profiles, without too much thought. I like them to be within a few mm of profile when I start the heat treatment. There has been next to no work on the heel / handle transitions.

The one you point out does look a bit awkward as it sits in the photo, it looks like it needs a couple of mm shaving off the edge profile, where the parer blade is pointing to.

I have got to the point in making, where I try not to get too OCD about the subtle bits until the blade is through heat treat, straight, and 'finishable' into a knife. These all came out as finishable :) - strangely the more I practice the luckier I get with forging and heat treating :D

Of the 4 wrought iron parer blades I forged though, only one has made it through to grinding. 1 blistered, 2 split the spines on quench. There was a big thickness transition on the blades, from the tang to the spine (5mm, to 2 mm) - I think the cooling differential was too much for them. Ill post a pic of the lonely survivor if I finish it!
 
Sorry if i'm late and uninvolved but where i can i purchase a knife from you!?
 
@Flipnfry I sell a few mostly through word of mouth, and instagram. Ive not paid my subs here yet, so don't promote. just post any interesting work in progress stuff im up to.
 
John, where in the galaxy far far away did you find Aogomi Super? Are you a Murray Carter student? That's the only way I know of to obtain the stuff. The New Jersey Steel Baron had Aogomi 2, of which I bought a sheet. I've also made a few knives out of the SS clad V-Toku 2 (Takefu) steel from Bill Burke. Then there is Workshop Heaven and Dictum who have clad (and mono) White and Blue (but not Aogomi Super). Just curious as to where you sourced it. The 125SC is one I hope to try soon...and the only place I know to get that stuff from is Achim Wirtz in Germany. I've used a bit of his 1.2442/115W8 custom smelt.....awesome steel. I just wish the industry here in the USA would provide the knife maker community with more carbon steels to work with, preferably high tungsten steels like F2/1.2562/etc. But I realize we are a super small niche, the modern PM steels they make have many uses in many industries, and they don't care to cater to us.

Nice work, BTW!!!
 
@samuraistuart - I am in the UK, we have a distributor of the full range of Takefu blade steels. They offer pre-laminated AO super, clad in stainless or plain carbon (along with the full range of 'standard' 'non super' blue cored steel)

I used to buy standard hitachi blue from workshop heaven, but the price was quite frightening. I now buy the Takefu blue, which is available in 6mm x 50mm (1/4 x 2") sheared plate strips. Which could not be more perfect for san-main billets.

The SC125 was gifted to me by another maker in the UK, who got it directly from Achim in Germany. I did email Achim to buy some more, but did not get a reply - which is probably a blessing, as cloud chasing is very addictive to me, and the finishing work on a honyaki blade is about 5x a normal san mai blade (for me) - My old RSI started to twinge after doing the one posted above.
 
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Im pretty happy with the composition of the metal on this one! shown in the 'as forged' pics above.
 
oh, and some exciting news! my metal dealer is getting me some Super Blue 1/4" thick x 2" wide x bar length :) so I can put the super into my own san mai mix :)
 
Got the one above finished, quite pleased with how it came out - this one is going into an auction held by the local Church for the 'new roof' fund. Hopefully it will pay for a tile or two :)

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This pic gives an idea of the grind. Im basically taking them to 'zero' now on the wet grinder before sharpening.

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