Blank blades WIP Thread.

[Blank Blades.]

I want to just have one thread i can use for wip stuff. So I won't need to make a new one for each project. (provided they are spaced 90 days apart).

Anyway i have a few right now. Probably a few too many lol. Ill share a couple right now though.

So this first one is my top priority right now.

Still polishing it but its a 180mm c grind cpm 10v nakiri, thats a laser. Like when i say a laser. Its just extremely thin.

But the problem with that, is the c grind, plus the thinness, means doing grinding and polishing warping becomes an issue. Which is making my work on it much slower than i would like.

I definitely plan to do more laser type grinds in the future. But this is going to be the first, and last laser, s or c grind.

Next one. Is a wrought iron clad w2 bunka. Its going to someone here. Really more than anything just waiting for them to be ready to pick it up. (which is no rush at all). I need finish it on the naturals still. But that should be a huge deal. The one good thing about w2 is it polishes a lot easier than what I'm used to. So thats good at least. Not good enough to make up for the complications that come with the super low hardenability to me though.

Final one I'll post is something i just started on a couple days ago. And still needs a lot of work.

I'm going to be making some low layer wrought iron, nickel damascus. I have the initial forge weld done. Need to draw it out and fold it a couple times, but im excited to see how it goes.

 

[Blank Blades.]

Got this long boi of some 52100. Started a monosteel in it today, still has more forging to go on that. Will certainly do some san mai with it.

Got this spensive stuff. Gonna be a gyuto for sure. Definitely going for a laser geometry on this one.

Had time to draw out and fold this thing today. Probably only have enough to clad a smaller kind of knife but we shall see.

 

[Blank Blades.]

An update on this knife makers nightmare knife lol. Laser thin c grind nakiri in 10v. I say nightmare because the asymmetrical grind, and the thinness lead to warping issues that have to be delt with, and also, 10v polishing is tough.

Anyway choil.

And the other end. Where you can see its so thin its like an optical illusion when looking at it.

Edit: the person who is getting it is left handed. Just fyi on it.

 

[Barmoley]

Why laser for k390?

 

[blokey]

An update on this knife makers nightmare knife lol. Laser thin c grind nakiri in 10v. I say nightmare because the asymmetrical grind, and the thinness lead to warping issues that have to be delt with, and also, 10v polishing is tough.

Anyway choil. View attachment 250275

And the other end. Where you can see its so thin its like an optical illusion when looking at it.

View attachment 250276


Edit: the person who is getting it is left handed. Just fyi on it.

Thank grind looks on point! Really nice work.

 

[Blank Blades.]

Why laser for k390?

Because the stock thickness isnt thick enough to try to go for a workhorse kind of grind. And I feel like i might as well just go for the best slicing performance.

It will be convex of coarse. I think i will go for the style i have started doing with full convex grinds. Which is grinding it the same way someone would a wide bevel with a distal taper, then at the end completely rounding the shinogi and blending it.

At least my idea with doing it like that is to try to get the best of both worlds. I don't know if i can 100% say that it does that, but it seems to perform well when i test it nonetheless. Ok

 

[Blank Blades.]

Thank grind looks on point! Really nice work.

Thanks! I tested it out wednesday with this final geometry. I was cutting up sweet potatoes, and thought it would be a very good test since they are so dense.

This one definitely did nicely on that. And when i cut normal food with it, it just falls through on its own weight basically, and this is a very light weight blade lol.

 

[Barmoley]

Because the stock thickness isnt thick enough to try to go for a workhorse kind of grind. And I feel like i might as well just go for the best slicing performance.

It will be convex of coarse. I think i will go for the style i have started doing with full convex grinds. Which is grinding it the same way someone would a wide bevel with a distal taper, then at the end completely rounding the shinogi and blending it.

At least my idea with doing it like that is to try to get the best of both worlds. I don't know if i can 100% say that it does that, but it seems to perform well when i test it nonetheless. Ok

Makes sense if the stock is not thick enough. If it is stiff, convex and closer to midweight vs pure laser it will be more popular. Pure lasers are not very popular in the last few years, at least around here.

 

[blokey]

I still like good lasers, tho I'd like the initial spine to be over 2.5mm thick.

 

[Barmoley]

I still like good lasers, tho I'd like the initial spine to be over 2.5mm thick.

Yeah, that's what I meant. Everyone wants thin and thin behind the edge, but also thicker spine especially where you grip and a stiff blade over all. Pure lasers are just not fashionable around here. This is why distal taper is so popular, thick spine and choil for comfort and thinner toward the tip for lasery performance. Done well this works, even though sometimes I think we concentrate too much on this and disregard perfectly good knives with thinner spines and thinner overall stock.

 

[blokey]

Yeah, that's what I meant. Everyone wants thin and thin behind the edge, but also thicker spine especially where you grip and a stiff blade over all. Pure lasers are just not fashionable around here. This is why distal taper is so popular, thick spine and choil for comfort and thinner toward the tip for lasery performance. Done well this works, even though sometimes I think we concentrate too much on this and disregard perfectly good knives with thinner spines and thinner overall stock.

Definitely, I find it is actually harder to have a well done grind on thinner stock. Many are thin but have nothing else going on.

 

[Blank Blades.]

Yeah, that's what I meant. Everyone wants thin and thin behind the edge, but also thicker spine especially where you grip and a stiff blade over all. Pure lasers are just not fashionable around here. This is why distal taper is so popular, thick spine and choil for comfort and thinner toward the tip for lasery performance. Done well this works, even though sometimes I think we concentrate too much on this and disregard perfectly good knives with thinner spines and thinner overall stock.

Yeah. No matter what I'm going to leave the full stock thickness. Or at least as close as physically possible at the handle. And taper down to the tip.

I'll leave enough thickness to avoid getting too much flex with the taper. But i want this one to be very slicey.

 

[Blank Blades.]

Yeah, that's what I meant. Everyone wants thin and thin behind the edge, but also thicker spine especially where you grip and a stiff blade over all. Pure lasers are just not fashionable around here. This is why distal taper is so popular, thick spine and choil for comfort and thinner toward the tip for lasery performance. Done well this works, even though sometimes I think we concentrate too much on this and disregard perfectly good knives with thinner spines and thinner overall stock.

Thats why I made this last m4 one with the thicker spine.

And it did still perform well like you said. The tip was very lasery, but i think a nice thinner blade can be good too.

 

[Blank Blades.]

Definitely, I find it is actually harder to have a well done grind on thinner stock. Many are thin but have nothing else going on.

I think the convexity needs to be a bit more extreme on them.

Not like to the point of wedging or being odd. But it needs to more pronounced.

Edit: for a laser though. I definitely will need to do the convexing work on stones. I don't trust myself doing it on a grinder and getting it exactly right. Because like you said. It will be harder.

 

[Blank Blades.]

I think the convexity needs to be a bit more extreme on them.

Not like to the point of wedging or being odd. But it needs to more pronounced.

Edit: for a laser though. I definitely will need to do the convexing work on stones. I don't trust myself doing it on a grinder and getting it exactly right. Because like you said. It will be harder.

This is why i did that c grind on that nakiri. To help add a little food release since its thinner it can struggle more.

But the difficulties with it. Make it not worth me doing it like that again in the future.

 

[Blank Blades.]

Sneek preview of my latest project. I'm pretty excited for this. It a gyuto (a bit under 240mm). The goal with this was getting it forged out, and finished in a quick manner, (while still being a good knife obviously) so i could post some lower priced blades for people to get if they want to. At least faster than my ones in high performance steels that take more time, and more expensive processes to finish.

That was the goal at least until i etched it. And saw the banding lol.

(The bubbles are just wd40 on the surface it wont be there when its done).

Once i saw the banding. I knew it had to be a part of how i finish this knife. It basically looks like wootz. Its 52100, so that does make some sense. But me trying to get the banding to show up well has made the process of making this much slower. But its basically just R&D at this point. Since once i get the best way figured out i can do it again in the future without the guess work.

 

[Blank Blades.]

Alright. I ended up thinning it more. Then i polished it higher than i did the last one. And ill see how it looks when i wipe it down tomorrow.

I might need to clean it and etch again after this one. But ill see.

 

[Blank Blades.]

Alright. I might be happy with this.

For once I was trying to go for a darker look. But this one shows the banding still while almost having a kasumi style grey. Maybe a bit darker.

Now i can just get the handle polished, and put it on.

Not sure how people are going to feel about this handle. But hey. It was something different.

 

[KasumiJLA]

@Blank Blades. that banding is gorgeous! Can't wait to see the final results..!

 

[Blank Blades.]

@Blank Blades. that banding is gorgeous! Can't wait to see the final results..!

Thanks! Im pretty content with it.

As you can see above it did have a ton of contrast when pulled directly out of the ferric. But even with this finish that has less. Im pretty happy with it. I don't mind the more subtle look myself. Of course. Like with any contrast, its easier to see details in person.

This is it after adding some wd-40 to make sure there is no moisture on the blade

 

[tostadas]

Wow thats some nice stuff!

 

[KasumiJLA]

Yeah it's always better in person and taking pictures of details like that is really hard. Did you tried with citric acid and soft polishing paste? I'm sure you can have a little bit more contrast with enough cycles but maybe it's gonna be too much time consuming though

 

[Blank Blades.]

Yeah it's always better in person and taking pictures of details like that is really hard. Did you tried with citric acid and soft polishing paste? I'm sure you can have a little bit more contrast with enough cycles but maybe it's gonna be too much time consuming though

I tried citric acid, also vinegar, as well as muriatic acid (mostly out of curiosity). The vinegar, and citric acid did work. But were going a lot slower than the ferric chloride.

What ended up being the best. Was quick dips in ferric chloride (no more than about 10 seconds each). And polishing between each dip. And i just repeated that for a few hours. Idk how many time tbh. Until i was happy enough with the detail.

 

[Troopah_Knives]

I see you bought some of that modern production wootz!

 

[Blank Blades.]

I see you bought some of that modern production wootz!

Yeah. I was going to use it for some san mai mostly but im kinda liking it for monosteel if i can get it polished and contrast faster than i did this time around.

 

[Blank Blades.]

Have a batch of knives started. Go things rough profiled. Will adjust more as I go per, how I normally do stuff.

2 on the left are little edc fixed blades. Using m2 steel.

The 2 in the middle are 10v. The nakiri is to redo the one that cracked. Then a 9 inch gyuto.

On the end, the big boi 240 gyuto is k390. Its something like 250ish now, but will loose a little length as i adjust things while making it.

 

[Blank Blades.]

Been a busy few days.

Got a bunch of coupons heat treated and hrc tested. For k390, 10v, and a couple for m2.

Once i got the results back spent couple days actually heat treating the knives.

I've switched tempering in this. Its an electric fryer. After testing with a secondary thermocouple, especially with it filled up that high (well above the max fill line, but since I'm not putting anything in it that causes it to bubble its not an issue) it holds temperature really steadily. Having that much mass.

The toaster ovens I've tested temps in. vary pretty drastically, where this holds +/-2 or 3 degrees vs the +/- 20 or 30 on toaster ovens. It even holds low temps better than my kiln. Because the high temp thermocouples for kilns aren't really sensitive enough to do low temps well. They react to temp changes slower than thinner thermocouples do.

i did have one casualty in all of this. During straightening. It was one i didnt mention before. A cpm 10v nakiri, but i actually forged this one to shape, rather than grinding. Its a long story on why. But its really disappointing that after all that work it broke now. Especially considering how hard forging 10v is. Also the kurouchi was a perfect black color, and it was forged so thin. It would have made a nice knife.

 

[Blank Blades.]

Anyway I have 8 remaining blades I'm working on.

The 240mm k390 gyuto. The heat treatment should leave me at 67 hrc on this one according to my test coupons. Which I think is more than hard enough lol.

I have the 10v nakiri, and 9 inch (220mm) gyuto. For the 10v coupons i stopped at 1980 for my austenitizing temp, but according to the coupons 1980 didn't hit peak hardness. Since i was at around 64hrc. So for the final blades I went for a 2000 degree austenitizing temp. Which hopefully leaves me around 65-66hrc. I would have pushed it up higher, but I didn't want to go over where my peak hardness would be and end up with excess retained austenite.

In any case, these 10v blades are definitely hard, grinding them today, it feels to me like theyre giving me a harder time grinding than the k390 even. Which like i said is at 67hrc.

I'm also doing 2 more 10v blades, one is a personal blade. I'm doing a reblade in it, for my para 3. Will be nice having my favorite steel, on my favorite pocket knife. The other is going to be for a slip joint. If everything works out at least.

I have the 2 m2 edc blades. For those i ended up just sticking with the datasheet and doing a high temp temper. Should be left at right around 63-64. After talking to kyle at deep cuts cutlery about it. I decided that would be the best move.

Then i have the kiridashi there. Its mild steel clad, a2. I used nickel to keep carbon migration down. As cool as it looks carbon, and alloy migration can look, i think it was the best move for the overall properties in the end.

 

[Gshep91]

The kiridashi looks neat!

Anyway I have 8 remaining blades I'm working on.

The 240mm k390 gyuto. The heat treatment should leave me at 67 hrc on this one according to my test coupons. Which I think is more than hard enough lol.

I have the 10v nakiri, and 9 inch (220mm) gyuto. For the 10v coupons i stopped at 1980 for my austenitizing temp, but according to the coupons 1980 didn't hit peak hardness. Since i was at around 64hrc. So for the final blades I went for a 2000 degree austenitizing temp. Which hopefully leaves me around 65-66hrc. I would have pushed it up higher, but I didn't want to go over where my peak hardness would be and end up with excess retained austenite.

In any case, these 10v blades are definitely hard, grinding them today, it feels to me like theyre giving me a harder time grinding than the k390 even. Which like i said is at 67hrc.

I'm also doing 2 more 10v blades, one is a personal blade. I'm doing a reblade in it, for my para 3. Will be nice having my favorite steel, on my favorite pocket knife. The other is going to be for a slip joint. If everything works out at least.

I have the 2 m2 edc blades. For those i ended up just sticking with the datasheet and doing a high temp temper. Should be left at right around 63-64. After talking to kyle at deep cuts cutlery about it. I decided that would be the best move.

Then i have the kiridashi there. Its mild steel clad, a2. I used nickel to keep carbon migration down. As cool as it looks carbon, and alloy migration can look, i think it was the best move for the overall properties in the end.

 

[Blank Blades.]

The kiridashi looks neat!

Thanks. Its a project I'm doing for someone. Its gotten delayed a good bit for a few reasons. The last one being that i had to reforge it because it had a pretty bad warp i couldnt get out after hardening it the first time.

But at this point its getting pretty close. I just need to flatten the bottom. Then comes the really hard part tbh. Which is grinding in the ura. I might end up have to make a different sized radiused platen for it. But ill see.