Hello all,
Here's an interesting one. This blade was destined to be a custom honyaki, but the first quench produced a hamon too close to the edge, and a second created none at all, with the exception of a couple patches up by the neck...but something else was left behind without my knowing it at first. Initially, I thought the blade was devoid of any interesting patterning and that the clay had simply been jettisoned immediately in the quench, as there was none left when I pulled the blade out of the tank and no pattern was evident from a dip in ferric chloride after a quick clean up on the grinder. I elected not to try a third quench and continue the project with another piece of steel, as requenching very high carbon steels like this tends not to be healthy for them. When I finally got around to doing the finish grinding over a week later I noticed some subtle intimations of ashi poking out from the 120 grit belt finish. So I decided to finish the blade as if it were a proper honyaki, and the result was this dazzling display of ashi that just seems to precipitate down the blade. Needless to say, I'm going to try repeating this in the future if I can figure out how to.
The blade itself is a heavier grind, more like that of a light workhorse, but the edge I took down very thin, but still imparted to it a subtle convexity. The blade was designed as a sort of Sabatier style chef knife, but made much flatter, as requested, being nearly dead flat for 14cm of its edge length. I's fairly light, owing to the geometry, at only 177g with the ash handle. I haven't used ash up until now for wa handles. I intend to use it more in the future, it has very nice texture in-hand, unhindered by the oil finish.
A video of the ashi "in action"
Have a good one everyone, thanks for taking a look!
Here's an interesting one. This blade was destined to be a custom honyaki, but the first quench produced a hamon too close to the edge, and a second created none at all, with the exception of a couple patches up by the neck...but something else was left behind without my knowing it at first. Initially, I thought the blade was devoid of any interesting patterning and that the clay had simply been jettisoned immediately in the quench, as there was none left when I pulled the blade out of the tank and no pattern was evident from a dip in ferric chloride after a quick clean up on the grinder. I elected not to try a third quench and continue the project with another piece of steel, as requenching very high carbon steels like this tends not to be healthy for them. When I finally got around to doing the finish grinding over a week later I noticed some subtle intimations of ashi poking out from the 120 grit belt finish. So I decided to finish the blade as if it were a proper honyaki, and the result was this dazzling display of ashi that just seems to precipitate down the blade. Needless to say, I'm going to try repeating this in the future if I can figure out how to.
The blade itself is a heavier grind, more like that of a light workhorse, but the edge I took down very thin, but still imparted to it a subtle convexity. The blade was designed as a sort of Sabatier style chef knife, but made much flatter, as requested, being nearly dead flat for 14cm of its edge length. I's fairly light, owing to the geometry, at only 177g with the ash handle. I haven't used ash up until now for wa handles. I intend to use it more in the future, it has very nice texture in-hand, unhindered by the oil finish.
- Blade: 245mmx50mm 26c3 64-65 hrc. 2000 grit finish, etched and polished to reveal the ashi
- Neck: 20mm x 19mm
- Handle: 25mmx21mm tapering to 21.5mmx18mm, 145mm long, lightly burned ash, oil finished
- POB: 53mm from the handle, or about 4mm past the "C" in the MM
- Spine: 3.76mm 20mm back from the choil, 2.81mm at halfway, .61mm 1cm from the tip
- Grind: flat to convex RH bias
- Weight: 177g
- Relieved choil and spine
- Edge: .15mm @2mm, .34mm@5mm, .66mm@10mm from the edge, measured at the midpoint,
A video of the ashi "in action"
Have a good one everyone, thanks for taking a look!
